Anthias, Floya, and Cathie Lloyd. Rethinking Anti-Racisms : From Theory to Practice. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002.

Ashcraft, Karen Lee, and Brenda J. Allen. “The Racial Foundation of Organizational Communication.” Communication Theory 13.1 (2003): 5-38.

Broadfoot, Kirsten J., and Debashish Munshi. “Diverse Voices and Alternative Rationalities: Imagining Forms of Postcolonial Organizational Communication.” Management Communication Quarterly 21.2 (2007): 249-67.

Grimes, Diane Susan. “Challenging the Status Quo?: Whiteness in the Diversity Management Literature.” Management Communication Quarterly 15.3 (2002): 381-409.

Ratcliffe, Krista. Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness. Carbondale: Southern illinois University Press, 2006.

Simpson, Jennifer Lyn. “The Color-Blind Double Blind: Whiteness and the (Im)Possibility of Dialogue.” Communication Theory 18 (2008): 139-59.

Wasserman, Herman. “Globalized Values and Postcolonial Responses: South African Perspectives on Normative Ethics ” The International Communication Gazette 68.1: 71-91.

Here are a few titles mixed with a few that focus on the stressed, triggers, psychological effects of racism on the psyche . I am a specialist in African Diaspora in the USA, so the psychoanalytical stuff will be more focused on black trauma and racism.

To understand anti-racist modes of communication, I have included works on colonialism, decolonial theory, and post-colonialism. I think one must first investigate “colonialism”, as I believe anti-racist mode of communication are tied to understanding how it’s the opposite of a colonial or colonizing mentality (** note, people of all colors, not just white folk, can also have a colonizing mentality and not even realize it.)…

Except for the books, I have all these files available, so write me at breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) come if you want any of these.

Anthias, Floya, and Cathie Lloyd. Rethinking Anti-Racisms : From Theory to Practice. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002.

Calliste, Agnes M., George Jerry Sefa Dei, and Margarida Aguiar. Anti-Racist Feminism : Critical Race and Gender Studies. Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood, 2000.

Fanon, Frantz, and Richard Philcox. The Wretched of the Earth. 1st ed. New York: Grove Press : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2004.

Griffin, Anya T. “Racism, Stress, and Health in African American Females: The Impact of Stress Experienced from Perceived Racism on Cardiovascular Reactivity in African American Adolescent and Adult Females.” Dissertation. Fielding Graduate University, 2005.

Leary, Dr. Joy Degruy. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Milwaukie, Oregon: Uptone Press, 2005.

Markovitz, Jonathan. Legacies of Lynching : Racial Violence and Memory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Mignolo, Walter D. “Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-Coloniality.” Cultural Studies 21.2/3 (2007): 449-514.

Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” Cultural Studies 21.2/3 (2007): 168-78.

Shome, Raka, and Radha S. Hegde. “Postcolonial Approaches to Communication: Charting the Terrain, Engaging the Intersections.” Communication Theory 12.3 (2002): 249-70.

Williams, David R., and Ruth Williams-Morris. “Racism and Mental Health: The African American Experience.” Ethnicity & Health 5.3/4 (2000): 243-68.

Wing, Adrien Katherine. Global Critical Race Feminism : An International Reader. Critical America. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Breeze- thanks for ‘bridging the gap’. you’re right, not everyone should be expected to reply as you did, yet i still can’t help but feel that Eric deserved a little more politeness (i can hear groans here). although i had no idea about triggers (more on that in a sec), it’s evident (to me, anyway) from reading Eric’s blog or listening to his podcasts that being vaguely condescending/dry/pedantic is the dude’s M.O. i’m not saying that Royce’s observations or feelings weren’t valid, just that it was perhaps all taken a little too personally (or is my saying that just another manifestation of white magix attax?).

