Past Due: A Discussion on Whiteness for White People
Knowing that you can threaten the life of another human being by mentioning their race on the phone with police is not only white privilege, it's evil.
If you are reading this article you are likely looking for one of three things.
First, you are looking to see if a white person will fall on her face while trying to describe privilege (it's possible). Second, you are looking to disagree and find something to cling to and be mad about. Third, you feel like you have internalized unconscious bias and don't want to feel this way anymore, but don't know what to do about it. Three's, I'm talking to you.
There is a news segment (that I cannot for the life of me find in the internet world, apologies), in which a white man calls in and asks a black newswoman how not to be racist. Every viewer held their breath during this live call-in, to see if he was an A-hole trying to pull a prank and to see how the newswoman would respond.
What happened was the most sincere exchange about race that I've witnessed: A white guy glimpsing his privilege and grappling with feeling the need to make a change, but not knowing how. The newswoman responds with gentle force, encouraging him to surround himself with black culture by attending a service at a black church for example.
Step one is to put yourself in situations where you can learn and shed ideas or biases that feel incongruent with who you are and who you want to be.
In America, There are Two Realities We Have to Face When it Comes to White Privilege
1. We are boiled in biased messaging since birth - this is not an excuse, but a framework of understanding part of the why.
2. We have a responsibility to ourselves and fellow humans to unlearn and actively work to change these biases. Unexplored or internalized biases only serve the system of oppression, not humanity.
Internalizing feelings of inherent exceptionalism (think getting out of a ticket) is a poison that will boil over as Amy Cooper behavior if unaddressed.
This is urgent. People are dying. You are going to get your feelings hurt, but your feelings do not need protecting more than someone's life.
How to Begin to Understand White Privilege
If you want to understand your privilege and make a difference, you have to do your own work. Read books, take a class, attend a speaker series, but do not question your black friends. They are not here to help you work out your understanding of racism.
Books that I have found helpful are: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Table: Stories from Black Women in Student Affairs by a collection of female authors in the field of higher education, and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.
Books that are still on my list to read that have are high on the list of must reads to understand privilege and racism are How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, and Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice by Carla Shedd.
Yes, they may of course understand what you're talking about - where your white friends may not - but they understand because they have experienced racism woven throughout their entire lives. The tone of this may feel aggressive, but it is meant to draw hard lines between a white ally and someone who perpetuates that fixing the problem is the responsibility of the oppressed. It's not.
So speak to your people. Don't preach in black spaces. No one is going to be impressed by your woke understanding of privilege. But, are you doing this to impress people, or are you doing this to save lives and secure actual freedom and justice for all?
Stepping out of the fight is also privilege - the problems are big, but you can do hard things. Understand that in order for things to change, you need to be talking to white people. To shake white people, and make them uncomfortable in feeling like the "default" race. The "let's just all get along" mentality ignores the history of system racism, from slavery to Jim Crow to the current prison system.
So don't go to your black friends for comfort. Their emotional space is under constant attack by videos and news stories of people who look like them being murdered on their own blocks. By tense spaces at work where they bear the burden of being the token black person. By white people calling the cops on them for being asked to leash their fucking dog - like the park rules said. By meticulously following the rules of society for their own safety, and having it not matter. By loving and hating the color of their own melanin-rich skin.
Call. Your. White. Friends.
One of the hardest parts about confronting white privilege is that it is woven throughout your life. It may feel like nothing is the same once you start questioning. You may feel voiceless or attacked. But still, your life is not threatened by the forces you pay to protect you.
White privilege is not the only privilege. If you feel attacked for being told you have privilege, it may be because you are white - but are the member of a different historically oppressed group. The list below shows areas that hold privilege on the left/above (part of the Dominant culture) and Minoritized* experiences on the right/below side:
Christian
Male
Heterosexual orientation
High SES
Physically able
Young
Married, Two parent household
Any other religion
Female/ any other sex
Homosexual/ any other orientation on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum
Low Socioeconomic status
Differently abled/ disabled
Old
Divorced parents, single parent household, or any other family arrangement
Vocab time! *Minoritized means a certain group of people may not be a true numerical minority, but may be made to feel lesser in a society or organization and therefore are “minoritized.”
Let's Talk About a Contentious-for-Some-Reason Topic: Affirmative Action
One great way to start this conversation is to think about the difference between equality and equity. Equality means everyone gets the same thing. Equity means everyone gets what they need in order to be successful.
As a school psychologist, I sometimes hear parents who want extended time for their child to take assessments because "so-and-so gets it." Well so-and-so gets it because they have ADHD and this is what they need in order to be successful. Equality and equity are not the same.
It may feel unfair, but what is factually unfair is the systemic racism and ignoring of minoritized community needs that create a field of tall hurdles that POC (people of color) have to repeatedly surmount in order to get to the places that you got to by walking.
Yes, you worked hard to get into college. Your black counterpart worked hard to get into college too, while doing parkour through systemic obstacles in his or her path.
Last point in the conversation about affirmative action: YES, you may have also overcome challenges! But did America design these challenges and either place them directly in your path, or leave them in the road without caring to address them?
Your life may have been difficult. You may have sincerely struggled. But your skin color was not part of the reason why your life was hard. (Reverse racism is not real. It's just not. Please put down that picket sign, ma'am).
In concert with my above point, you also can't get mad at people for viewing America differently than you. Colin Kaepernick kneels at the national anthem because his experience of America is different than yours. While America may be the country that has provided for you, it has not done so for everyone.
In Reflection
After reading this, how do you feel? Do you feel angry? Do you feel sad? Heartbroken? Pissed? Write it all down, and ask yourself after each sentence of "I feel ____," also write down why. “Why do I think that I feel ____?" If you are writing "I feel ____ because POC get all the attention/ etc." Sit with that and do your own work.
Talk vulnerably with your white friends. Pull each other up out of the muck that is racism. The muck that tears us apart and allows injustices to continue. Feel your feelings and then push yourself to learn and rearrange your insides so that bias sits up high on a shelf labeled "things I don't need anymore."
The world is much more beautiful when we see each other. The world is much more beautiful when we do not look away from the muck. Only by looking and learning can we fix anything, and systemic racism that allows some citizens to be killed, jailed, forgotten, or excluded needs desperate and immediate fixing.
Sincerely yours,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
Overwhelmed? Check out this previous post, "Working Within Your Bubble," on where to start when tackling big problems