Better Elders (BE) is a movement to center and normalize abolition as a political and cultural position for white people.
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Better Elders is a cohort-based project that calls in white people to permanently divest from white supremacy—but not in isolation, which failed to work in 2020—but in community. Better Elders believes that 'whiteness' and white identity function as a coercive, maladaptive ideology, much like a cult. This is why Better Elders is building a scalable 'whiteness deprogramming' organizing framework that centers on community care, accountability and practice.
We consider white peoples' commitment to 'whiteness' to be a public health emergency with many of the same effects as any addiction epidemic, which is why we utilize harm reduction strategies as a part of our deprogramming whiteness process. Because of the relationship between 'whiteness' and carceral-thinking, Better Elders incorporates centuries of elder wisdom around restorative and transformative justice, which makes a path for white people to acknowledge lifetimes of harm, make mistakes, learn, and take redemptive action. Graduates of the Better Elders program are prepared to lead new cohorts in the deprogramming whiteness process.
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Better Elders is...
...an effort to simultaneously support, heal, and hold white people accountable at divesting from white supremacy culture in deeply personal and systematic ways and then to model those commitments to an incoming cohort of white people.
We believe we can...
...move the Overton window to the left by normalizing abolition as a central political and personal value system for white communities. We study anti-Blackness, suffering, policing and capitalism as well as pleasure, play queerness, abolition, disability justice and liberation using a framework of recovery and restorative justice.
History shows that...
...after 'whiteness' was invented in the 1600's, white people found identity and stability in carceral and supremacy-thinking; we believes it is white people’s responsibility to break this cycle, but that it is nearly impossible to do this soulful work in isolation.
'Whiteness' is lonely.
Better Elders connects the racial formation of ‘whiteness’—and its relationship to upholding capitalism, carceral systems, ableism and queerphobia—to the systemic and personal epidemic of unhappiness, loneliness and suffering we see normalized throughout the United States, not only amongst non-white communities who navigate the violence of racism but critically amongst white people who are the foot soldiers of white supremacy culture.
Therefore, we must organize in community.
WHAT WE KNOW:
Better Elders is a cohort-based recovery process, focused on 'whiteness' deprogramming.
It is centered in abolition, restorative justice, accountability and community.
It works in three stages.
Before beginning, participants join a cohort. Then, they engage in the following:
1. Accountability
First: BE guides our cohorts to desegregate their personal commitments to accountability. Cohort members commit to a new, personal map of accountability that includes: Black, brown and Indigenous anti-racism organizers and educators that have created platforms, written books and created curricula; and also Black, brown and Indigenous neighbors living in/on the same block, neighborhood or city.
2. Deprogramming and Recovery
Second: BE integrates anti-racism curricula and addiction/cult recovery strategy into one 3-month process for each cohort. BE treats 'whiteness' with the seriousness of both an addiction and of a coercive ideology designed to control individual and group behavior. BE borrows from both harm reduction and cult deprogramming strategies (similar to what individuals leaving cults utilize to reintegrate) in this phase.
3. Practice
Third: white people move past listening, learning and reflecting by using their new accountability maps to permanently alter how they behave in community. BE graduates practice abolition, mutual aid, necessary climate protection, etc. BE graduates become facilitators of the 'Deprogramming Whiteness' process for other white people.
OUR 2024 GOALS:
JOIN OUR COLLECTIVE FELLOWSHIP
(BI-MONTHLY MEETINGS: 7p-8:30p ET)
(FIRST & THIRD WEDNESDAYS)
Ready to invest?
Whether it's $100 or $10,000, we are looking for white people who will put their money where their mouth is. Let's put an end to white supremacy, climate disaster, policing and prisons.
Want to make a tax-deductible donation? Reach out to betterelders@gmail.com for next steps.
Donate now.
Join our Collective Fellowship:
Starting Spring 2024, we invite you to join our Collective Fellowship, a support group for white people to process our experiences, griefs and wisdoms around the failures of whiteness and white supremacy. We are committing to supporting other white people as they transition out of white supremacy into abolitionist action, and will figure out how together.
Do you have experience in addiction recovery or cult/religious deprogramming? Have you ever felt culturally "orphaned" by whiteness? Do you sense that restorative justice and abolition are medicines for white supremacy culture? Join our Collective Fellowship. Register for the zoom link.
DEPROGRAMMING WHITENESS
CURRICULUM