The Anti-Racism Organizing Collective (AROC) is part of a progressive, multi-racial movement to undermine and disrupt racism and white supremacy. We are an anti-racist and anti-capitalist collective of white folks in St. Louis building a space for (un)learning and organizing. We are rooted in relationships of accountability with each other, people of color, and the broader movement.
Our work is not truly liberatory if we work independently and in isolation from the transformational leadership of people of color. As part of our theory of change, AROC organizes and mobilizes white people and resources to support organizations and campaigns led by people of color. As individuals and a Collective, we work to maintain strong relationships of mutuality and accountability with local organizers of color.
While racism and white supremacy affect all of us, we also recognize that it affects all of us in different ways. We believe that white folks and folks of color each have important anti-racist work to do separately in our own communities, as well as together. Central to our theory of change is the belief that both intragroup (people of the same racial identity) and intergroup (people of different racial identities) spaces, education, and action are necessary for liberation. We do not want people of color to do our work for us, and intragroup work with white people provides us the opportunity to deeply interrogate our internalized white supremacy, to build our critical analysis of institutional racism, and to feel and process our emotions. We believe that intragroup work should always move us toward healthy and liberative intergroup work in which we follow the leadership and direction of people of color.
Within this theory of change, AROC uses a variety of strategies and tactics including leading and participating in local campaigns, facilitating one-time workshops and multi-session programs, mobilizing people and moving resources, base-building, direct action, communications work, and perhaps most importantly, building relationships.
St. Louis's Anti-Racism Organizing Collective 