Opinion

The White Moderation Genome Project

8 minutes ago
by Vu Le
Written by Vu Le

Hi everyone, if you’re not busy on Saturday January 31st, at 9am Pacific Time, please join me in a FREE virtual conversation, “Leading the Work Without Losing Yourself: A Conversation for Nonprofit Practitioners,” where the awesome Kimberly O’Neil and I discuss how everyone in our sector is holding up during this moment, how we gather strength to keep going when everything is so heavy and we’re all so tired and need naps all the time. Please register here.

Also, if you’re available on Wednesday February 25th at 10am Pacific Time, I’m finally having a virtual book launch. It should be fun, and there will be giveaways, and I know everyone will want a T-shirt that says “I am a pita wedge for the hummus of justice.” Register for that here. Come to both events if you can.

I hope everyone had a good MLK Jr. Day. I’ve seen lots of comments and quotes the past few days. But, just because the holiday is over, doesn’t mean we should stop reflecting on his teachings.

Dr. King has been a significant beacon for our sector, and for anyone in general who wants to help advance equity and justice in the world. For the past several years, I’ve written about what I think is his most important lesson for us, which is about white moderation. You can read about it in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which should be required reading for everyone in this sector.

To summarize, Dr. King warned that the biggest threats to justice are not the overt racists and bigots, but the “nice” and “civil” people constantly calling for everyone to get along and “meet in the middle” and not ruffle feathers and be practical. I’ve spelled what I think some of these things look like in our sector, in this piece called “Have nonprofit and philanthropy become and white moderate that Dr. King warned us about?” as well as “21 signs you and your organization may be the white moderate Dr. King warned about.” Please check them out, as unfortunately, many people are still exhibiting many of those signs.

But those are not comprehensive lists. I think it will be great if we map out and categorize all the ways that white moderation manifests. Doing so will help us identify when we’re engaged in white moderation, and help us find ways to mitigate it. I’m going to call this project the White Moderation Genome Project (WMGP). After years of thinking and writing about this, and leaning on Dr. King’s writings, here’s what I have so far:

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About the author

Vu Le

Vu Le (“voo lay”) is a writer, speaker, vegan, Pisces, and the former Executive Director of RVC, a nonprofit in Seattle that promotes social justice by developing leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities.

Vu’s passion to make the world better, combined with a low score on the Law School Admission Test, drove him into the field of nonprofit work, where he learned that we should take the work seriously, but not ourselves. There’s tons of humor in the nonprofit world, and someone needs to document it. He is going to do that, with the hope that one day, a TV producer will see how cool and interesting our field is and make a show about nonprofit work, featuring attractive actors attending strategic planning meetings and filing 990 tax forms.

Known for his no-BS approach, irreverent sense of humor, and love of unicorns, Vu has been featured in dozens, if not hundreds, of his own blog posts at NonprofitAF.com.

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