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Criminal Justice

A general guide to Criminal Justice research for the Rosemont College community.

What does it mean to be an ally?

"White allyship describes the ongoing processes of responsibility assumed by people who present as white to operate in solidarity with people of colour to dismantle white supremacy. White allyship is difficult. It is a constant struggle with oneself, with others and with the relations of domination embedded in an imperialist, white supremacist world. As a consequence, white allies are rare, rarer than good white people who profess to be non- racist. Being an ally is more than simply not wanting to be seen as a racist. It requires active, deliberate, ongoing engagement with critique and reflexivity." Read more.

Source: Liu, H. (2020). White Allyship. In Redeeming Leadership: An Anti-Racist Feminist Intervention (pp. 141-156). Bristol: Bristol University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvtv93zk.11

What is white privilege?

"In the mid-1980s, Peggy McIntosh presented a paper on her realization that just as a patriarchal society provided males with privileges, a white supremacist (racist, in her term) society provided white people with privileges. This conceptualization filled an important hole by addressing white as raced—and as privileged—rather than simply identifying the disadvantages of white supremacy for people of color. Specifically, McIntosh outlined concrete ways in which the legal and economic construction of race benefited white people in their daily and cumulative lives. This discussion about white privilege exposed what was (and is) often invisible or unconscious to white people: their own whiteness as racial, and how this facilitates their movement through the world, their habits, and their ways of being." Read more.

Source: Casey, Z., Lozenski, B., McManimon, S., Lensmire, T., Casey, Z. A., McManimon, S. K., ... Lensmire, T. J. (2013). Whiteness and white privilege. In P. L. Mason (Ed.), Encyclopedia of race and racism (2nd ed.). Gale. Credo Reference: https://rosemont.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/galerace/whiteness_and_white_privilege/0?institutionId=5547

Learn more about confronting prejudice...

Visit this resource from Pepperdine University for more information, including common definitions, statistics, and intervention tools:

Peggy McIntosh, "How Studying Privilege Systems Can Strengthen Compassion"
 
Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers, "Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives"
 
Janet Stovall, "How to Get Serious About Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace"
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