music

What We Imagine by Remember the Future

host

Whiteness is like an invasive weed. It’s taken root inside many of us—both white people and people of color. It has not always existed. And we hope it won’t always be here. We see how it harms us, regardless of race. When we say “whiteness,” we’re not talking about white people specifically, but rather as a social construct in general.

co-researcher

When I think of whiteness, it's more of like a construct. It's like a certain way of being, a mindset. And it's sort of like this internalized conditioning that we see that is so pervasive in society. I don't think it's necessarily just something that, you know, people who have white as a race possess, I think it's, it's something that people of color, BIPOC people, have internalized.

host

Internalized whiteness is one way that whiteness has become rooted in many of us. Yet whiteness is not an ancestor. It is not that old. It began as a seed. As an idea in the minds of European slave traders in the 1450s. Its roots intertwined with colonialism, capitalism, racism, and patriarchy. And in less than 600 years that seed has sprouted, and grown, and spread across the globe. It’s not only rooted inside many of us, but also in many of our relationships, communities, systems. So how do we move from worlds where whiteness is deeply rooted to glimmers of worlds without it?

co-researcher

Sometimes it's hard for us to imagine what something could look like if we don't have an example of it.

host

This is the Reimagining Worlds Without Whiteness podcast. We’ll share insights from 26 co-researchers. They are from the U.S. and Europe. They are aged 21 to 73. There are 12 people of color and 14 white people. From our conversations, you’ll hear that we’ve mapped out four possible stages: seeing whiteness and uprooting it, composting it, and then planting something new. A lot of anti-racism work focuses on the first stages. Here, we focus on the what comes next. Planting something new takes imagination. Join us as we explore these ever evolving ideas. We hope they seed new conversations for you.