Antiracism as Daily Practice

By Jennifer Harvey
St. Martin’s Press: 2024.
Paperback, 288 pages

Reviewed by Mark M. Mattison

Anti-Racism as Daily Practice book cover

Shortly after the killing of George Floyd, I noticed a welcome spike of interest in antiracism across the company I worked for. Multiple discussion groups emerged, generally led by people of color. One such leader invited allies to support antiracism by placing Black Lives Matter signs in their yards.

That’s something I had considered. I hadn’t done it because I had read an article on the internet criticizing white suburbanite BLM signs as tokenism and performance activism. I didn’t want to be guilty of that. However, this coworker said he’d be thrilled if I put up such a sign. With that “permission,” I put up the sign; after all, my coworker had invited me to, so I could do it in good conscience.

I took a picture of it and posted it on Facebook. A right-wing “Facebook friend” immediately challenged me and started to pull me into a debate, the kind of thing I usually try to avoid. I half-heartedly engaged at first, but pulled out when he started throwing tons of videos and disinformation at me. It clearly wasn’t a constructive dialogue, and I couldn’t conceive of him changing his mind, so I withdrew.

Then a family member called about my Facebook picture and asked how I, as a pacifist, could support street riots. At first, I tried to avoid being pulled into a debate, but the discussion devolved into an argument about Kyle Rittenhouse, fueled by apparent talking points from Tucker Carlson that I hadn’t even heard. Frustrated, I ended up losing my temper and then feeling ashamed about falling into the stereotype of the angry left-wing extremist. Then I reflected on the fact that, for me, this kind of conflict with my white family and friends was entirely optional; I had the option of staying silent and avoiding these arguments about race in my primarily white circles, whereas my Black friends in the same spaces didn’t have that luxury.

What’s a person to do?

Answer: Read Jennifer Harvey’s new book, Antiracism as Daily Practice: Refuse Shame, Change White Communities, and Help Create a Just World.

I learned a lot from Harvey’s book. I didn’t learn about white supremacy; I already knew about that. I’ve had some understanding of structural racism for many years now. I don’t need to be convinced with more facts and figures, or even (necessarily) to become more knowledgeable. What was more helpful, frankly, was a book about what to do with such knowledge. Antiracism as Daily Practice provides just that.

Harvey begins by emphasizing the call of Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson: “White people, do [your] own work in your own communities.” Harvey writes:

Lots of us who feel the injustice of racism in our bones also live with the burn of shame that quickly flares in the wake of such recognition.

Shame is debilitating. It stunts our capacity to take action and do better. Yet we rarely talk about this openly in white antiracism conversations. Shame is also tough to talk about well on social media! Meaningful conversations about shame require a sense of trust and safety. These usually develop only in spaces where relationship-building has been given attention and care (p. 20).

This book is all about transforming white shame and guilt into positive, affirming action. Directly addressing the limitations of knowledge-building, she writes:

Overemphasizing knowledge encourages a tendency toward consumption. An unspoken logic develops that goes something like this: If I just take one more program or do one more book circle about racial justice, I’m good. This posture is passive. It can become voyeuristic. It’s a kind of outsider-looking-in view in which white people peer into other peoples’ lived experiences of harm: “Oh my gosh, racism is so bad! I don’t like it!” This stance doesn’t require much from the observer (p. 56).

Harvey normalizes the experience of white guilt, writing that “It’s a developmentally predictable response to perceiving yourself as someone who values justice but starts recognizing how much you’re benefiting from unjust systems and at the expense of others.” She adds, “That clarity aided me in interpreting my own experience. I could talk about what was happening. I could test strategies to work through it” (p. 85).

In chapter six, “Finding Our Way Through Paradox,” I found narrated experiences that spoke directly to my own struggles. Harvey addresses white saviorism, which “gets about as much airtime as [white] fragility does of late. A lot of white anxiety swirls around it” (p. 117). Addressing anxiety around these problems, she helpfully argues that “lists of dos and don’ts on their own simply aren’t up to the task … There are few directives in our lists of dos and don’ts that can just be applied across the board” (p. 121). She relates a story that speaks directly to the experience I shared at the beginning of this review:

I read a piece by a Latino commentator who vehemently claimed the term Latinx was a white academic elitest invention. I was especially vulnerable to this critique, given my identities, so he convinced me I’d been wrong to use it. Not long thereafter, I wrote a post on Facebook and in it used the term “Latino/a.” A colleague who is an activist and educator wrote in my comment thread: “I’m going to challenge you to please use the terminology ‘Latinx’ next time. It’s a far more inclusive way to refer to us.”

Those of us who are white need to build our capacity to engage with such differing viewpoints. If we don’t, the “do” of centering those voices immobilizes us the moment BIPOC people don’t agree about what direction something should go!

We need to risk being authentic enough to listen deeply. I need to understand why different Latino/a/x peoples have the stance they do, assess my context, and then, still in humility, go ahead and speak and act anyway (p. 126).

Harvey goes on to write that purity tests and shaming are also ineffective ways of fighting antiracism insofar as they assume that people aren’t capable of change; “when fundamentalist postures, purity tests, and shame start to become conflated with accountability, we end up stunted” (p. 145). She clearly articulates the difference between “calling people out versus calling them in” (p. 144).

The citations I’ve pulled out for this review are just a few of the gems that stood out most for me. Antiracism as Daily Practice is filled with many more such insights, and it’s replete with personal anecdotes, specific examples, and concrete ideas for living out these truths. Harvey dedicates a whole chapter just to the question of “What … We Do with our Families” that will doubtless be useful for many. I encourage you to find your own gems in this down-to-earth, practical book.