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"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body." --Margaret Sanger
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"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
May
31
On White Privilege
Filed Under bigotry, discrimination, race and racism | Posted by Cara |
I imagine that this may be difficult for some people to read.
There are two posts over at Feministing in the last 24 hours that have really affected me. The first was by Samhita about white cultural appropriation. The post is in no way perfect. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it. But I think that there is definitely a valid theory behind it. And the comments to that thread were absolutely appalling. So appalling, in fact, that Jen felt the need to write a post called “you don’t have to think you’re a racist to say racist things.”.
I recommend reading them both, comments included. Usually, I advocate removing racist comments. But the fact that there was such a large group of people making these arguments and doing so with such passion, I think, not only justifies leaving them up, but requires it. If we don’t get to see what people really feel, if we block out racism as something isolated, we’re never going to get anywhere.
There are a few things that are amazing to me. Firstly, there is the fact that so many people do not understand the concept of “white privilege.” This is still something that I, myself, am struggling to learn about and recognize in myself and come to terms with. But so many white people cannot even recognize its existence that by being white, you innately have privilege and advantage over people of color. A few times, it was stated that “white privilege is not knowing that you have it.” That sounds, on the surface, almost like a flippant comment. But it’s not. It’s strikingly true. White privilege is having the opportunity to not think daily about your skin color. How many of us who are white can honestly say to ourselves that we regularly think about our skin color? I can’t. I’m trying to do so more, because I think it’s important. But I don’t. Until recently, I have thought about the fact that I am white only extremely rarely. Being white is accepted. It is the default, in our culture, until determined otherwise. When you are a person of color, you do not have the privilege of not thinking about your skin color, because it is constantly pointed out to you. People behave differently towards you. People take your opinion less seriously or pass over your resume because you have a “black” sounding name. You may get dirty looks because you speak Spanish in public. As a woman, you try to buy foundation, or a flesh colored bra and you can’t. Etc., etc., etc. Privilege is, indeed, having the privilege to not recognize that you’re privileged.
Another thing that amazes me is how personally offended people feel when the fact that they are privileged is observed. In saying that you are privileged, no one is insulting you. Pointing out that what you are saying comes from a perspective of privilege is an opportunity to reflect seriously upon what you are saying. But time after time, all I see is defensiveness. In those notes, I actually saw posters claiming that a white man “ironically” wearing a bandanna in a “gang-banger” style is the same as a black man wearing a suit. And then I saw them claiming that such a statement does not come from a place of privilege. Why, I must ask, is it so difficult for white people to accept that in being born, we did not start out on equal footing as the black baby born at the same time? In a perfect world, we would have. But we were all born into an established culture against our will, and closing our eyes to the fact that we were given more opportunities in our lives by the “virtue” of being born white does not make it go away. In our lifetimes, I’m sad to say, nothing will.
Finally (at least, for what I’m willing to say in this discussion), I am constantly shocked by the way in which white people constantly and obliviously exercise their privilege. I saw several people commenting on the fact that “no matter what we (white people) do, it’s never good enough.”
1. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.
2. No, recognizing that you are white and other people are black, Hispanic, Arabic, Asian, etc. is not enough.
3. Neither is participating in a conversation about racism. Acknowledging that racism exists does not absolve you of your own racism. It only allows you the opportunity to learn from it.
4. Recognizing your own privilege does not absolve you, either. It allows you to work towards change and to lessen the impact of your privilege, but it does not make it go away.
5. Lastly, this is not a game that you win by saying the right thing. This is people’s lives. This is about changing the very structure of our culture. If by “good enough,” you mean “case closed, we don’t have to deal with this anymore or confront our white privilege ever again,” then no, nothing you do IS good enough, because you’re having the wrong conversation.
Most of this, I believe, can be realized by simply listening.
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Comments
13 Comments so far
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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." —Margaret Mead
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"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less." -- Susan B. Anthony
Yes, it’s so important to listen. I can’t even see how I could decide it was my place to come and make comments about how I see things on a thread like that. Here, yes, because you’re my friend, but in a big discussion like that? I’m going to sit back and LISTEN and LEARN.
Exactly. Usually I keep my mouth shut and just read on such topics. I spoke up on that thread simply because I felt the need to combat the racism and really didn’t want to POC commenters to feel as though Feministing (a site which I frequent daily) is a racist board filled with a bunch of clueless, bigoted white women, or that they were being ostracized and it was an issue of all whites vs all POCs. It fucking sucks no matter what way you look at it.
I didn’t agree with everything in Samhita’s post, either, but I spoke up when the comments got shitty. I spoke up because people ALWAYS do that to Samhita’s posts. It bummed me out that a few of the same people who trashed Nubian were being their racist selves on that thread, too.
