I Know Why the White Lady Cries: Growing Pains of an Antiracist Cleft Habitus

Based on interviews and participant observation of a white antiracist organization, this study asks: Can white people become antiracist? What role do white antiracist organizations play in this process? Bridging literature on whiteness and racialization with theories on habitus, I argue that white antiracist organizations act as incubators for white people to learn the “high culture” of the racial justice field, which is dominated by Black actors. White antiracist organizations provide a space for white people to emotionally process the white habitus and their own racist behaviors, colorblind or otherwise. White antiracists show a shift in behavior and ability to participate in the racial justice field with new-to-them forms of cultural capital but experience a rupture with the white habitus that isolates them as people who are white and antiracist in the larger racial field of the United States. White antiracists experience a cleft habitus that generates discomfort. I expand on the concept of the cleft habitus by including race as central to the process and highlighting the experience of the cleft habitus as it unfolds. These findings expand our understandings of whiteness, habitus, and antiracism as race and racism become more central to conversations about equity in society.