Lately we've heard a lot of terms such as "white privilege", "white fragility".
This was a good piece on white privilege: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/shanephipps/2017/06/20/how-i-came-to-understand-my-white-priviledge/
Full disclosure: I'm probably not the best person to speak about race, since I know very few African Americans. We do have a lot of diversity in our community because of people coming here to work in the meat packing plants in the area. Most of them are Hispanics from Mexico or the Central American countries, also some Asians. The Black people here are mostly from Africa; Sudan, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. There have been some racially or ethnically charged incidents, but for the most part people here live and let live.
In the articles I have read on white privilege, what strikes me is that what they are talking about really shouldn't be called privilege. They should be the rights of all who live in a free society. Things such as innocence until proven guilty; one shouldn't have to be afraid of a routine traffic stop. Or have a store employee follow you around a store because they suspect you of being a shoplifter based on your race.
Maybe we need to move the conversation forward, from what constitutes white privilege, to how we can ensure that everyone enjoys the right to live without fear.
My parish has a hefty contingent of african-americans, africans and asians. Makes it kinda nice. There's even miscegenation. MISCEGENATION, ya'll!!! And never a blink.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started working for the gummint as a co-op in 1968, there were blacks (terminology of the time), asians, Jews, lotza Catholics. But what really made it easy to get along is that we were all CRAZY. Best years of my life.
White parents never have to have The Talk with their children. That is really all that needs to be said about white privilege. Proctor & Gamble (of all unlikely people) brought that up -- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/proctor-gamble-stands-talk-ad-controversy-article-1.3391920 -- and offended all kinds of white racist snowflakes.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day, MLK would respond to the smug assertion (from such racist proto-snowflakes) that laws can't change hearts by responding that a law may not make a white man love a black man, but the law could prevent the white man from killing the black man.
Well, white men have proved Dr. King wrong on that point.
But I do have sympathy for cops who shoot. Whren the NRA tells people they have a right to stand their ground with the Second Amendment weapon of their choice, every traffic stop is a potential D-Day. It is also worth noting that we have the NRA to take some of the blame for all those Boston liberals taking joy in shutting down free speech last Saturday. The First Amendment would be in a lot better shape if the Second Amendment were not being literally carried to extremes by practitioners of the First. Again, the people in charge of public safety are in a position that I am glad I'm not in.
This topic hits home for me. For years, I too was largely unaware of what white privilege really meansI wish every white person could read this essay, and keep reading it, until they also start looking around with eyes wide open. They will observe plenty of examples of white privilege operating in their everyday lives. I believe the term is "consciousness raising."
ReplyDeleteFrom the essay: “I spend most days never giving any conscious thought to my skin color. I spend most of my days as a member of a clear majority. ….. But, just occasionally, I find myself in a situation where I am in the minority. In those situations I become hyper-aware that I am white and most of the people around me are not. In those situations, I am stripped of my white privilege and I immediately lose the comfort that comes with it.
[some] point to things like affirmative action or the fact that we just had a black president as proof that white privilege is a myth.
But, in reality, they simply don’t understand what white privilege is. …
Not being cognizant of white privilege IS part of white privilege.”
My mother was Irish Catholic and my father was German Catholic. My parents, including my mother, were college graduates, relatively rare in 1931. Educated, white privilege. My husband's paternal roots are German Protestant. His maternal roots are pure WASP, as he is descended from Puritans who arrived in Mass. in the early 1630s. So our children grew up in a “mixed” marriage family, with a Protestant dad and a Catholic mom. The first step towards diversity. We live in a suburb of Washington DC, one that has a majority Jewish population. Our children grew up as members of a minority religion in our neighborhood, with implications that didn't hit me until one of my sons, watching a Christmas movie at age 5, exclaimed something that started opening my eyes. I am part of a religious as well as racial majority. I opposed discrimination and racism, of course, but was not fully aware of the privilege I enjoyed as a white christian. Our children, attending a school where close to 75% of the students were Jewish, had internalized a slightly different reality, being part of a religious minority. In the final scene of the Christmas video, the residents of the New England town where the story was set gather around the village green, with a huge, decorated Christmas tree in the center, all singing Silent Night. The overhead camera panned higher and higher so that the entire crowd was seen. My kindergarten son exclaimed "Oh Mommy, look at all those Christians!"
