The ideas captured on this website, very much a work in progress, have been developed to support White people to act for racial justice. It draws from ideas and resources developed mostly by Black, Brown and People of Color, and has been edited by Black, Brown, and People of Color. I recognize that categorizing actions under the labels of Actor, Ally, and Accomplice is an oversimplification, but hopefully this chart challenges all of us White folks to go outside of our comfort zones, take some bigger risks, and make some more significant sacrifices because this is what we’ve been asked to do by those most impacted by racism, colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, xenophobia, and hyper-capitalism. I believe that for real change to occur, we must confront and challenge all people, policies, systems, etc., that maintain privileges and power for White people.

Neither accommodation nor diversity—the preferred liberal solutions—are good answers to an intersectional critique. With this new conception of how power operates, the standards for what constitutes a safe space have increased. There’s virtually no way to create a room of two people that doesn’t include the reproduction of some unequal power relation, but there’s also no way to engage in politics by yourself. … Even most advocates will admit that literal safe space is a utopian idea. Without a unified radical movement, utopianism can look like petty intransigence or an inability (rather than refusal) to cope with the world as it is. But with insights gleaned from decades of experimentation, scholarship, and struggle, most leftists understand that in the web of power relations there is no real shelter to be found. No one can be so conscious and circumspect as to cleanse themselves of all oppressive ideology before entering a meeting or a party or a concert or classroom. As a result, the meaning of safe space has shifted again. … A safe space, despite the denotation of the phrase, is somewhere people come together and—in addition to whatever else they’re doing—wrestle with the chicken-and-egg problem of how to change themselves and the world at the same time.