White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son (33 page)
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Authors: Tim Wise
Tags: #History, #Politics, #Sociology, #Memoir, #Race
BOOK: White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son
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BY NOW, THE
lessons were coming fast and furious: lessons about systemic injustice and how to fight it, lessons about how easy it was to fall prey to some of the stereotypes so common to the larger culture, and lessons about privilege.
lessons were coming fast and furious: lessons about systemic injustice and how to fight it, lessons about how easy it was to fall prey to some of the stereotypes so common to the larger culture, and lessons about privilege.
In the latter case, I was starting to realize how my job insecurity and shaky financial situation for the past few years had said very little about my larger access to opportunity and advantage. Yes, I had struggled, and those struggles had been real. But the fact had remained that I was a college graduate, educated at one of the nation’s finest universities, which I had only been able to access because my mother could take out that loan using my grandmother’s house as collateral—a house that had only been accessible to our family because we were white. What’s more, I had built up a solid work history beginning with the anti-Duke effort, which ultimately was going to pay off (a work history that had been made possible because I had known the two guys who started the anti-Duke organization, whom I’d met at Tulane, which place I had only been able to access because of the loan and the collateral and the white thing mentioned above); and, if things hadn’t worked out, I could always have moved home for a while. I had options, in other words. They were options that almost no one I would meet in public housing had, and options that had far more to do with privilege than with my own hard work.
As bad as 1994 had been for me—and even as bad as the first six weeks of ’95 had gone—by the middle of the year things were headed in the opposite direction. The work with Agenda was the most rewarding in which I had ever been involved. Especially important was the antiracist analysis that animated their efforts on behalf of families and children. While many groups that work on matters of poverty give short shrift to racism, preferring to discuss class issues in a colorblind vacuum, Agenda rejected that approach. In large part, this was due to their affiliation with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a New Orleans–based group founded in 1980 by Ron Chisom and the late Jim Dunn, which by the mid-1990s had become one of the premier groups in the nation working to undo racism. As a condition of working at Agenda, all staff had to attend an Undoing Racism workshop, put on by the Institute, within the first year of becoming employed there. A few months after joining the team, it would be my turn to go.
As excited as I was to attend the Institute training, I was also a bit nervous. I had met some of the key players in the Institute and had great respect for them all, but I also had heard horror stories from others about what their trainings were like. “Oh, they’re gonna make you feel guilty for being white,” some had warned. “Oh, they’re gonna try and make all the white people cry,” added others. Though I had a hard time reconciling those warnings with the people I was meeting thanks to my connections with Agenda—not only Ron, but also Barbara Major, and certain key white trainers with the Institute like David Billings, Marjorie Freeman, or Diana Dunn—I couldn’t help but wonder. The people giving me these warnings were friends, after all, and people whose political sensibilities I trusted.
Several years earlier, I had been so convinced that the Institute’s
modus operandi
was the provocation of white guilt that I’d refused to sit through a discussion on white privilege and antiracist accountability led by Bay Area organizer (and now good friend) Sharon Martinas. Sharon had been brought to Loyola University by the Institute, and although I had attended, along with a local activist from Pax Christi—the Catholic Peace and Justice organization—we ended up leaving early, so incredulous were we about the supposed guilt-tripping that we saw as the root of the group’s analysis. I can recall walking to John’s car, imitating Wayne and Garth from the recurring SNL skit, “Wayne’s World,” saying, “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy,” as if somehow that had been the message of Sharon and the Institute—that somehow white people were inherently bad and unable to be antiracist allies. Fact is, we hadn’t wanted to look at our privilege; so much so, in fact, that rather than process it, we drove over to the back of Audubon Park, parked in a dark gravel lot, and proceeded to smoke a joint, entirely missing the irony.
modus operandi
was the provocation of white guilt that I’d refused to sit through a discussion on white privilege and antiracist accountability led by Bay Area organizer (and now good friend) Sharon Martinas. Sharon had been brought to Loyola University by the Institute, and although I had attended, along with a local activist from Pax Christi—the Catholic Peace and Justice organization—we ended up leaving early, so incredulous were we about the supposed guilt-tripping that we saw as the root of the group’s analysis. I can recall walking to John’s car, imitating Wayne and Garth from the recurring SNL skit, “Wayne’s World,” saying, “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy,” as if somehow that had been the message of Sharon and the Institute—that somehow white people were inherently bad and unable to be antiracist allies. Fact is, we hadn’t wanted to look at our privilege; so much so, in fact, that rather than process it, we drove over to the back of Audubon Park, parked in a dark gravel lot, and proceeded to smoke a joint, entirely missing the irony.
