15d • General discussion
Deconstructing Weekly
This Week in Race, Racism & Deconstruction
Hey everyone! I thought I’d start sharing a few things I’m reading, watching, or thinking about each week.
The goal isn’t necessarily to agree with every author or perspective. It’s to practice looking at what’s happening around us through the frameworks we’ve been learning: race, racialization, systemic racism, whiteness, belonging, allyship, power, intent vs. impact, and accountability.
Here are a few things worth exploring this week:
When does allyship become solidarity?
“Why Black Women Don’t Need White Women’s Allyship” — Lovette Jallow
This essay challenges the idea of allyship as an identity and asks us to think instead about solidarity as something demonstrated through behavior—especially when doing the right thing costs us comfort, belonging, access, or social capital.
It also opens up a larger conversation about white feminism, intersectionality, boundaries, and what happens when someone opposes the oppression that affects them while continuing to participate in hierarchies affecting others.
[Read the essay on Substack](https://lovettejallow.substack.com/p/why-black-women-dont-need-white-womens?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
💭 Think about it:
Is “ally” something we can call ourselves, or is it something other people should be able to observe through our actions? What happens when solidarity actually costs us something?
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🧠 Who gets automatically imagined as American?
A recent controversy in Texas provides a fascinating example of racialization.
After seeing a crowd containing many South Asian people at a University of Texas football game, a political candidate suggested the image represented foreign students taking opportunities from Texans.
But there's a problem with using appearance to reach that conclusion: you can't tell someone's citizenship, nationality, or residency by looking at their race.
The controversy gives us an opportunity to notice how quickly categories like brown, Asian, immigrant, foreign, and not from here can become collapsed together.
[Read Reuters' reporting on the controversy](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-republicans-post-asian-americans-ut-austin-sparks-accusations-racism-2026-09-15/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
💭 Think about it:
What does it tell us about race when someone can look at brown people and “see foreigners”? Who gets the privilege of being visually presumed to belong?
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📚 Race isn't only about what someone “is”
This week's Racial Justice Update includes discussion of racialization after 9/11 and how people with very different racial, ethnic, national, and religious identities—Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, Sikhs and others—could become socially collapsed into one threatening racialized “other.”
That's an important distinction when we're deconstructing race:
Identity asks: Who are you?
Racialization asks: What has society decided you are—and what does it do to you because of that classification?
[Explore this week's Racial Justice Update](https://www.racism.org/about/latest-this-week/13659-update-september-6-12-2026?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
💭 Think about it:
Can someone experience racism based on a racial category they don't actually identify with? What does that tell us about how race functions?
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🏛️ When does an institution stop being racist?
Another story worth following involves the long-running federal oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office after findings of racial profiling against Latino people during immigration enforcement.
It raises a question that's bigger than this particular case.
If discriminatory leadership changes or an explicitly discriminatory policy disappears, has institutional racism disappeared too?
Or should we also examine practices, institutional culture, accountability, outcomes, and whether the mechanisms that produced the harm have actually changed?
[Explore ProPublica's racial-justice reporting](https://www.propublica.org/topics/racial-justice?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
💭 Think about it:
What evidence would you need before saying an institution that caused systemic racial harm had actually changed?
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🎥 Something to watch: Confronting Anti-Blackness
This PBS conversation features historian and author Jemar Tisby, educator Tim Wise, and criminal-justice advocate Jasmine Woodson discussing anti-Blackness and the ways it can operate through institutions, culture, and everyday interactions.
It's about 27 minutes, so this could also make a good watch-before-Study-Sunday resource.
[Watch “Confronting Anti-Blackness, Part 2” on PBS](https://www.pbs.org/video/confronting-anti-blackness-part-2-sgenjk/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
💭 As you watch:
Where do you notice interpersonal prejudice? Where do you notice institutional or systemic racism? Why does distinguishing between them matter?
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🌱 Something to carry with you this week
One thread connecting several of these stories is belonging.
Who is assumed to belong?
Who has to prove they belong?
Who gets to declare themselves an ally?
Who gets listened to when harm occurs?
And what happens when our idea of ourselves—good person, ally, inclusive institution, not racist—comes into conflict with evidence about our impact?
You don't have to have an answer.
Notice where the question takes you.
💬 If something here catches your attention, bring it into the community or the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts, opinions and processings. Let's talk about it.
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