There, I said it, "I am racist!" But more importantly, I am anti-racist.
It is fascinating watching the news these days, as one stunned white person after another expresses their surprise that racism is still so pervasive. On various news programs over the past few weeks, I have seen a parade of labor leaders, elderly white folks in Florida, and others, express their surprise over the racist comments they hear from their neighbors and co-workers. On the other hand, an African-American woman being interviewed explains that this comes as no surprise to black folks, they see this racism everyday.
That, my friends, is privilege...
One of the most significant features of privilege is that those who experience it do not have to think about it. We have the privilege of obliviousness. While those who experience oppression and inequality are confronted with this reality on a daily basis, those who experience privilege often do not see how it impacts their own lives. Whiteness becomes both invisible, and assumed as the norm. So, for example, whiteness comes to represent the average, normal, universal human condition. This is what makes it so easy for many people to see Obama as someone "not like them."
How much of a role race will play in this election is unknown; the fact that it will is not in dispute. In The New York Times, one elderly gentleman being interviewed in Pennsylvania expressed: "I'm no racist, but I'm not crazy about him either...I don't know, maybe 'cause he's black." Privilege allows us to be racist without realizing it.
Part of the problem is that we think of racism as an individual quality. We see racists as nasty people who march around with white hoods burning crosses. But this actually reinforces racism. We need to shift from using "racist" as a noun, to an adjective. The reality is that white folks are racist; how can we grow up in this culture and not internalize racism?
The task that faces us is not to try and identify who is or is not a racist, but to examine the many invisible ways in which racism and white privilege pervade our lives, our views, our assumptions, and our opportunities. The question is not are we racist, but are we anti-racist? What are we doing to recognize and undermine racism and privilege as it shapes our life, day in and day out? We need to strive to make racism more visible, more conscious. Only once it is conscious can we work to undermine it.
While individuals benefit from privilege, it is not the result of anything that one has done as an individual. It comes from our social identities. And we can't just put an end to the privilege we receive. I can't tell a third of the cab drivers to just pass me by, or ask the police to start pulling me over more often.
Peggy McIntosh's well-known essay "White Privilege and Male Privilege," first helped me to recognize the influence of privilege in my own life. She noted that white privilege includes being able to assume that most of the people you or your children study in school will be of the same race; being able to go shopping without being followed; never being called a credit to one's race, or having to represent one's entire race.
People of privilege often do not realize the extent to which inequality is still pervasive, and often embrace a color-blind approach. A color-blind perspective assumes that discrimination is a thing of the past, and denies the reality of race and racial inequality today. The bloggers at racism review explain this well. While many people naively embrace color-blindness as non-racist, it reinforces and reproduces contemporary racial inequality. A color-blind approach might be benign in a world where everyone truly was starting on an equal playing field. However, centuries of what sociologist Joe Feagin calls "undeserved impoverishment and undeserved enrichment," give some of us a huge head start and helping hands along the way (see Feagin's Racist America).
The current discussions about race and the election is helping many people to see the dangers of color-blindness, in a culture where "the current dominant frames don't support race-consciousness. Tim Wise has blogged astutely about the ongoing centrality of white privilege this campaign season. The final debate provided further examples. Imagine, for just one moment, a black candidate displaying the kind of angry outbursts and expressions displayed by John McCain. McCain is allowed far greater latitude in how he expresses himself. White men can display their anger in public; black men cannot.
Many articles and researchers have been talking about the unconscious ways in which race might shape how we vote. The reality is that race will be a factor in this presidential election. Race is always a factor in our society. How much race impacts the election will depend, in part, on our willingness to really see race and consciously strive to be anti-racist. The answer is not to ignore it, but to increase its visibility. Focus on it, examine it, understand it, dismantle it.
Yes, I am racist. But I am also anti-racist.
Naive question number 1:
What does "privilege" have to do with the still-common statements I hear: "I think we're all beyond that now. If someone's not, they should be." and "That's in the past! Give me a break." --if anything?
I'm amazed at how many privileged people feel secure in this mind set.
With appreciation,
Jordon
And by the way, I proudly voted for Obama.
What do you see? Can you see the history of white skin? Can you imagine the difficulty of having darker skin?
If all you see is an idea of a person, you may be forgetting or omitting the reality of racism/prejudice and the history of oppression.
In college, one of my professors declared that like a recovering alcoholic, she was a recovering racist. I don't believe whites (or males, or heteros, or judeo-christian, or able-bodied, etc) can be cured of their privileges.
As the author suggests, if they are willing, whites must carry the contradictory and confusing idea that we are racists, but we can also work to be anti-racist.
My last thought is that I prefer to use the term "Pro-Equality" instead of anti-racist.
I also like to say I am Pro-Peace instead of anti-war.
I wonder what the author of this article thinks of positive instead of negative terminology?
I generally prefer positive to negative terminology as well, however, in this case, I think specifying what it is we are fighting against is as important as specifying what we are fighting for. I think that in general most people would consider themselves pro-equality, and at the same time may believe we have a pretty equitable society; using the term anti-racist, I think, implies a recognition of racism.