But once the first day of the training began, it was obvious that it was to be nothing like the warnings I’d received. The trainers engaged us in discussions and exercises that calmly but clearly allowed all the participants to see how institutional racism operated (often in spite of the people in certain institutional spaces being perfectly lovely and caring folks), and how the flipside of oppression—namely, privilege—adhered to members of the dominant racial group, irrespective of our own personal “goodness.” Although there was certainly discussion about the way that all whites had internalized certain biases, having been raised in a culture that so readily teaches them, there was also a discussion of how people of color had inculcated those biases against themselves, and often acted from a place of internalized oppression. In other words, the Institute was clear that we were all damaged by this system. It wasn’t just white folks who’d been messed up. There was nothing about the training that was intended to produce guilt. A sense of responsibility, both individual and collective? Yes. But guilt? Absolutely not.
Most impactful was how clear the trainers were about the damage done to whites in the process of internalizing white supremacy and accepting privilege. One of the most telling moments came when Ron asked the participants what we liked about being whatever it is that we were, racially speaking. What did black folks like about being black? And what did whites like about being white?
For most whites, it was a question to which we had never given much thought. Looks of confusion spread across most of our faces as we struggled to find an answer. Meanwhile, people of color came up with a formidable list almost immediately. They liked the strength of their families, the camaraderie, the music, the culture, the rhythms, the customs, their color, and they mentioned most prominently, the perseverance of their ancestors in the face of great odds.
When it was our turn, we finally came up with a list, and it was the same one offered pretty much every time I ask the question to white folks around the country. We like not being followed around in stores on suspicion of being shoplifters. We like the fact that we’re not presumed out of place on a college campus or in a high-ranking job. We like the fact that we don’t have to constantly overcome negative stereotypes about intelligence, morality, honesty, or work ethic, the way people of color so often do.
Once finished, we began to examine the lists offered by both sides. The contrast was striking. Looking at the items mentioned by people of color, one couldn’t miss the fact that all of the attributes listed were actually about personal strength or qualities possessed by the participants, and in which they took real pride. The list was tangible and meaningful. The white list was quite different. Staring at the entries, it was impossible to miss that
none
of what we liked about being white had anything to do with us. None of it had to do with internal qualities of character or fortitude. Rather, every response had to do less with what we liked about being white than what we liked about
not
being a person of color. We were defining ourselves by a negative, providing ourselves with an identity rooted in the relative oppression of others, without which we would have had
nothing
to say. Without a system of racial domination and subordination, we would have been able to offer no meaningful response to the question.
none
of what we liked about being white had anything to do with us. None of it had to do with internal qualities of character or fortitude. Rather, every response had to do less with what we liked about being white than what we liked about
not
being a person of color. We were defining ourselves by a negative, providing ourselves with an identity rooted in the relative oppression of others, without which we would have had
nothing
to say. Without a system of racial domination and subordination, we would have been able to offer no meaningful response to the question.
As became clear in that moment, inequality and privilege were the only real components of whiteness. Without racial privilege there is no whiteness, and without whiteness, there is no racial privilege. Being white means to be advantaged relative to people of color, and pretty much
only
that. Our answers had laid bare the truth about white privilege: in order to access it, one first had to give up all the meaningful cultural, personal, and communal attributes that had once kept our peoples alive in Europe and during our journeys here. After all, we had come from families that once had the kinds of qualities we now were seeing listed before us by people of color. We had had customs, traditions, music, culture, and style—things to be celebrated and passed down to future generations. Even more, we had come from resistance cultures—most Europeans who came had been the losers of their respective societies, since the winners rarely felt the need to hop on a boat and leave where they were—and these resistance cultures had been steeped in the notion of resisting injustice, and of achieving solidarity. But to become white required that those things be sublimated to a new social reality in which resistance was not the point. To become the power structure was to view the tradition of resistance with suspicion and contempt.
only
that. Our answers had laid bare the truth about white privilege: in order to access it, one first had to give up all the meaningful cultural, personal, and communal attributes that had once kept our peoples alive in Europe and during our journeys here. After all, we had come from families that once had the kinds of qualities we now were seeing listed before us by people of color. We had had customs, traditions, music, culture, and style—things to be celebrated and passed down to future generations. Even more, we had come from resistance cultures—most Europeans who came had been the losers of their respective societies, since the winners rarely felt the need to hop on a boat and leave where they were—and these resistance cultures had been steeped in the notion of resisting injustice, and of achieving solidarity. But to become white required that those things be sublimated to a new social reality in which resistance was not the point. To become the power structure was to view the tradition of resistance with suspicion and contempt.
