This is part 10 of a 10-part series by Dr. Charley Flint and Jeff Hitchcock, CSWAC’s founders, on our future direction. We value your time and support.
WEEK 10
Where to Now?
Let’s recap.
CSWAC has a proud 30-year history of decentering whiteness (a term we coined) and building anti-racist multiracial community.
We are engaged in the practice of making the social movement toward building anti-racist multiracial community visible and coherent.
This work focuses on root causes, which makes generating financial support difficult in a social climate where money is, nonetheless, a force multiplier.
We begin our work this year by calling out an emerging, white-centered colorblind multiracialism as a false path to racial justice and multiracial community.
Those involved in building anti-racist multiracial community do not share a consciousness of doing so outside of their respective areas of practice, of which many such areas exist.
The monoracial norm makes it difficult for us to see how multiracial groups can emerge and function as natural structures. The culture of multiracialism belongs to those who are invested in making it happen.
The dominant, white-centered racial structure of the country does not support our right to build anti-racist multiracial community.
Together with others and by whatever other means we can, we need to foster the development of a multiracial counterpublic that will challenge the white-centered public and center multiracial interests.
Toward that end, we invite you to the 3rd annual Conference on Building Anti-Racist Multiracial Community this fall.
We’re being self-promotional here. Really, it’s an opportunity. We would also like to see much more begin to happen. It doesn’t have to make headlines. In the face of a serious retrenchment of DEI, there are pockets of grassroots community building in faith and activist communities across the country. Let us know if this is you. Let’s stay connected and stay the course.
We would like to hear from think tanks and philanthropists. Can you hear our signal? Your work is important to creating a multiracial counterpublic. So is ours. Let’s talk if we can.
So, let’s wrap it up. We began this 10-part essay series as a fundraising initiative in mid-December last year. We have featured educational content. Education is a service CSWAC provides. In this series, we have done that gratis. If you are newly introduced to the idea of building anti-racist multiracial community and need some initial grounding, we hope we have done that.
Providing an educational service like this is not free to us. It takes time and a certain degree of infrastructure. We end with an appeal as we continue our work in the face of the greatest public resistance in a generation, if not a lifetime. Help us!
Join the Anti-Racist Community Network (ARCN). This CSWAC owned and operated project features monthly live programming online, and an online multiracial community-building network. Tell people about us. Gosh, 30 years of work and folks are still just discovering us.
Fund us, so we can update our website, plan and carry out a conference with impact, build out the ARCN, and funds permitting, launch new programs and initiatives toward building the multiracial counterpublic. Put your money where your heart is.