The Full Outline of "Roots Deeper than Whiteness"
Plus an update on our fundraising progress.
If you haven’t yet, check out the book fundraiser webpage or, if you’re ready, jump straight to the donation form. But first, I encourage you to read the detailed book outline below.
Dear Friends,
We have now reached $18,500 in total contributions and are about 1/4th of the way to this 75K goal to fund my ability to complete Roots Deeper than Whiteness over the next 15 months. This book is meant to be a powerful tool to aid our social movements and I am continually grateful for your partnership in the journey to bring it to life.
This week I’m sharing with you another sneak peek behind the scenes of this project: a detailed outline of the entire book.
The Book Outline
Roots Deeper than Whiteness is written to give those of us who are white something that few other anti-racist texts or trainings have been able to: a rooted identity, one based in a far deeper understanding of our history, that can give us the inner strength and political clarity we need to offer ourselves as genuine partners in the transformation of this society.
This journey begins with an introduction outlining my own story as a young, white racial justice advocate struggling with a mainstream approach to white anti-racism that, despite many important teachings, often leaves white people stuck in counterproductive feelings of rootlessness, shame, and confusion about their own stake in social change. As these emotions grew to the point of overwhelm within me, I realized, through study and the insights of mentors, that there was a time before my ancestors knew themselves as “white.” I became inspired to dive into my family history (and into white America’s collective history) and held tight to the hope that greater clarity would be waiting for me there.
As the introduction closes, readers are guided to more fully understand the purpose of the book and are prepared for their journey through its three sections.
These sections are representative of the three components of this renewed personal and political identity (what I call our “roots deeper whiteness”) that the book cultivates in its reader. Readers are supported to integrate each on a deeply personal level and my own story of ancestral study, learning, and growth is offered as a guide. The sections are:
Part I: What Happened to Us offers a clear account of how capitalism uprooted numerous European settler and immigrant groups from their lands and lifeways and socialized them to become “white.” The section opens with the prelude to this history: the millennia-long class struggle of Europe’s common people against the empires, feudal lords, popes, and aristocracies that sought to dominate their lives. It then turns to stories—first of my own ancestral lineages and then of the many other European groups to come to the U.S.—revealing how capitalist displacement, cultural assault, and the racial formation of whiteness fractured this legacy of resistance to ruling class power and redirected it toward violence and discrimination against people of color.
This section closes by helping readers integrate this knowledge of the past by describing its impact on me and sharing how it can serve as the beginning of a renewed self-understanding for all of us who are white. Emphasis will be given to the ways these historical insights can allow us to engage in cultural renewal, help us understand the stake our people have always had in building the class solidarity of the multiracial 99%, give us the strength to face and seek to repair the immense harms that many of our forebears carried out, and show us how this reparative work is a healing act for all people and all of our ancestors.
Part II: The Other America is written to cultivate a connection to the long legacy of multiracial resistance in this country to racism and ruling class power. This section gets its name from Anne Braden, a white southern anti-racist organizer who, like others before her, used “The Other America” to describe this lineage, which she called her “spiritual home.” The chapters here speak to 1. The continued resurgence of this legacy despite recurring attempts of the powerful to sow racial division; 2. The political strategies used time and again for cultivating powerful alliances; and 3. A call for us to find strength, meaning, and “a home” in this legacy ourselves. Special attention will be given to a “guide” from my own family history—an ancestor who sacrificed so much to build cross-racial working-class power in the Depression-ridden, Jim Crow south—who showed up in my life when he was needed. In all, this section is meant to convey that so many of these ancestors, these freedom fighters of the past, whether they are related to us by blood or not, are still here in spirit yearning to support us in doing the work we must do today.
Part III is called “Toward Solidarity.” Now that the reader has received the emotional, spiritual, and political strength that this history offers, they emerge into this final section to realize that the use of racism as a divisive weapon of the reactionary rich is continuing today—leading to racial violence, vast economic inequality, climate chaos, horrific militarism, and an assault on democracy. The reader is reminded that while many are not adequately addressing these harms, there are those who, informed by history, are bringing people together to confront this crisis of divide-and-rule racial capitalism. Particular focus will be put on groups like the Poor People’s Campaign and Jewish Voice for Peace, among others, who are moving various white communities in the U.S. to challenge racial and religious nationalism, reclaim lost ancestral legacies of resistance, and see that their own economic security, safety, and spiritual wholeness can only be gained through solidarity.
In the conclusion of the book, the task ahead for readers will be made clear: to use the wisdom gained from our voyage through the past to build upon current organizing efforts and to become ambassadors of a new vision for white America. We must become people who can communicate to the masses of white folks deeper knowledge of who we are and how our very well-being depends on joining with people of color to heal harm and division, challenge white supremacy, and create an economy of sustainability and care.
Sounds so amazing and important- can't wait to read this book!