Every year in December our kids would ask about Hanukkah. When very young, they didn’t understand why we didn’t celebrate it. In pre-school they learned Hanukkah songs along with Rudolph and Frosty, played with dreidels, ate latkes and doughnuts, and internalized a few other Jewish holiday traditions as part of their normal lives. They were not yet aware really of religion. In elementary school that changed. In December, their friends would come to school each day talking about their gifts. For EIGHT days, not just one. One son was upset one day in about 4th grade, because a classmate had stood up while the teacher was out of the room to give the non-Jewish kids a hard time - "I hope your fat Santa burns his butt on the way down the chimney".
I always say Happy Holidays if I don't know a person's religion.
The school also had a few black kids, a few Asian kids, mid-eastern kids. Our area is diverse racially and culturally (not just religiously), partly because of the diplomatic community. In the stores, nobody pays much attention to shoppers who might be wearing African garb or saris, or to men and boys wearing a kippah, or to women and girls who wear a hijab. Diversity was a given for our children. They went to college in California (my home state), where non-hispanic whites are generally a minority of the total student body. So they continued to live in diverse communities.
I understand the concept of white privilege. I think we should work, as Katherine suggested, to ensure that constitutional rights extend to all people in a color- and ethnically blind manner.
ReplyDeleteOver the years, I have had a few African-American students in the past who have engaged in really productive and sincere dialogue with other students about racial matters. But so often, they expressed frustration with being the only black student in a class and therefore under pressure to represent "the black race."
I've never found it helpful to approach race and ethnicity in group terms. You meet someone and ethnicity is part of the whole package. Be sensitive, but infer nothing. As Blake said, "To generalize is to be an idiot."
I really liked the movie "Get Out!" which deals with race in a very funny, but very scary way. The interviews Jordan Peele has given about the movie also worthwhile.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteMy oldest son's best friend is black. When they were college age, and when they shared a house together after college, he experienced a bit of what is routine for young black men. He would be stopped for no reason while driving when his friend was with him (but never stopped when he was not with his black friend). The police would ask them to get out of the car, and search it and the trunk. They knew not to protest at all, even though there was no reason for the traffic stop, much less for the search "Yes, Officer" was my blond son's byword as well as that of his friend. Once I went to the airport to pick up his friend, who had been visiting my son in California when they were in college. I waited and waited and he didn't come. Finally, he called. He had gotten off the plane, but before he could come out to my car, DEA officers approached him and took him to a back room for questioning. Eventually they allowed him to call me. They finally let him go after 3 hours of questioning. They detained him because they had decided he looked like a drug dealer. His father had been a diplomat in DC, but a coup in his home country left him without a job in the US. There was a civil war in their country, and his parents did not want him and his younger brother (among one of another son's closest friends) to be forced to return to Africa, because they would be in life and death danger. A family friend who was a US citizen agreed to be the boys’ guardian in the US, so that they could stay here and stay in their schools. At 18 they had to go to court to petition for asylum as refugees. They got it, fortunately. They had been here since they were ages 4 and 6.
Our sons grew up, and their adult lives have reflected their upbringing in a diverse community, as part of a family that welcomed everyone without consideration of race or religion or cultural background.
From the essay –
"The saddest part is explaining to my daughter that people may hate you for no reason other than the way you look."
Two of our grandchildren are children from "miscegenist" marriages (Stanley). One has a caucasian father and a black mother. Another grandchild has a caucasian father and an Asian mother, who was born in a refugee camp when her parents fled Viet Nam in a boat. Estimates of Viet Namese “boat people” who didn't survive range from 250,000 – 400,000. Nobody knows for sure. I weep when I read the how many refugees, including children, who drown in the Med each month. Ho, hum say most Americans. “They shouldn’t come here, they might take our jobs (even though they are often our worst jobs that few unemployed white people will take.) Besides, most of them have dark skin and a lot of them aren’t even Christian.” I would say most “Christian” Americans aren’t Christians either.