about triggers- thanks so much for writing about this- i’d never heard of this. i’ve never really experienced it (don’t think that feeling frustration at Whites’ ignorance of basic South American geography counts) and basically the whole concept just never crossed my mind, so it’s had me thinking and wondering how i’ve participated in this during the course of my life. my friends are of all colours and stripes and this is a subject that has never come up. i should also say that i know jack about critical race theory- my background is in literature, languages and information studies, so i am aware that my theory here is deficient. i’m just being honest about my perceptions and observations as one of the uninitiated.

i know what you mean about having to change your tone when speaking to your family, i do too, but for me, there’s another layer that makes the job easier, and that’s because we speak in Spanish. i literally can’t take the same tone, so perhaps that’s another reason why i’ve never thought about this. i’ve always felt like a stranger everywhere that i’ve gone (and since 2005 i’ve lived outside of the US, in a region where English is not the dominant language and integration can be tricky- sorry for the vagueness but it’s the Internet), so although i’m very familiar with the feeling of being the ‘other’, i’ve never experienced stress or trauma at having to ‘explain’ myself and consequently never imagined that such a thing could exist for others. although it’s sometimes hard, i mostly enjoy inhabiting this weird interzone.

i would like to learn more about anti-racist modes of communication…could you recommend a classic text or two?

take care,
Vanessa

I meant to say

“I apologize if my mode of communication it “offensive”, but, like I said, this is the path I have chosen so I can figure out how to “translate” the anger and frustration I have encountered, collectively, between VOCs and white or “colorblind” USAmerican vegans. I am always going to be learning and will “make mistakes” along the way.

Best
Breeze

I do want to clarify that I my post doesn’t mean I believe that all VOCs are “required” to respond in the way that I did. I personally do this type of communication as part of what I feel is my spiritual path in terms for racial healing in the USA. It is “my” path and just wanted to ask people to be mindful that VOCs are not all the same and that my response doesn’t mean that VOCs “should do that same thing.” I am engaged in using principles of Zen Buddhism to figure out communication analysis and modes amongst vegans of color, white vegans, and vegans of socio-economic class privilege.

I know that MANY POCs suffer from intense physical and emotional stress because of the burden of having to constantly be “the one” to educate white people about racism, whiteness, colonialism, etc. There have been dissertations and thesis and articles written about these. If you’re interested, I can share this bibliography. Within the context of these histories and writings, I feel that Royce, Noemi’s and Johanna’s responses were not “out of the order” or “beyond the pale” if you are familiar with the context of which they speak and probably decades of being expected to cater to the emotional health of white folk at the expense of their own health and happiness. As also having experienced this “stress” personally, I honestly must tell you that their responses make sense if you have experienced this and/or are well-read in these histories, critical race theory, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon (to name a few). But, I perceive it this way simply because of my own personal experiences and becoming “ill” because of having to “adjust”/”mask” my real feelings of hurt and pain in order to “fit” into models of communication and education rooted in “whiteness” and “keeping order”. Due to your own personal experiences, may be what transpired is “out of order” and/or a “strange” way to communicate that you’re not familiar with?

This is the work I do. It’s challenging and tough but I want to understand the anger and frustrations from all sides of these conversations within veganism and animal rights. I empathize and sympathize with everyone and “where they are coming from,” but do give special attention to compassionately trying to explain to [white] people (or people unfamiliar with the histories I speak of) why our responses seem “angry” or “out of order” (whose order?).

I do implore you to read as much as you can about critical race theory, whiteness, anti-racist modes of communication, etc so you can get a “feel” of what I’m referring to when I say I don’t feel that they were “out of order”. I am not saying that you will suddenly “agree” with the literature, but perhaps you will have a better understanding of why people are responding the way that they are. I had to do the same thing to understand the communication modes of the white-racial status quo as well; I have had to teach myself in order to figure out this particular communication and “system of logic” and thinking of “whiteness”… and am still learning.

I apologize if my mode of communication it “offensive”, but, like I said, this is the path I have chosen so I can figure out how to “translate” the anger and frustration I have encountered, collectively, between VOCs of white vegans. I am always going to be learning and will “make mistakes” along the way.

Best
Breeze

There are those who do not like my approach.

and bringing the “race card”
I mean, do you understand what this blog is about?

