White Flank: Organizing White People for Racial Justice

Racial politics in the United States are as tumultuous as ever. A resurgent white nationalism finds broadening support while the Movement for Black Lives marks a newly consolidated and highly visible iteration of the centuries-long Black Freedom struggle. The question of what it would take to get more white people to fight for racial justice is as urgent as ever. Chandra Russo takes up this question in White Flank.

White people's participation in antiracist action has always been fraught, with competing narratives about what meaningful allyship looks like, and what one should do with their white privilege. Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) has emerged as the largest national effort explicitly seeking to organize white people. Beyond just book clubs and discussion circles, and against the seductions of virtue signaling, SURJ invites and equips white communities to take part in concrete antiracist action and to organize for lasting change.

Using the case of SURJ, this book tells the story of a new generation of white antiracist efforts in a range of local contexts, from Los Angeles to rural Appalachia. White Flank documents the promises and complexities of antiracist organizing. Russo argues that shifting white communities' understanding of antiracism away from a focus on individual morality and towards collective action is a crucial achievement.

Growing the white flank of a multiracial justice movement is bound to be messy. Yet our present moment requires that white people join with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the fight for collective liberation.