So we have a wonderful African American grandson, who is pure joy. He is only 3, and it breaks my heart that someday his parents will have to give him the "talk" that Tom Blackburn refers to. They will tell him that some people will hate him, want to do him harm, because of his skin color. I cannot agree with Tom, though, that police are EVER justified in shooting an unarmed black man. They almost never shoot when stopping or arresting an unarmed white man, no matter what that white man has been doing when spotted. When our grandson learns to drive, he will have to be taught to automatically put his hands on the top of the steering wheel when stopped, to be absolutely polite and cooperative, and to tell the officer what he is doing if reaching for his drivers' license or registration. This is not something we had to warn our sons about. They will teach him to dress in a certain way - his white friends might be able to get away with hoodies and slouchy jeans when they are teens, but he could be in trouble if he dresses that way. Our Asian American grandchild may face some discrimination and racism, but probably not as much as his cousin will face.
Will we ever overcome racism?
Anne, I think the younger generations (at least the ones who aren't Nazi wannabees)really do have a more accepting attitude about race. I remember that my older son had often talked about his friend Anthony. This was after he had graduated and was living in a different town, I had not met Anthony. At my son and daughter in law's wedding I was introduced to Anthony. He is African American. My son had never mentioned that. That is typical of him; he is more likely to talk about someone's personality or interests than their race.
DeleteIf anybody told me in 1968 that we would be where we are in 2017, I'd say they were crazy. Although things were bad in 1968, I thought there was a shift toward a better society. Of course, over the 70s and 80s, racism was rematrixed into the drug war and the war on crime. I think the white millenials, at least the ones I know, are personally beyond all this. What I question is whether they are aware of still persisting systematic white privilege and societal racism, enough to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteStanley, I thought we were doing better than that, too. We probably weren't doing that great, but I really think we have "backslid". I have heard people say that the reason we got Trump is because Obama was so "divisive". I don't buy that, of course. But I think the trifecta of Black, liberal, and Democrat brought a lot of stuff out of the woodwork. I have wondered; would the alt-right movement have attained such virulence if our previous president had been Ben Carson instead of Barack Obama?
DeleteKatherine, I remember the bumper sticker in a parking lot during the 2012 campaign. "Dump the Bro' " Obama DID surface it. The would probably be ok with a Carson or Cosby because he lectures blacks the way old white men do.
DeleteAnd the irony is that Obama is not really all that liberal. At least that's not my perception of him. Not compared with some politicians back in the 1970s or so.
DeleteExactly. Obama Derangement Syndrome. I told some of these guys, "How dare you call Obama a socialist. I'm a socialist and unfortunately he's not." Also, he did not really do all that much for African-Americans.
DeleteExcept he was the first to break the ceiling. I remember a column by Leonard Pitts after the election but before Trump was inaugurated. As he put it, "Brother, you did us proud."
DeleteMost white males I know simply cannot fathom the leg up they have automatically had by being (1) white and (2)male. Even the poorest and least advantaged ones still don't have to worry about their citizenship being questioned and their ability to be responsible citizens determined by the color of their skin.
ReplyDeleteSee this: http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2016/08/09/dear-white-people-an-open-letter-to-all-deniers-of-white-privilege/
I remember Chris Rock saying there's a poor white busboy with one leg out there who wouldn't trade places with the multimillionaire comedian. "No thanks. I'll see how this white thing plays out."
DeleteKatherine - " I had not met Anthony. At my son and daughter in law's wedding I was introduced to Anthony. He is African American. My son had never mentioned that. That is typical of him; he is more likely to talk about someone's personality or interests than their race."
ReplyDeleteThat is my hope. I saw the same thing with my own kids, and their friends. They weren't concerned with someone's race and never mentioned it. They mentioned what your son did - personality, talent, etc. So, sometimes we were also surprised to learn that a friend was African American when we met him.
I also see small signs of more acceptance on TV ads. We don't watch a lot of TV, and generally record programs so that we can skip the ads. But when I do see ads, not only are the actors more diverse, racially, I am seeing mixed race couples in them more far more frequently than I used to. I don't think I ever saw that ten years ago, even though you might see ads with a mixed race group of couples, or of kids, or whoever. But not a couple that was mixed race.