I think that a lot of white feminists think that they’re immune to racism the same way that progressive men (Markos) seem to think that they can’t possibly be sexist.
People there seem to ALWAYS get really shitty anytime someone brings up POC issues. It really sucks, because otherwise there are a lot of really cool people who I like conversing with there.
And you’re definitely right about thinking that you have immunity just because you’re liberal. Which would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. The “What do you mean? I can’t possibly be a racist! I’m a feminist!” really makes absolutely zero sense. I mean, you would like to think that it would be true. But it’s clearly not.
Amen. I really like Feministing - it was my introduction to the feminist blogosphere. But to see the sheer amount of racism in those threads, even after the whole FFF fiasco…I was just lost for words.
“the whole FFF fiasco”
Okay - have seen this referrenced countless times - what is this?
Lya– a lot of WOC bloggers took issue with Jessica of Feministing’s book Full Frontal Feminism. They felt that it was not inclusive of WOC and extremely white-centered and not for “young women” but for “young middle-class white women.” [Haven't read the book, can't say]. Things got really ugly when Jessica’s fans started replying nastily and accusing those bloggers of things like jealousy and then a whole bunch of racism came out and the WOC bloggers got a lot more upset and started relating experiences on Feministing (like this one) where racism was directed at them . . . BIG fiasco.
I don’t have the words to express how sick of the feminist fiascos I am.
Which is not to say that this particular one wasn’t valid - I’m just really really sick of feminists fighting each other, instead of the actual enemy.
I’ve been away on business all week, so I haven’t seen the explosion, and if it’s as big as I imagine it to be, I’m unlikely to wade through the hundreds of comments that there will probably be, but it really doesn’t surprise me, even as it disappoints.
Checking privilege is hard. No doubt. It’s hard to be confronted by it. It’s hard when someone calls you on being shitty, or even on just having the privlege of shittiness being accepted. I’m going to read the posts when I’m back from business (I’m actually going over my allotted time just responding to this!), but, geez.
As a straight guy, I realize that I have to pay attention to my privlege. I have to take the time to recognize that my maleness and straightness afford me certain bonuses. Any time you’re coming at something from a position of relative power or dom, you have to expect that there are going to be things you miss- privilege that you don’t notice.
It’s tremendously disappointing (even if not entirely surprising) when people that I think of as progressive fall into the same traps as the people that we’re fighting and trying to change and educate. Just like people expect me to look beyond my experiences (rightly) when dealing with feminism, since I’m a man, I expect other people to show the respect and consideration to at least consider what is being said when dealing with other issues.
Very frustrating.
Thanks, Roy. I was wondering where you were!
In addition to being white, I’m a transwoman, so the issue becomes more complicated for me, as I get a lot of antitrans harressment from many people, including people of color.
I have become aware of my own privilege, and the racism that comes with that, only recently. I’m really struggling with this issue of my white privilege vs. lack of cisgender (non-trans) privilege.
About a week ago, I was getting gas, and a black man asked me for money. I turned him down. He got mad, started yelling, and called me cracker. Ok, that’s fine, I really don’t have cause for complaint here - I think I need to suck that up, rather than start crying about “reverse racism” bullshit. And I have to rethink my position on not giving money to those who ask for it. My reasoning has to do with “they’ll use it for drugs and alcohol”, but really, is my reasoning based on my privilege / racism?
But, then, he saw my painted toenails and earrings, called me “faggot bitch” repeatedly and spit on me over and over. In the minds of many, there’s no difference between queer / trans - we are all “faggots” to them.
Now, am I supposed to just suck that up too? Because the sense I get, is that because I am white, I have no right to point out misogyny / homophobia / transphobia in people of color, or to get upset and frightened when it is directed at me.
Although he began with attacking my whiteness, he turned his attack to my transness, and became particularly abusive when he did so. I’m sorry, but I cannot accept this from anyone, regardless of the race of the other person involved. I will not be trans-harrassed / bashed and just “suck it up” because it happened to come from a person of color.
Rachelphilipa, there are many kinds of privilege. There is white privilege. There is male privilege. There is class privilege, heterosexual privilege, and yes, cisgender privilege. What happened to you was absolutely wrong. I would also like to point out that it had nothing to do with race. I imagine that what occurred in this situation is that this man felt resentful of your white privilege (whether legitimately or not) and then saw that he had a different privilege over you.
I do not think that this is okay. It is not okay for me to exercise white privilege over a black man because he has male privilege over me. What he did was an abuse of his privilege, a blatant attack on your personhood and on your body. However, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with his race.
[...] years ago, I started seriously thinking about my consumption patterns, materialism, heterosexism, white privilege and Audre Lorde’s [...]