| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 52

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Becky Thompson, A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2001)

SOCIOLOGIST BECKY THOMPSON's A Promise and A Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism is a "social history of white antiracist activism from the 1950s to the present in the United States," (xiv) a topic that has to date been largely ignored or misinterpreted by scholars. The book, which relies primarily on a series of interviews with 39 anti-racist activists across a spectrum of progressive social movements, explores the variety of ways these individuals have worked — publicly and privately — to oppose racism and create multi-racial communities. It highlights the conflicts, successes, and limitations of these efforts in the past and attempts to draw lessons for current and future political activism. Thompson seeks to present "a structural analysis alongside attention to consciousness." (374) The result is a fascinating group portrait that enriches our understanding of the post-war history of American social movements.

A Promise and A Way of Life is broken into three sections. The first part focuses on the civil rights movement, particularly the transition to black power and the interplay between anti-war activism and movements for racial justice. Next, Thompson offers a stirring anti-racist reinterpretation of second wave feminism during the 1970s and 1980s. Lastly, the book explores White activism during the 1980s and 1990s, an era of reaction and repression without a unifying social movement to link activist energies or provide broad-based support for anti-racist efforts. In this third section, Thompson emphasizes the Central American solidarity movement, prison activism, and diversity training in large organizations. A final chapter looks at the way white activists have succeeded in molding a unique multi-racial "anti-racist culture" (325) to nurture and sustain their political work in the face of many obstacles.

Along the way, A Promise and a Way of Life stirs up a host of fascinating questions that do not come with easy or definite answers: Does white anti-racist activism require a repudiation of one's racial identity or can "whiteness" be transformed through activism and participation in a multi-racial culture? Is there a difference between white identity and white privilege and, if so, is anti-racism based on undermining the former or just the latter? Should anti-racist whites work predominantly within white communities or communities of colour? Given the vast inequalities between races in the US throughout its history, how might white people contribute to multi-racial movements without dominating or controlling them? How can white anti-racist activists express solidarity with people of colour without retreating into racial privilege in the face of repression? What is the relationship between violence and revolutionary politics in white anti-racist activism? What role does culture and psychology play in sustaining white anti-racist activism and long-term racial change in the US? What are the personal and political costs of anti-racist activism for white people? To her credit, Thompson allows her subjects to articulate complex and often contradictory responses to these difficult questions. It is this openness to the unresolved crosscurrents of white anti-racist activism that makes the book most insightful and challenging.

A Promise and A Way of Life also catalogues the many ways white anti-racist activists have failed to live up to their ideals and meet their goals. For instance, she details the failure of Students for a Democratic Society to look at the "whiteness" of their organization; the Weather Underground's arrogance and sexism; the slow challenge of white radical women to the race and class bias within second wave feminism; the inability of predominantly white Central American peace organizations in the US to make meaningful connections with US-based Latino groups; the myriad and unusually unexamined cultural biases of whites bearing "witness" in Central America; the tendency of white anti-racist consultants to confront racism on an individual rather than systemic level; and the trend among white prison activists to ignore black and latino activists inside jails and prisons on whose behalf they purport to work. Thompson laments the opportunities white progressive movements have missed by lagging in their openness to the experiences, insights, and leadership of people of colour. While such cataloguing can be frustrating, Thompson probes these limitations, not mainly as a means to judge or condemn, but with the hope that current activists might learn from them and create their own way forward.

At several turns, Thompson's work challenges current historical assumptions about well-known social movements. For instance, she contests the often-repeated view that white people were kicked out of the civil rights movement with the advent of black power. It is clear from those activists she interviewed that many white people sympathized with and supported African American self-determination, and thus the shift to all-Black institutions during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, even those who lamented the transformation often understood the utility and purpose of the decision. Another intriguing section of the book questions the common misperception that radical, white activists during the 1960s and 1970s — particularly those in the Weather Underground — were simply violent romantics. Thompson's interviews with these militant revolutionaries — several of whom are still serving lengthy prison terms — make clear that much of this white radicalism was animated by a sincere desire to live out a meaningful solidarity with black power militants in a time of increasing government repression and political radicalism at home and an unpopular "neo-colonial" (84) war abroad.

Thompson's reassessment of Second Wave Feminism is by far the most lively and exciting challenge to historical convention. According to most accounts, White women came to feminism in reaction to and out of frustration with the male-dominated civil rights and anti- Vietnam war movements. As a result, gender became the most exclusive dimension of their identities and the focal point of their political activism. Thompson's research makes clear that there was also a group of white activist women who came to feminism primarily through the example of strong women of colour within the civil rights movement and who understood the inter-connection of race and gender. These activists' commitment to racial justice made them hesitant or unwilling to join with early white, middle-class feminists in their narrow focus on patriarchy and gender discrimination at the expense of anti-racism and anti-colonialism. Thompson's subjects sought to fight against gender and racial inequality simultaneously. These white women finally "came around to calling themselves feminists" only after women of colour "rescued feminism" (369) during the 1980s and 1990s with a multi-perspectival approach to social change. Thompson's analysis reminds us of the diversity among white feminists in the early years of the modern women's movement and underscores the fact that it was women of colour and their white allies who broadened feminism.

The last section of the book is not as cohesive or satisfying as the first two. For example, the book moves abruptly from a focus on white anti-racist activists' attempting to bring about fundamental, systemic, or revolutionary change, to those working within established institutions to achieve more reform-oriented goals, without sufficient discussion of the broader shifts in the American political and cultural landscape that fueled these changes. A more detailed discussion of the emerging "new conservatism," rooted in racial reaction and a punitive social policy, would help readers understand the shift in tactics and strategy among many older activists. Moreover, the disproportionate number of interviewees from the civil rights generation (only 2 of 39 were born after 1960) leads Thompson to overlook several areas of white anti-racist activism among young people, particularly with hip hop culture, the anti-War- on-Drugs movement, and the global democracy movement. There is a similar skew in her sample toward subjects who hail from large northern cities and their suburbs (28 of the 39), particularly New York and Boston, and toward women over men (23 versus 16). A more diverse sampling may have yielded even richer results. In addition, although Thompson alludes to "critical whiteness studies" and often employs its specialized language, she fails to explore this new academic sub-field as a significant site of anti-racist activism in its own right. Finally, given Thompson's continual stress on the crucial role people of colour played shaping the thoughts, actions, and lives of white anti-racists, her lack of attention to the perspective of people of colour on her subjects seems to be a critical omission.

Yet, overall, A Promise and a Way of Life is a valuable addition to the burgeoning history of post-war political history as well as a practical guide for white activists still concerned with racial justice. According to Thompson, "studying antiracist activism historically — its conflicts, successes and limitations — is an antidote to despair. It is also a way to counter a long history of historical amnesia about progressive social change." (xv) On these grounds, the book is a rousing success. A Promise and a Way of Life is accessible, well-written and presented with an honesty and passion that make the author's arguments compelling. At every stage, Thompson provides a fresh approach to old subjects and a new spin on well-worn historical assumptions. By highlighting the under-appreciated contributions of white activists to movements for racial justice over four decades, Thompson has enriched our understanding of progressive social change. Consequently, this book should be of use to a diverse array of scholars and activists alike and deserves a place in intermediate-level college courses.


Patrick Jones University of Wisconsin, Madison

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