Now that we have a mixed race family, I continue to become more aware of how our own lives have been lived as entitled members of the white, upper middle class. We were fortunate enough to be able to travel with our kids, to take vacations in many nice places. During the last few years, when traveling with family, I have become aware of the reality that our family members are the only people of color in many of our habitual vacation spots. In one, my husband and I visiting by ourselves, I realized that on this lovely island, a very popular beach area, I had not seen even one person who wasn't white on the beach, in restaurants, in shops, walking or biking. EVERYONE there was white.
I grew up--I suspect many of us of a certain age here did--when ethnicity was noted. It wasn't impolite (at least in my neighborhood) to ask if your name was Irish or French or whatever. Ethnicity was a matter of interest, not derision.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one of my friends growing up was Japanese American. Her parents, first generation born in the U.S., met in one of the internment camps. He later joined the Air Force and flew missions over Italy. She was sent to an Ivy League school for two years by some Jewish ladies who protested the existence of the camps and set up scholarships for girls. Her parents were very offended if someone asked if they were Japanese. Her mom always tartly replied, "No, we are Americans, born in California."
They weren't ashamed of having Japanese heritage. Their house was where I learned to eat with chopsticks and make beef teriyaki. They had Japanese art in their home. Her mom talked about being raised Buddhist.
But there was a sensitivity to being associated with their ethnicity that did not exist among those of us with white European ancestors. When someone asked if they were Japanese, I suppose they felt their Americanism was being questioned in a way ours was not.
It was always a little unsettling when my friend talked about "white discrimination." Her family was far better off than mine was, and they lived in a ritzy suburb. How could she say she had been discriminated against? We had some pretty big arguments about this.
It took me a long time for me to understand that discrimination didn't end with money and success, in fact, that money and success raised ire.
Jean, one thing I have noted on the discussion boards is how different it was for we people of a certain age to grow up in different parts of the country. I am sorry that Crystal has not been active on this thread, as she is a native Californian as I am. And her ex-husband was Japanese American as I recall. I think she could contribute some good insights on the inter-racial marriage experience. I've always related to her comments, perhaps because we shared similar experiences as native Californians. Crystal, where are you?
ReplyDeletePeople I knew growing up did not pay much attention to surname, or ask about the ethnic origin. With the exception of the Mexican parishes in LA, parishes were not ethnic - no Italian or Polish or Irish parishes. Just Catholics descended from all kinds of Europeans. So no Latinos, or Asians, or African Americans. As I related earlier, we live in a majority Jewish community. That was also true of my childhood in LA also - almost everyone who lived on our street was Jewish. My BF was Jewish, and so I learned about Jewish holidays and traditions growing up, the same way my kids did, through friendships. However, I went to a Catholic school, not the public school, so everyone at school celebrated Christmas.
As also mentioned before, my sons went to college in California, attending schools where non-Hispanic whites are a minority - the case in most California colleges and universities except some of the small, christian colleges. One son's roommate was of Asian heritage - his parents had come to the US from Burma, but were ethnic Chinese (one reason they left Burma. Ethnic discrimination is not exclusively an American sin). My son bought his first car the summer before junior year, so his roommate, Rob, flew east from California so they could do a road trip. Nobody blinks an eye at seeing Asians in California. Our son told me that their road trip was a new and somewhat uncomfortable experience for Rob. They headed for western Canada, via mid-western states as well as parts of Wyoming and Montana (where they entered Canada). When they stopped in some of the smaller towns to get gas and something to eat, many people would stare at Rob, and whisper to one another. These were all white towns, and although there was no apparent hostility, Rob felt a bit uncomfortable because of being stared at. My son, after college, experienced that also. He spent a total of about 21 months in Asia, including teaching six months in Taiwan and a year in Beijing. He said that nobody stared in Beijing. But when he and his non-Chinese friends would travel to smaller cities and towns in China, they were stared at also. Sometimes people would go to get their friends and family to come look at the strangers! No apparent hostility, just curiosity. Sometimes the people would ask if they could take a photo with my son and his friends. He got used to it. The same thing happened to my black daughter-in-law when she was traveling in Europe and went to Turkey, before she had met my son. In spite of the proximity to Africa, and long before people were risking drowning to get to Turkey or Italy, it seems that not many black people visited Turkey as tourists, which surprised me to learn. She said that people would also ask her if they could stand next to her and take a photo - always very politely and they were friendly towards her. But she did feel a bit like she stood out like a sore thumb because she not only didn't look Turkish, she didn't look European. Lots of white people from Europe or with European heritage in Turkey, but not many Africans or those with African roots apparently.