So while the folks of color in the room would have dearly loved to be able to claim for themselves the privileges filling the white folks’ pages on the flipchart, we would have just as dearly loved to be able to claim for ourselves even
one
of the meaningful qualities mentioned by people of color. But we couldn’t.
one
of the meaningful qualities mentioned by people of color. But we couldn’t.
To define yourself by what you’re not is a pathetic and heartbreaking thing. It is to stand bare before a culture that has stolen your birthright, or rather, convinced you to give it up; and the costs are formidable, beginning with the emptiness whites often feel when confronted by multiculturalism and the connectedness of people of color to their heritages. That emptiness gets filled up by privilege and ultimately forces us to become dependent on it, forcing me to wonder just how healthy the arrangement is in the long run, despite the advantages it provides.
IN ADDITION TO
Agenda for Children, the spring of 1995 brought with it yet another professional opportunity. In the summer of the previous year, one of the only good things to happen had been that a progressive speaker’s bureau in California, Speak Out, had called to let me know that they’d like to add me to their roster of speakers, educators, and artists. Though they couldn’t promise me that I’d get any speaking engagements, they were going to add me to their catalog, which they sent each year to thousands of colleges and other organizations.
Agenda for Children, the spring of 1995 brought with it yet another professional opportunity. In the summer of the previous year, one of the only good things to happen had been that a progressive speaker’s bureau in California, Speak Out, had called to let me know that they’d like to add me to their roster of speakers, educators, and artists. Though they couldn’t promise me that I’d get any speaking engagements, they were going to add me to their catalog, which they sent each year to thousands of colleges and other organizations.
I had actually sent them a packet of material back in 1993, thinking that perhaps the lessons of the anti-Duke campaigns would be of interest to folks across the nation, but they had turned me down. Undaunted, I had applied again the next year and this time they had found a place for me. “Don’t quit your day job,” they had counseled (which was no problem, seeing as how I didn’t have one at the time), but hopefully they’d be able to get me out on the road, where I could share my own insights and meet with organizers and activists around the country.
In March of 1995, I got my first speaking engagements, at the Chicago Teacher’s Center and Northeastern Illinois University, respectively. It was bitter cold and I was running a fever by the time I got to Midway airport. But I did the best I could under the circumstances.
At Northeastern I spoke to a number of sociology classes about everything from affirmative action to hate crime activity to media-generated racial stereotypes. After one of my talks, a young white woman in the front row raised her hand somewhat tentatively and asked how I was received doing this work, as a white man, by black people. I asked why she was curious about this, trying to figure out the motivation for her question.
“Well,” she said, “I would love to do the kind of work you do, but I’m afraid black people won’t trust me, won’t accept my contribution, and so I’m just wondering how you think blacks feel about you. Do you think they like you, or that they still don’t really trust you?”
Although I was brand new to nationwide lecturing, I had been doing antiracism work in some capacity for several years (and was working in several black communities in New Orleans), so I explained that based on my experience, I had never personally felt any hatred or resentment on the part of black folks. Of course there is going to be some mistrust up front, and in fact, I’d be worried about any person of color who
didn’t
look at whites who choose to fight racism a bit suspiciously. They’ve been burned too many times to take it for granted that we’re serious and in it for the long haul.
didn’t
look at whites who choose to fight racism a bit suspiciously. They’ve been burned too many times to take it for granted that we’re serious and in it for the long haul.
It was then that I noticed a young black woman in the back row who had her hand up and wanted desperately to talk. I had observed her facial expressions all throughout my speech, and could read her body language well enough to know that she simply wasn’t buying anything I was selling. Thinking this might make for an interesting interaction given the white woman’s fears and concerns—not to mention, the African American woman clearly wanted to be called on—I pointed to her and asked her for her input. Her response was classic, and perfect for the situation.
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