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Dismantling Racism Resource Book

• Of course, in order to do the above things, you need to pick an organizing issue
that lends itself to naming and framing racism.

Why is it important to name & frame racism in our organizing and
program work?

1. In order to advance racial justice, it has become necessary to argue the
existence of societal racism.

Before the civil rights movement, more or less everyone in the United States
agreed that there was an institutionalized system of racial inequality. People
debated whether this system was just, not whether it existed. Since the mid-‘60s,
when sweeping federal laws were passed that largely instituted “equality under the
law,” there has been a steadily increasing denial of the existence of racism, or at
least of institutionalized racism. White people increasingly believe that, while
individual acts of meanness based on racial prejudice persist, racism as a system
that oppresses all people of color is a problem of the past. Judging by the print in
today’s newspapers, the country’s race problems seemingly have more to do with

so-called reverse discrimination against white people and cultural defects of at
least some peoples of color. Therefore, to advance racial justice, it is increasingly
necessary to first argue and prove the existence of institutional racism.

2. Naming & framing racism reclaims our right to define our own reality.

One way racism and other forms of oppression are perpetuated within the
dominant society is by institutions renaming and re-framing our reality. By calling
out and naming racism for what it is, we are engaging in a fundamental and
critical form of resistance, reclaiming truth and reality. How damaging is it
when the media, schools, legislatures and other institutions call racist myths
truth?

Example: Politicians and mainstream media have defined welfare reform as a way
to protect hardworking taxpayers from mostly single, mostly women of color,
mostly mothers of several children who are “abusing” the system. This definition
of reality has been used to blame families in poverty for their lack of resources.
When, instead, we choose to define this lack of resources as a result of racist,
sexist and profit-driven institutions we take a first step toward creating real
solutions. [Note: it was only once welfare rights organizers began desegregating

Dismantling Racism Project 108 Western States Center