Tennessee Anti Racist Network
Answer the Call for Bystander Intervention
TN Anti Racist Network calls individuals and organizations to use and promote a bystander intervention approach to ending racism. Individuals (and groups) often stand-by and watch difficult situations that they are not directly involved with. To promote deep and meaningful change, bystanders must become interveners.
Racism is a community issue, and anti-racism is a community responsibility.
Your participation in anti-racist actions helps ensure the success of anti-racist community intervention as a means to interrupt and end the racist dialogue and action of the white nationalist and supremacist group Southern National Congress (and their militant wing League of the South) in Tennessee. Start by signing the Statement of Solidarity and Support. Follow up by participating in the Call In & Email Campaign "Tennessee Demands Responsible Representation", calling on Sen. Nicely and Rep. Matheny to end their affiliation and cancel their speaking engagement at the Southern National Congress Nov. 1 - 3. Call Now!
How To Intervene
-
Challenge racist dialogue and prejudice. Call out people and groups that promote prejudice toward people of color. Stand up to racist dialogue and build a new future one interaction at a time.
-
Challenge yourself. No matter one’s racial or ethnic background, everyone is affected by the pervasive poison of racism. It is important to check our own biases and actions. Do you seek out friends of the same race? Do you avoid “that part of town”? Do you do certain things, at least in part, to avoid appearing racist?
-
Challenge racist practices in organizations and institutions. Educate yourself and others about how policies, and policy changes, can contribute to racial equality. It is important to challenge institutions to address systemic racism.
-
Support victims of racist prejudice, discrimination, and violence. You can be a supportive ally by really hearing people out when they reveal their experiences to you (rather than blaming them or encouraging them to think of alternative reasons for those acts).
-
Be proactive. Do not be a bystander. Participate in the current Call To Action "Tennessee Demands Responsible Representation" and intervene!
Information on this page adapted and taken from Eric Grollman at http://egrollman.com/?s=bystander+intervention
Anti-Racist Bystander Intervention
Anti-racist counter actions contribute to the marketplace of ideas and our shared public space, by countering hate speech with pro-equality ideas. It is based on the theory of “bystander intervention” against hate.
Bystander anti-racism is conceptualized as action taken by “ordinary” people in response to incidents of interpersonal or systemic racism.
Bystander anti-racism is an action taken by a person or persons (not directly involved as a target or perpetrator) to speak out about or to seek to engage others in responding (either directly or indirectly, immediately or at a later time) against interpersonal or systemic racism.
The most effective bystander action is that which communicates a message of disapproval or discomfort without damaging interpersonal relations. To that end, we hope to foster a culture of respect. The public intolerance of racist behavior can have a vital contextual effect on subsequent acts of racism, and also on attitudes.
Public condemnation through bystander anti-racism can potentially combat “false consensus effects” that result from individuals overestimating general community support for their racist views.
The established positive effect of bystander anti-racism on perpetrators is to constrain their racist behaviors, challenging their concensus perceptions, and constructing racist acts as a deviance.
Who Is Responsible for (Anti-) Racism? (We are.)
"In general, too few people consistently assume responsibility for talking about race and racism, and fighting racism more broadly. That kind of work is presumed to be taken on by activists and leaders of social movements. But, in particular, the responsibility generally falls in the laps of those victimized by it — in this case, people of color. Racial and ethnic minorities generally face this burden alone.
People of color are neither alone in this racist society nor the creators of this system of oppression. Whites are implicated by virtue of the benefits they receive (i.e., white privilege) from the historical legacy of racism, as well as today. Eliminating racism, then, is just as much their responsibility, if not more, as it is for people of color."
Learn more about Bystander Intervention. (Used with permission of Dr. E. Grollman http://egrollman.com/2013/02/27/bystander-intervention-racism/)
(Read Dr. Grollman's follow up blog "Earning My Stripes As An Intellectual Activist", where he discusses being the subject of hate speech on white power forums, due to his support of the TN Anti Racist Network.)