Online Finding Freedom: White Women Taking On Our Own White Supremacy: #ReRooted Ep. 36

Francesca Maximé: WiseGirl

Evangeline Weiss and Kari Points join Francesca to discuss finding freedom and taking on racism, patriarchy, and white supremacy as white women. Evangeline Weiss and Kari Points are the founders and facilitators of Finding Freedom: White Women Taking On Our Own White Supremacy. Evangeline is the founder of Beyond Conflict Inc, a social justice consulting firm, and the Leadership Programs Director at the National LGBTQ Task Force. Kari is a member of the Leadership Team of Showing Up for Racial Justice and the Poor and Working Class Crew of Triangle SURJ. Together, they are working to undo the entrenched legacy of white supremacy to help cultivate collective liberation. White Women Finding Freedom Sparked by the racist, misogynistic truths uncovered through the 2016 election, Evangeline and Kari were inspired to start doing work within their community surrounding white women and racism. They felt it was important to start speaking to what it means to live at the intersection of being a white women in today’s society, and what it looks like to undo white supremacy from the inside out. “We wanted a deeper vision for white women, of who we can be in a racial justice movement, who we can be in the world, and how we can see into our future selves and recognize that we get to make choices about who we are, and we can actively create a collective identity for white women that counters the narratives.” – Evangeline Weiss Learn to decondition yourself from the imprints of the cultural operating system, and find a sense of belonging on Ep.129 of the Metta Hour Ancestors, Elders, Pillars (4:55) Growing up, most white people didn’t have white elders to show us how to be anti-racist, or talk about racism or whiteness. Often, the recognition comes to us belatedly as adults that there may be a history of white people who resisted racism and patriarchy in the past. Kari explores the powerful stories of Anne Braden and Jane Elliot as examples that there is an inherent ancestral lineage of white elders who have paved the way in fighting for racial justice. “It’s powerful for white people to realize that we are not the first ones or the only ones who are fighting for racial justice. We are part of a legacy. We have ancestors who have been doing this for a long time, and it is part of who we are and who we can be in the world. We can rely on and lean on our ancestors to show us the way.” – Kari Points Uproot historical systemic oppression and decolonize your mind, all while honoring the ancestors with a South African shaman on Ep.355 of Mindrolling The Comfort of Not Questioning Evangeline and Kari explore the manufactured creation of Blackness and Whiteness as a result of the U.S. colonies and slavery, and how through this recognition we can begin to uproot these already deeply entrenched systems. “It’s helpful to understand that these aren’t things that existed since the beginning of time. They are not natural, or normal, or required, or something that develops out of the ground. We created it. Humans created it, which means human can undo it.” – Kari Points “Do we need the police to look this way to feel safe in a community? What makes a community unsafe? Asking those questions in a way that takes race into consideration is a way of pushing back on this white supremacist history and inheritance that most of us have lived with and accepted the comfort of not questioning.” –Evangeline Weiss