Your experience with your Japanese friend and neighbors was your first eye opening to white privilege experience. I continue to have them, in spite of years of having close relationships with black Americans and Asian Americans. I know that I can NEVER fully understand their experience because I AM white. But at least I am now aware of that.
"I know that I can NEVER fully understand their experience because I AM white. But at least I am now aware of that."
DeleteYeah, and men will never understand women's experiences, and when they try to, they usually get it so wrong that it's comic or you just want to smash their little heads with a ball peen hammer.
I expect that Americans of other races and ethnicities often feel that way about white Americans descended from Europeans.
Everybody talks about the need for dialogue, but I don't know how that works. You get to know people, you find common ground, you begin to understand where they hurt because of their individual experiences.
But just talking about race generally in large forums seems to turn into accusation and defensive fallback.
Saw it done well once when we took a trip to the Native American reservation. The tribal chairman was an elderly man,very welcoming, thanked the students for coming to hear his story, and then told about decades of systematic cultural destruction he had experienced from childhood on. He wasn't angry with anyone there. He asked them to take his story to their friends so they would know what happened. Lotta tears in that room. But I would bet all those students and teacher have passed that story on. It certainly affected how I taught colonial American lit.
Delete"But just talking about race generally in large forums seems to turn into accusation and defensive fallback."
You said it. Every time something like Charlottesville or Ferguson comes up, all the right-thinking, sensible folks (like us) say we need to have a national conversation. Someone then proposes something as obvious as "black lives matter," and the reply is "so do white lives," (equally obvious, but off the point) and "why do black lives matter more than whites" (who said that?) and "now you are playing the race card." That last reminds me of a regular acquaintance who sincerely (he isn't making it up to annoy me) blames Ferguson, Charlottesville AND Trump on Obama's "decision to play the race card." That is what he brings to the national conversation we say we need.
What does he even mean, that Obama "played the race card"? I hear that, too, and I don't get it. I truly felt that, whether I liked his policies, Obama cared about all Americans. Truly, not just giving lip service to it. I felt it when he talked about his grandmother, Sandyhook, and Treyvon Martin, and when he talked about his mother spending her last days with cancer arguing with the insurance company over coverage. Trump has none of these common experiences with us.
DeleteStanley, when you say you are a Socialist, what exactly do you mean by that?
ReplyDeleteAnne, not state ownership as in the CCCP or Venezuela, but worker ownership. Or at least a fair amount of worker stakeholdership. They have their ups and downs like any corporate entity, but I'd like to see some form of the Mondragon worker cooperative model given legal and economic support here. I don't want a 1917 revolution but I think there are alternatives to the monarchical corporations we have but, like steamships, railroads, automobiles, atomic power and now solar and wind, they need some incentivization which will allow for experimentation and evolution. I don't claim to be any kind of economist but I'm always open to the idea there has to be a better way. I'm under the impression that our present system is somehow heading to a dead end. For instance, robots can build televisions but robots don't buy televisions. Also, the concentration of wealth is out of hand. I actually like competition, but now we have Walmart and Amazon competing to be The Store. It's hardly even capitalism anymore. I will add that I prefer utilities be run by government subcontracting as needed to private firms (which can be cooperatives).
