White Fragility at QAC 2020
On Saturday, July 11, I participated in the white fragility roundtable with Drew Levanti and Danny Larkin at the 5th annual Queer Astrology Conference. The panel, from my understanding, was meant to be an exploration of how white people can move past white fragility and become accomplices in the movement for social justice by dismantling white supremacy within the astrological community. Instead, the panel became an embodiment of white fragility and amplification of white supremacy. In the opening remarks, Danny positioned himself as exceptional to racism, specifically in regard to gentrification, and myself and Drew failed to respond effectively to his statements. There were nearly 130 people in attendance and many people began calling Danny out in the chat. Rather than clearly name what was happening as racist, I froze in the moment, displaying my own white fragility, and failed to hold him accountable. The panel was harmful to participants, especially people of color. I have issued a public apology, but want to offer this longer reflection on the mistakes I made as a form of public accountability, which I hope can be instructive for white people in what not to do.
The conference has a history of racism that I was unaware of until just before it began when a friend sent me Lawrence Jones article, A Needed Discourse on Queer Astrology. Lawrence makes a call to participants and panelists for accountability. This call was further amplified by Kelsey Branca’s @deepseaastrology IG post on past involvement. Although I was on the white fragility roundtable, which could have been the perfect place to discuss a history of racism, I did not bring this article to the attention of the organizers, and failed to heed the call.
The premise of a white fragility roundtable is inherently problematic. White fragility is a useful concept in describing a manifestation of white people’s resistance to confronting racism, but centering the white experience should not be the focus in anti-racist work. The structure of the panel was also inherently fraught. When white people discuss racism we usually give voice to racist ideology. Conversations in which white people unpack their own internalized racism is often a part of consciousness raising and deconstructing white supremacy, but these discussions usually happen in white-only spaces so that people of color are not subjected to racism. Although I raised concerns around these points in planning conversations with panelists, I did not take them directly to organizers.
White silence is violence, and by failing to raise my many concerns ahead of time, I contributed to a situation that caused racist harm. White supremacy culture characteristics include a sense of urgency, either/or thinking, individualism, power hoarding, and fear of open conflict, among others. These characteristics were present in the thinking that led me to believe I could not speak up and participate in the conference, there was enough not time to deal with the issues coming up, I had to handle everything myself and could not ask for help, other people had the power and I did not, and shut down in the face of open conflict.
What appeared to me in the organizing of the conference was that there was a concerted effort to address past issues by centering and amplifying the voices of QTBIPOC astrologers. There was an incredible Black Astrologers Roundtable that opened the conference, and a Decolonizing Roundtable that began Saturday, which generated brilliant and concrete ideas for directions to move in. The post-conference feedback form specifically requested thoughts on the structure of the white fragility roundtable.
In thinking about accountability and repair, I have reached out to organizer Ian Waisler to raise the points made by Lawrence and Kelsey about past conferences, and have been in dialogue with other organizers, and panelists. I wrote this post to call in all the forces that came together to create the situation, and call myself out to say the things I previously could not, with the hope that transparency around this event will help bring together the past and present to create a more anti-racist astrological future. All histories are incomplete, and this is merely a reflection of the piece I am holding. I hope to continue to be in dialogue about how white people can better show up to do this work and materially support leadership of QTBIPOC folks in the astrological community. I welcome your thoughts and feedback.