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Doing Your Work to Challenge Your Racist Assumptions

Headwaters Foundation for Justice Jul 17, 2020
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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"Doing Your Work" to Challenge Your Racist Assumptions Giving Compass
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• Maria De La Cruz, at Headwaters Foundation for Justice, drives home the importance of “doing your work” to shed ignorant assumptions about race.

• What does “doing your work” mean in terms of educating yourself? How do implicit biases reinforce the systemic oppression of people of color in the United States? What are you doing to challenge your own assumptions?

• Learn about the importance of challenging assumptions for inclusion in nonprofits.


It is not enough to say that you are not racist. Doing your work means a constant vigilance and correction of your own racist beliefs and actions. Doing your work means being actively anti-racist—being brave enough to interrupt racism as it unfolds around you or within you. Doing your work means not asking Black and Brown people to teach you how to be better. It means doing your research. It means reading and listening.

If you grew up in the United States—even if you did not—, you were likely socialized to generalize groups of people and to internalize a set of assumptions about their worth and humanity. Challenging your assumptions means you take the time to reflect and evaluate your world view and perceptions of people unlike you. If you are a non-Black person, it means that you check in with yourself when you roll up your windows when you drive through a historically Black neighborhood.

Challenging your assumptions is hard work. It requires a true reckoning with everything you were taught and everyone who influenced you. At Headwaters, we see our Giving Project participants do this hard work all the time. There is pain in delving into one’s family history, in seeing how one’s ancestors stole land, displaced communities, and owned other human beings. For non-Black people of color, it can be painful to realize all the ways that we benefit from the vilification of Black people throughout history. But there is also freedom in owning one’s privilege and figuring out how to leverage one’s power for racial justice. What we see in our Giving Project participants is not just a transformation in the individual—we witness the transformation of entire networks of people.

Read the full article about doing your work to fight racism by Maria De La Cruz at Headwaters Foundation for Justice.

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Race and Ethnicity is a complex topic, and others found these selections from the Impact Giving archive from Giving Compass to be good resources.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Raikes On Moving Beyond Color-Blindness

    From the time I was a kid growing up on a farm in Nebraska, I was taught not to notice or comment on racial difference – to be “color-blind.” Not calling attention to differences was the way white people like me showed that we believed in equality – you are just like me. I carried this with me into college at Stanford. I already felt out of place among the students there. There weren’t many farm kids like me on campus. But then I met my roommate, Kenneth, who is black. It was there that I first realized that color-blind wasn’t the reality for Kenneth, and it shouldn’t be for me, either. Over time, I began to see just how deeply rooted the idea of “color-blindness as goodness” is in our society. As I dug deeper into my work as a philanthropist, I met and worked with colleagues and partners who pushed my thinking, and had many conversations around the dinner table with my family that further pushed my perspective. One of the people I have learned from is Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and the person I will share the stage with at the Aspen Ideas Festival. We started life in dramatically different places. He, a poor, black, gay man in the south. Me, a white, straight, middle class man in Nebraska. But we’ve ended up in similar places – leading foundations trying to reverse inequities. It’s hard to do. But I think one of the reasons it is so hard is that our society still aspires to color-blindness.  As Darren said to me recently, “color-blind is a cop out.” Read the source article at The Aspen Institute


Looking for a way to get involved?

Learning with others and benchmarking are key steps towards becoming an impact giver. If you are interested in giving with impact for Race and Ethnicity, take a look at these events, galas, conferences and volunteering opportunities to connect with individuals like you.

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Race and Ethnicity is an important topic. Other members found these Giving Funds, Charitable Organizations and Projects aggregated by Giving Compass to be relevant to individuals with a passion for Race and Ethnicity.

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