The Allies Gather website endeavors to be a location where we will pursue "The Race Game" (see source below). Towards that end, we will seek to identify all white contributors by their race, in a small effort designed to bring white socialization out of the subconscious and into the foreground.

• Note: Articles referenced on this website come from a variety of sources and have not been edited to conform to these standards.

In her book, Learning to be White, Thandeka relates an experience she had responding to a white woman who asked, "What does it feel like to be black?"  Thandeka goes on to write:

I was not offended by her query.  Her face was open; her eyes were friendly  and engaged.  She simply believed that nothing in her own background or experience could help her understand me. I knew better. I had been assigned a race by America's pervasive socialization process, and so had she.  I thus believed that if she drew upon her own experience of being "raced," she might then be able to see what we had in common.  But how could I make her conscious of the racialization process to which her own European-American community had subjected her?  Searching for an answer to this question, I invented the Race Game and invited her to play it for a week.

The Race Game, as my luncheon partner very quickly discovered, had only one rule.  For the next seven days, she must use the ascriptive term white whenever she mentioned the name of one of her Euro-American cohorts.  She must say, for instance, "my white husband, Phil," or "my white friend, Julie," or "my lovely white child Jackie." I guaranteed her that if she did this for a week and then met me for lunch, I could answer her question using terms she would understand.  We never had lunch together again. Apparently my suggestion had made her uncomfortable.

African Americans have learned to use racial language to describe themselves and others.  Euro-Americans also have learned a pervasive racial language.  But in their racial lexicon, their own racial group becomes the great unsaid.  I wanted my luncheon partner to give voice to her whiteness as the racial unsaid of her life.  By consciously referring to this unvoiced color, she would become aware of what it feels like to take on and maintain a racial identity in America.  Or so I thought. (p.3)

We highly recommend Thandeka's book, Learning to be White, where you can read more about her insights into white socialization.