Terminology is always tricky, there is no one correct answer, and our language is always in flux....but these kinds of discussions help us think more about the language we use, and that is a positive thing!
Once at another customer's location, I was out with law enforcement (including the Chief and Sheriff) and fire personnel (including the deputy chief). We were at lunch, and one of them said that he was sorry that I wasn't in town later to take them to dinner. I said that I could stick around and take them if they wanted. Another one said, in an almost "Deliverance" drawl, "are you show you wanna be here after dark?" They all laughed, and I said that if the food was good enough, then I would. I was not fazed, and I will not live my life in fear, or as a victim. I understand that there are some who thrive on attempting to go back to the old days, but we (African Americans) just have to put up with it, until the level of discourse, intellect and communications are raised.
We (African Americans) see, hear and experience racism everyday, in both covert and overt forms. We don't just have to "do what we are paid to do", but we also have to always be: better, faster, smarter, cooler, calmer, more patient, harder working, more diligent and just ... (fill in the blank) to maintain status quo, let alone get ahead.
Those of you who are going to attack this with stupid remarks, please re-read Ms. Ferber's article.
Just my thoughts
TZR
I am in sales, and I have a lot of rural customers. Last week, I was at lunch with a customer and two of my co-workers. Midway thru lunch, the customer turns to me and asks if I know why he won't vote for Obama. I tell him "no, I don't". He says because he (the customer) is prejudiced. I would have given a month's paycheck to have captured my white co-workers' faces on film. When the customer noticed them, he grabs my shoulder and says that he isn't prejudiced against Obama's skin color, but against his name. (NO LIE) I told him that I sincerely hope that he is prejudiced against his color and NOT his name. (never stating just how much more ignorant his explanation made him seem). He then went on to explain about Muslim violence and such, and I spent way too much time (totally ignored) explaining that Muslims are a peace loving people, and that ALL religions have extremists.
We have repressed our feelings for so long since the 60's and now we have a leader that has allowed us to bring it out again.
I have thought - as a white, jewish female - I know NOTHING about being black, and when i see the horrible things that people have said over the past few months I think wow, this is what they live with every day of their lives!
As I mentioned in a previous post - I saw a clip on the news of a black woman - 105 years old! who voted today for a (1/2) black man - she LIVED to see this momentous occasion!
What pride she must feel - i know I felt pride watching her story.
I certainly can't understand what a black person goes through, but I think we now have the ability to at least sympathize with their plight.
There were only 3 people from the Caribbean, and none of us were specially talented, so we recounted the story of slavery, over the music of BOB MARLEY's Redemption Song which began "Old pirates, yes they robbed us,sold us to the merchant ship.."
When our presentation was over, several elderly Israeli women, met us with tears in their eyes "we did not know", they said "that your history was so much like ours"
The MAIN sin of slavery is not so much that we were enslaved, but that WHITE people have used the obvious differences in color to JUSTIFY excessive continued abuse- mental and economic- of the formerly enslaved peoples.
Jews had been enslaved, but after all, they looked like Egyptians - so when their slavery ended - it ENDED. Not so with us African peoples- our COLOR identified us as former slaves - but NOTHING ELSE....fact is, by the side of the NILE, the blackest people in the world - the Nubians, lived, and built pyramids, practiced mathematics, and astronomy.
Yes, black people invented the washing machine, the sewing machine and peanut butter. And the cotton gin.
I also feel that racism or any prejudice is self-hatred projected outwards. We need to look at our own denial, our own unhealed stuff, recognize it without judgement and take the steps to self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others. Racism is fear. Anything that isn't love is fear. I don't believe that anything existgs outside our mind, so I come from a metaphyiscal perspective when I look at race
Thanks for the blog,
Carol Perkoski
Cleveland, OH
But the great thing about human learning, is that we actually never stop doing it until we die. Thus, becoming reflective, more thoughtful, frankly more "emotionally intelligent" is as Abby says, "the answer...not to ignore it, but to increase its visibility. Focus on it, examine it, understand it, dismantle it." This is actually what I try and teach: self-reflection and examination of instilled attitudes and their destructive results. It is a skill I am certain can be taught; the younger, the better.
Actually, it's exactly what I think Barack Obama's presidential campaign is teaching us as it holds up a mirror of reflection to our own deep unconscious prejudices and asks us to face them. That's why I find his campaign so hopeful and his election as the 44th President of our country, even more exciting. We are a racist society, but we can learn. We must learn, from each other, for it is our only way to go beyond it to a society that allows the best of us all, and utilizes the gifts of our diversity to go forward successfully, together.
Thinking about Barack Obama, perhaps some of what attracts voters to him, is that although he appears black, he does not speak "black" and those who raised him were white. Somehow it makes him not so "black" to many Americans. He is more appealing as a composite of all of us. He will still have much to overcome, but his acceptance, I believe, has crossed the color line, because of his whiter blackness.