How White People Can Show Up to Support Black Lives

By Felicia Gustin

As thousands of white people join protests nationwide, it’s important to look at not just why people are showing up but also how. Given this nation’s history of racism, we, as white people, want to make sure we are part of the solution, not the problem.

Photo of June 1st, 2020, Oakland youth march — Description: Hundreds of people face speakers with fists and cell phones in the air. Photo © Brook Anderson @movementphotographer

Learning from the 2014 Mobilizations

In 2014, a call came out of the Ferguson uprising for white people to take action in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. In Oakland CA, activists came together and formed the Bay Area Solidarity Action Team (BASAT) and on December 15th, took part in a multi-racial action that shut down the Oakland Police Department with 11 simultaneous blockades for 4 hours and 28 minutes, the amount of time Mike Brown’s body lay in the streets of Ferguson after he was murdered by a white policeman. That direct action made national news.

Out of that and subsequent actions, and drawing on protocols developed by groups like The Ruckus Society, BASAT developed Protocol and Principles for White People Working to Support the Black Liberation Movement, a document that continues to ground the work of other white organizations and individuals. Here are a few highlights that can inform our activism today:

• Frontline Leadership — We commit to following leadership from the front lines; in this struggle that means Black organizations who are locally and nationally connected to this movement. We follow the guidance from Black organizers and their groups specifically on strategy, goals, vision, tone, and message of actions.
  
  
• Solidarity is a Verb — We make solidarity real through action and behavior. There may be moments where we are out of alignment, and we commit to our own course-correction with each effort, action, meeting, mobilization, and agreement.
  
  
• Centering Blackness — We aspire to show up in clear integrity and action logic in our role as a non-Black solidarity group, to be clear about why white people are taking action as white people, and to represent ourselves authentically so we can lift up Black voices in tone, content, media, and demands.
  
  
• Stay Human, Stay Grounded — We commit to staying grounded in our reasons for joining this fight. Our own liberation is bound to the liberation of Black people.
  
  
• Tactical Discipline — We will be bold and militant when confronting injustice. We do not take a stance on tactics that other groups choose to use in their circumstance. For our actions, we will do no violence against other living beings, and we will not engage in intentional property destruction as it can distract from the political goals we are being asked to amplify and uphold.
  
  
• Sustainability — Many of us are sprinting and in rapid-response mode, but we know continued work over the long haul is required. We will find ways to embed this work in our day-to-day lives even when the media stops highlighting it.
  
  

Read the complete BASAT document here.

Mobilizing for Black Lives in 2020

Now we find ourselves in another moment of mass mobilizations, with tens of thousands of white people coming to protests for the first time in their lives. On a recent Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) national webinar calling on white people to get involved, 20,000 registered and later 30,000 people signed a pledge to take action for Black lives.

We say, Welcome! We are glad you’re here; we appreciate that you are taking action. But we also need you to show up respectfully to Black-led actions.

A few years back, SURJ Bay Area produced this list of concrete ways to show up at protests (edited here for the current moment):

• Listen to and follow the leadership of Black and people of color organizers. Turn down our volume so that their voices can be heard. Give the space in the front to people of color. Listen and follow the instruction of Black protest leaders.
  
  
• Protest from our own positions, as white people, inside the messaging of the organizers:

— Carry signs that speak from our experience, such as “White Silence = Violence” or “Another White Person for Black Lives Matter” or “Defund the Police!”
— Chant from our own experience. Instead of chanting, “I Can’t Breathe,” chant “They can’t breathe.” When Black people hold up their arms and chant, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” since this is not white peoples’ experience, see this as a call and response moment and just chant, “Don’t Shoot” in response to “Hands Up!”
— Don’t use slogans like Defend Black People or Protect Black people. As one Black person put it, “We are NOT fu**cking children. But support us, yes!”
— When Black people do a die-in, stand around the edges of the action and chant in solidarity, rather than placing yourself in the center of the action.

• Hold each other accountable, call people in (not out). Talk directly with other white people who are off-message or disruptive.
  
  
• Practice non-cooperation with law enforcement. If necessary, stand between police and people of color.
  
  
• Direct media to designated spokespeople or to those in visible leadership roles, rather than speaking on their behalf.
  
  
• Protect anonymity. Ask consent before taking or sharing pictures.

Dear fellow white people, we need all of you if we are going to truly dismantle the oppressive structures that have been centuries in the making. Let us begin:

• Educate yourself. Instead of asking Black people what you should do, start by reading books and articles (Google is your friend — there are literally hundreds of racial justice reading lists floating around right now!) There are also hundreds of documentaries, feature films, and webinars you can watch.
  
  
• Have those difficult conversations. This is not the time to say, “I don’t talk politics with my family.” This IS the time to speak with family, friends, and co-workers. This is the time to have those difficult conversations. There are lots of resources online to help you do this.
  
  
• Join forces. We are stronger when we take collective action. Check out what groups are already organizing in your community that you can join. What are the campaigns you can support? For white people, getting engaged for the first time, there are 150 SURJ chapters in cities, small towns, and rural areas nationwide. Find one near you here. If there is no chapter in your community, start one. SURJ has lots of resources to help.
  
  
• There are many ways to be involved. Being in the streets is just one way. But there are dozens of others — make phone calls to elected officials, sign and circulate petitions, or work on local, state, and national elections to put people in office who represent our vision and values. And donate, if you’re able, to the many Black-led and Indigenous and people of color organizations that need your support.
  
  
• Put your money where your values lie. Do not support businesses whose practices are anti-Black. Right now, every corporation in the country is issuing statements in solidarity with Black lives, but this is more than a marketing moment! Look closer at their practices and policies. For example, look at what financial contributions they make to police unions or rightwing politicians. Look at the racial composition of their boards, leadership, and employees — and how they treat those employees, especially Black and people of color workers.
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• Be intersectional. The movement for Black Lives includes all Black people, including Black women and femmes, Trans Black people, and (dis)abled Black people. It also means you must check your solidarity with other communities of color. You can’t be pro-Black and anti-immigrant. At this moment, children are still in cages on our southern border. You can’t be in solidarity with the movement for Black lives and not acknowledge that we are also on stolen lands and that Indigenous peoples have been fighting for their rights, their lands, and their culture since the first Europeans landed on these shores.

Dear fellow white people, please understand that this is a life-long struggle and we need you to continue to be engaged even after the street demonstrations wind down and the cameras are turned off. That we have shown up at this moment in solidarity with Black people does not absolve us of the white supremacy/privilege/immunity that informs our daily lives and actions, and the institutions that make up our society. There is much work to be done — let’s get to it!