Part II — So How Can We White Men Work Together?

Me — Quite a Bit Heavier than I am Now!

So, how can we white men work together?

We can:

1.) Show curiosity — deep curiosity about a lot of things,

2.) Recognize, when we are deeply privileged, that we both:

a. Have a lot of potential power, individually and collectively, and

b. Feel a sense of responsibility to seriously “do the work” in sustained, significant ways,

3.) Confront the relative complacency within ourselves and other privileged people (in general),

4.) Feel uncomfortable, like an outsider, even perhaps an (unwilling) imposition upon others more much more than tokenly,

5.) Network — build allyship — and confront our tendency to be “buddies”, rather than allies both with others similar to who we are in our complexities, as we are, and

6.) Working as “outsiders” supporting the work of people, much different from ourselves,

7.) Take on the seeming hopelessness(es) of our worlds, with deep commitment to see the lifelong journeys we are having,

8.) Make mistakes, seeking to minimize the harm coming from them,

9.) Take risks to be an effective part of major, positive, systemic societal and world change,