These two books may be a good start for you, Eric, if you sincerely want to understand why your mode of communication was perceived as “colonial” and “condescending” in tone by some people of color on this forum. I am not saying your intention was “colonial” and “condescending” in tone, but I’m hoping you are curious enough to deeply try to understand what histories and “non-white” experiences have led so many people of color in the USA to “raise a red flag” when we FEEL that unconscious acts of “colonial” modes of communication are taking place. What are the “triggering” wors that suddenly make us feel that a certain space for POC is unsafe? I use the word “trigger” or “triggering” because certain phrases and modes of communication are “triggering” for descendants of the colonized that many well-intentioned white folk may simply be unaware of because of being racialized as white in a society in which that means you most likely will not have those “triggers”. I usually try to think of this in context of a “collective” post traumatic syndrome that Dr. Joy Degruy Leary brings up in her new book “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.” She speak of the “triggers” that millions of people of African descent collectively have because of slavery, Jim Crow, etc. I also believe it can be “generational” specific, as some of the words and phrases that “trigger” feelings of colonialism and racism for my grandparents, differ for my parents, which often differ for me. And still, many of the “triggering” words remain the same, spanning generations (“lynching” and “n*gger” being two hot button words).

As a woman of African descent born and raised in the 1st World country (USA) and “academically trained” at two Ivy league universities and am now in a Phd program at UC Davis, I am admitting openly on this forum that I must “check myself” when I return home to speak to my family who have chosen a path of knowledge, wisdom, and rhetoric that is not based on the graduate level Eurocentric philosophical systems that I am expected to engage in, as a “scholar”. Hence, I literally need to transition to a tone that I know my parents can embrace and receive without me sounding “colonial” in tone. I need to honestly understand that the graduate training I have received has created a ‘type of speaking’ in me that is often unconsciously ‘offputting’ and ‘condescending’ to my parents (and grandparents)– even when I sincerely feel I am coming into our dialogues with love and good intent!!. For example, I have to be mindful of using the words “moral” and/or “objective” because the word triggers, in my mother, something deeply hurtful: it reminds her of growing up in Jim Crow and constantly being reminded that black people are NOT and can never be capable of being “moral” and “objective” by European white standards. So, if I say to her, “Mom, you should be ‘objective’ about this…” She becomes infuriated because when she hears ‘objective’, her SENSE and FEELING of that word is connected to an era in her life that is connected to the rhetoric that “blacks are not ‘objective’ and are ONLY ‘emotional’ and hence “inferior”. It triggers in her the memories and feelings of racism and racialization that probably can never understand at the visceral level.

Though one cannot expect to be a mind reader and know what each person’s “triggers” are, I think the Tuana and Yancy books help to understand this better so that we all can be more mindful of how we communicate with each other and be open to understanding why some of us are being “accused” of “white privilege”, or “USAmerican privilege”, or “heterosexual privilege”, “Anglophonic privilege”, “academic elitist privilege”, etc, when all we think we’re being is “cordial” and “objective” in a new dialogue. I have quite a few privileges that I MUST be mindful of when communicating. I have been told many times by my family (in a joking by still ’serious’ manner) that I can be ‘elitist’ or ’snobby’ at times, when engaging with them. Whether this is ‘true’ or not, I don’t know; what I do know is that if I decide NOT to investigate these feelings they have, or if I decide to be UNMINDFUL of these feelings and simply blame them for internalizing classist notions they have about their “place in the word”, then I don’t think I/they/we can ever continue growing. I also hope that they too engage in deep reflection as well. As we have grown in dialogues together, we have discovered that yes, I can be unconsciously “elitist” at times and yes, they THEY can engage in internalized racism and classism when it comes to how they see their place in the world. However, we would have never been conscious of this had we not pushed to reflect and investigate these “accusations.”

My life’s work (and PhD work) is in racial healing, understanding unconscious racism/ethnocentricism, processes of racialization and how it affects communication models around plant-based dietary philosophies (veganism and animal rights for example). I do hope this post was helpful.