As Tim Wise points out again and again on his website (timwise.org) – the concept of antiracist racism is all about perspective. This seems simplistic, but in a society in which “White Privilege” is the water we swim in, so to speak, suddenly seeing the edges of our social construct as a complete set-up as opposed to seeing it as “normal” or “natural” – like Neo waking up in The Matrix – is surreal at the very least, but, possibly, it is also life changing.
What if, for instance, young America started actually equating Nicki and Paris Hilton (Wise “Overclass” 319) with leeches – the way they may currently see, thanks to Mom and Dad, the poor Wise talks about in “Collateral Damage?” In other words, what if they saw them as people living off society’s good graces; what on earth would happen to MTV? To the Red Carpet?
The word Cheryl L. Harris uses in “Whiteness As Property” – and one I have associated with “white privilege” from the moment my eyes began to open – is “oblivious” (77). We are, especially those of us who consider ourselves to be card-carrying, left-leaning liberals, oblivious. We see the outward effects of racism – the poverty, the skewed crime statistics – and we think: “Oh, what a shame; something really needs to be done about this.” Then, we dutifully vote appropriately when a ballot issue appears – never really, I’m certain, following up on what happens after the initiative we voted for (or against – and probably spent long hours involved in intellectual debate over before the election) passes or doesn't pass. If it passes – did it do what it said it would do? If it doesn’t, what happened to the marginalized groups who suffer still because it did or didn’t pass? Do we ever ask? Do we really care? Voting is an intellectual exercise, which means nothing – and even less than nothing if, as Malcolm X claimed in “The Ballot or the Bullet” you “don’t even consider [yourself] an American” (487).[1]
The word Cheryl L. Harris uses in “Whiteness As Property” – and one I have associated with “white privilege” from the moment my eyes began to open – is “oblivious” (77). We are, especially those of us who consider ourselves to be card-carrying, left-leaning liberals, oblivious. We see the outward effects of racism – the poverty, the skewed crime statistics – and we think: “Oh, what a shame; something really needs to be done about this.” Then, we dutifully vote appropriately when a ballot issue appears – never really, I’m certain, following up on what happens after the initiative we voted for (or against – and probably spent long hours involved in intellectual debate over before the election) passes or doesn't pass. If it passes – did it do what it said it would do? If it doesn’t, what happened to the marginalized groups who suffer still because it did or didn’t pass? Do we ever ask? Do we really care? Voting is an intellectual exercise, which means nothing – and even less than nothing if, as Malcolm X claimed in “The Ballot or the Bullet” you “don’t even consider [yourself] an American” (487).[1]
In “Whites Swim in Racial Preference,” Wise writes that when white people try to put themselves in the place of marginalized groups – that is, they try to imagine what it would be like to be black, Latino/a, etc. – they, the white people – “[presume] that if [they] had grown up black [or in any other marginalized situation], everything else about their lives would have remained the same” (243).
The thing is, there is just no way I – or any other white person – can ever know (unless reincarnation is a reality – and what good is that without memory?) what it feels like to walk around with the “mark of Cain” painted clearly on my skin – where everything I do is suspect, where my very presence causes discomfort in a room full of white people.
I used to fool myself into thinking I was colorblind – now I have to call my own bull*#%$ for such an obvious lie. When I see a person of color, I don’t not notice they are black, or Latina/o, or Asian – of course I notice. What’s more, when I see them coming I immediately start checking myself for discomfort, for feelings that might paint me with a less obvious mark than that of skin color – with the mark of a racist. And, these are just the thoughts I know to check after years of self-reflection – what about those parts of the water I still can’t see I’m swimming in because I am so immersed?
When I read Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” I had a thought; it seemed like such a simple, almost nonsensical thought at first, but it began to grow on me. She wrote: “whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average” – what would it be like to be me, to be in this society, if I didn’t have the comfort of this foundational assumption underlying everything I do? I started to realize, almost immediately, the ramifications to me personally – I might never have come back to school at the age of forty – the idea that haunted me, the judgment that hung over me from the time I was kicked out of the University of Colorado in the early eighties and the subsequent path I took – marrying, having children instead - these were White ideals. These were the expectations of a white, middleclass upbringing. For most of my adult life, I felt a stigma attached to myself – like a visible stain (back to the “mark of Cain?”) – because I had no college degree. Until I turned forty and made the determination to rectify the situation, running from that stigma defined my identity. And, that was just me, myself, and I. What about the dominated cultures who live with that expectation hanging over them – who live with that “Mark of the Uneducated” everyday but have no reasonable way to "erase" that stain (not that my stain is erased, but as I meet new people who don't know about my past, in a way I am "passing" as the acceptable white woman).
When I read Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” I had a thought; it seemed like such a simple, almost nonsensical thought at first, but it began to grow on me. She wrote: “whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average” – what would it be like to be me, to be in this society, if I didn’t have the comfort of this foundational assumption underlying everything I do? I started to realize, almost immediately, the ramifications to me personally – I might never have come back to school at the age of forty – the idea that haunted me, the judgment that hung over me from the time I was kicked out of the University of Colorado in the early eighties and the subsequent path I took – marrying, having children instead - these were White ideals. These were the expectations of a white, middleclass upbringing. For most of my adult life, I felt a stigma attached to myself – like a visible stain (back to the “mark of Cain?”) – because I had no college degree. Until I turned forty and made the determination to rectify the situation, running from that stigma defined my identity. And, that was just me, myself, and I. What about the dominated cultures who live with that expectation hanging over them – who live with that “Mark of the Uneducated” everyday but have no reasonable way to "erase" that stain (not that my stain is erased, but as I meet new people who don't know about my past, in a way I am "passing" as the acceptable white woman).
There are so many questions attached to this thought – do subjects from marginalized cultures feel that stigma – of course, they have to, because they are made to feel that way every time they step into the workforce and have to settle for less responsibility (therefore less pay) – does this mean we ought to make it possible for everyone to get, and complete, a college education – or is that a White Ideal? Maybe the system should be changed so that college is no longer the test for intelligence and possibility. This -public education - is a fundamental, weight-bearing wall on which the structure of our current society is built; if we move it, or change it, or take it away – what kind of collapse would there be? If we decide the cost is high, should we continue to pretend everything’s okay the way it is – the answer is clear: we must take the risk, if we decide it is what we must do, whatever that turns out to be. If we see the water we swim in is becoming polluted with our own stuff – we need to make the decision to clean it up, regardless of risk.
[1] Malcolm X. “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Composition I: Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies. Southlake: Fountainhead Press, 2009.
