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Summary 

Oftentimes whites who support racial equity are harshly judgmental of other whites—although this behavior sometimes feels like one is being a "good white antiracist" it is actually causing harm to white engagement in antiracism.

Abstract 

Antiracist movements have repeatedly called for increased support from whites. However, white participation has often been fickle and/or harmful. Based on 61 interviews and 17 months of ethnography with whites who support racial equity, this research explores how antiracist white people’s emotions impact their engagement. Among white activists, the factor most often described as demotivating participation is white gatekeeping, defined here as white activists harshly holding themselves and other whites to extreme and perfectionist standards for involvement, perpetuating the sense that if one makes a mistake, they will be judged harshly, shamed, and removed from the community. Participants describe white gatekeeping as grounded in internalized forms of white supremacy such as superiority, individualism, binary thinking, perfectionism, competition, and violence. Positive interventions that dismantle internalized white supremacy and support more effective emotion management also emerged, including development of specific forms of antiracist community and a more authentic individual sense of self.

Main research question

How do white people manage their emotions to stay engaged in antiracism?

What the research builds on

White people's emotions can cause significant harm in antiracist spaces and to activists of color by whites, for example: 

• Inadequately examining and dismantling racist views and behavior, committing microaggressions and other forms of violence
• Undermining action due to discomfort or a desire to move more slowly, goading activists of color to ‘have patience’
• Lacking the courage to act when needed
• Centering their emotions, needs, and beliefs, making white interests the agenda rather than action
• Taking credit when the movement is successful (Gorski and Erakat 2019; Michael and Conger 2009; Srivastava 2005, 2007).

What the research add to the discussion

The article argues that emotions are a core challenge to effective white action on antiracism and yet, can also be a resource in sustaining action when managed in specific ways. Further, the research contributes to several subfields: 

• Within social movement research, there has been a surge of interest in the role of emotions and culture in movements in the past 30 years. However, much of that focus has been on how they connect to recruitment; less work has been done on retention. The analysis points out that actually, the emotions that get people in the door, are often quite different than those that impact whether they stay. Second, in considering the role of emotions, much of the focus has been on the power of top-down messaging, movement leaders developing “resonant frames” that emotionally engage participants to join a movement. I argue that there is immense value in looking at movement culture and emotions from the bottom-up, recognizing that social movement actors are in fact creating their own cultures that have dramatic positive or negative impacts on emotions and engagement.
• The field of race and ethnicity has recognized the importance of emotions, but the subfields' primary focus has been on highlighting the manifestations of structural or interpersonal racisms. This is critical because we can’t change systems if we don’t understand how they operate. However, as structural racism is no longer primarily held up by laws and policies and instead largely by culture and choice - oftentimes being made by white people with power within these institutions - understanding the interplay between the individual, their emotions, and the culture is critical to understanding how to get people to change those systems. And further, to emphasize that, as others have argued, white emotions are not idiosyncratic, individual problems, but are themselves systemic, functioning as part of this broader white habitus.  Second, within whiteness research, there has been a tendency to construe whiteness and white supremacy as this omnipresent and yet, invisible, normalized hegemony. I expand our analysis of whiteness by incorporating the felt experience of white supremacy. My research highlights the ways in which white supremacy is cultural, internalized, sometimes subconscious, and so, either passively reinforced or actively dismantled. This has important implications when we think about the depth and layers required to eradicate racism and build a mutually liberated future.
• The research contributes to the social psychological literature, particularly as it relates to research on the construction of the white racial identity and by analyzing interventions at multiple levels that connect the more psychological focus on individual, internal interventions with the more sociological macro-scale interventions by incorporating interventions that focus on culture and identity.
• Finally, this research has implications around our understanding of the relationship between emotions and power more broadly as we think about the emotional work and experiences of others who have systemic power within the movements they join, such as men in feminism, straight allies in queer movements, and upper class participants in working class movements. My findings in this context raise interesting questions to ask about, for example, how feminist men’s emotions impact how they show up in feminist movement spaces and the form and level of action they take.

Implications for society

This work has significant implications as a public sociology. For movement organizations focused on engaging white people and for white antiracists who are struggling with their emotions, this study provides specific tools and strategies for increasing productive, healthy, sustained white engagement. These include that whites who support racial justice (and the organizations that work to engage them) should: 

• Recognize internalized forms of white supremacy
• Replace harsh judgment with critique that holds one another accountable with care
• Focus on identity work that builds authentic and committed activists
• Build antiracist community that models loving accountability and healthy emotion management.

Implications for research 

Several future lines of research emerge from this work, including conducting similar research with whites who support racial equity but do not take action, as well as those who support colorblind or overt racism to understand how these or related challenges emerge in those groups. Future research should also study community-building in greater depth to identify additional specifics around how to develop the types of community that effectively hold the nuance of pushing members while supporting them, as well as the role that white-facing antiracist movement spaces can play in supporting white antiracist action. Finally, the balance between authenticity and over-confidence in this context is deserving of further study, in particular, consideration of how whites can act effectively in the complexity of rebuilding self-trust while deferring to leadership of color.

Funding source

Arizona State University Graduate College