ReplyDeleteThe problems inherent in concept of “white privilege are well illustrated by the results of a massive study using the Gallup Daily Tracking survey microdata, collected from July 8, 2015 through October 11, 2016. Reached through random digit dialing of both cellular and landline phones, 132,815 American adults were asked if they hold a favorable view of Donald Trump over this period. About a third held a favorable view. The extensive data allowed a very find analysis of those people with the following results
ReplyDelete“ various measures of health, longevity, and intergenerational mobility at the community or zip code level do relate to the likelihood of viewing Trump favorably, and these data indicate that low levels of social or economic well-being are a factor in his support. Moreover, higher disability rates and greater reliance on Social Security income and the Earned Income Tax Credit are predictive of Trump support. Education is also hugely important predictor of one’s views on Trump and suggests that his supporters are worse off than many Americans on that dimension.
The analysis provides clear evidence that those who view Trump favorably are disproportionately living in racially and culturally isolated zip codes and commuting zones. Holding other factors, constant support for Trump is highly elevated in areas with few college graduates and in neighborhoods that standout within the larger commuting zone for being white, segregated enclaves, with little exposure to blacks, Asians, and Hispanics.
This is consistent with contact theory, which has already received considerable empirical support in the literature in a variety of analogous contexts. Limited interactions with racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and college graduates may contribute to prejudicial stereotypes, political and cultural misunderstandings, and a general fear of not-belonging.”
Contact theory has long maintained that the best way to overcome prejudice is to have personal contact with minorities. Without that personal contact very few Trump supporters are going to come to the conclusion that they have white privilege when all the data that surrounds them contradicts that. They have lived in the same place, having few personal relationships and few educational experiences with minorities. They and their neighbors believe what Fox, Breitbart and Trump tell them.
Besides “white privilege” we have a lot of educational and wealth privileges. I am all in favor of recognizing all those if it brings us to conversion about how we lead our own lives, and we become more sympathetic to those who are racially, educationally and financially in less privileged positions.
The problem comes when we try to impose our conversion on other people, and decide they are deplorable when they don’t agree with us.
Jack, I don't doubt your referenced statistics but I come into contact with well off, educated people who have had plenty of contact with other groups and they STILL support Trump and either ignore his shenanigans and incompetence or agree with them. The only commonality that is obvious is that they are Republicans. Once they were a political party that could be disagreed with but respected. Now they're some sort of cult given to denial and highly susceptible to deception.
ReplyDeleteThe study found a very constant 34% approval rating for Trump across the year, i.e. Trump's base. Of course as he got control of the Republican party, many Republicans supported him without approving of him completely.
DeleteI agree with your notion that for many Republicans it has become a cult. That was aided by the Religious Right who have become strong supporters of Trump. Both Evangelicals and Republicans since Goldwater have provided a "safe" haven for racial prejudice masking under more socially acceptable labels such as American exceptionalism and local control.
The are still many Republicans who for various reasons hope Trump may be useful without inflicting collateral damage on their interests.
In the end I think it is all going to come down to the economy, and the likelihood that we will have an economic slowdown or much worse. How deep that is and who gets blamed (Congress or Trump) are the key questions. Republicans are more favorable about Trump than the Republican Congress.
I think Republicans and Evangelicals underestimate how much Trump will cost them in the long run. Before Trump I was respectful of both although I disagreed with them on the issues. I think I am in the process of becoming prejudiced against both. The Republicans I know have not helped. They are very angry people. I am tempted to advise them to "see a doctor" which is the advice Francis gave to his cardinals in his lecture about spiritual diseases. When a cardinal asked whether that meant a physician or psychiatrist, Francis responded "Both!"
I know that Congress as a fuzzy entityentityentity gets marks even lower than Trump. But will that strongly influence their vote for THEIR senator or congressman? My highly gerrymandered district have put the waste of protoplasm Marino in at least twice and they probably will again. They hate congress but I'm sure McConnell and Rubio and the other femtobrains will do fine.
DeleteTrump is a two-headed Janus: on one side he encourages disaffected poor whites. On the other side he clearly favors deregs in biz for rich people.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing I can see in Trump that would appeal to the middle class--and the fact that he got elected shows how powerless we have become.
Jean, I think a lot of middle class people identify with the rich because they are wannabees. They think if the times are good for the uber rich maybe they will ride the rising tide too.
Delete