Confronting White Grievance Virtual Symposium 2024

At the core of the racial backlash that has been brewing in the United States—especially after the election of Donald J. Trump as president in 2016—is white grievance.

Certainly, white supremacy culture and whiteness play a vital part in creating the conditions that have revealed how much of our seeming racial progress was more an illusion than a reality. But it is the examined and unexamined grievances that are deeply held by a number of white Americans that led them to support a wholly unqualified man for our nation’s highest office. It is those deeply held white grievances that form the backbone of the Make America Great Again movement and have led to a rematch in 2024 between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The inability to address white grievances directly not only impacts people of color but all people, as we see the language of our current racial justice movements co-opted by the racist right wing.

This year's symposium will go deep into the heart of unearthing white grievance with a keynote by Hajar Yazdiha, Ph.D., whose groundbreaking work in The Struggle for the People's King reveals that the modern-day roots of this current iteration of white grievance started in the Reagan years and progressed.

Our plenary (moderated by Shay Stewart-Bouley) includes longtime anti-racist stalwarts Tim Wise, Debby Irving, Chris Crass and Paul Marcus, who will address how white grievances show up in their work with white people, as well as offer real-time strategies for confronting white grievances in our communities.

see presenter photos and bios here