The Self-Confessed \ by Anne Schneider

The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to the new “White Supremacy Culture” (WSC) anti-racist movement of the left and several closely related White privilege, implicit bias, microaggressions, and White fragility. The analysis examines the potential impact of these ideas on anti-racist social justice work and the unintended negative effects on fundamental U.S. values such as free speech, freedom of conscience, individualism, objectivity, logic, reason, efficiency, and others. This is a critique from the left of the extremist form that the White Supremacy Culture strategy of anti-racist work has taken, especially within Unitarian Universalism. The UU incident has eerie similarities to unintended negative consequences of other movement such as the one at Evergreen State College, the San Francisco School Board decision, the contention that professional standards are part of WSC, and the New York City Department of Education diversity training. My conclusions are that the Self-Confessed White Supremacy Culture paradigm, although well intended and directed at reducing racism, is a slippery slope to a society dominated by fact-free assertions and contentions that evidence itself is irrelevant; to authoritarianism and other illiberal values; and to even more extremism and excessive attention to self-purification instead of the real social justice work of dismantling oppression. It seeks to lift up the voices of marginalised groups, but when it jettisons other fundamental values of democracy, it shuts down contrary voices among those same marginalised groups as well as everyone else. When extremism erodes democratic values for some groups, it erodes them for all groups. Introduction - I explain the counter-intuitive idea of a leftist movement being called a “White Supremacy Culture,” which does NOT mean far right extremists who believe in the superiority of the White race. The term, when used in leftist anti-racist work, refers to the culture of the U.S. and to all White people. First Chapter – The most common characterisation of White Supremacy Culture is the Jones / Okun (now just Tema Okun) essay entitled "Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture." I review the 15 characteristics and find that they have no logical link to racial attitudes, racist behaviour, or disparities and no research that supports any linkages. Second Chapter - In the second Chapter, I examine some of the unintended negative consequences of using the phrase “White Supremacy Culture” to define all of U.S. culture. I also present the first parts of an original case study about how the Unitarian Universalist national leadership slipped into becoming a “self confessed” White Supremacy Culture. Third Chapter - In the third Chapter I extend the case study on events in the 2019 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly that banned a minister, Rev. Todd Eklof, about half-way through the conference because the book he was handing out for free, "The Gadfly Papers," was “disrupting the conference." Fourth Chapter – This is a review of other organisations that have tried the White Supremacy Culture paradigm for their anti-racism training, including the Evergreen State College that imploded over it. Fifth Chapter - In the fifth chapter, I examine the social and behavioral research regarding the effectiveness of using White privilege, implicit bias, microaggressions, and White fragility as part of an anti-racism training program. The research on all four of these is not very extensive so far and not very promising. Sixth Chapter - In the concluding chapter, I review the emergence of this new definition of White Supremacy Culture and its probable consequences, including ideas for a better way to dismantle racism.