On White Privilege

July 29 – On White Privilege

Question 1

The video True Colors from ABC Primetime Live is almost 30 years old now (from 1991).  As I watched this segment, I thought of some of the privileges I have been given simply because I am a white, heterosexual, Christian male.  Privileges that even 10 years ago I was not aware of.  About this video Debby Irving writes,

 If I hadn’t watched this with a racially mixed group of workshop attendees, I might have underestimated the film’s validity in the year 2010. As soon as the lights came up, however, the people of color shook their heads and looked at each other in camaraderie, while the white participants sat wide-eyed and incredulous. (page 72)

True Colors Video (about 16 minutes in length) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_DF9Iu2xA

      What from the video rang true for you? 
What upset you?
What privileges have you received simply by being white?
What from this video contradicts the idea that in America, people fail or succeed based on individual effort?

 Question 2 - Daily Effects of White Privilege

Debby Irving writes, “It’s not enough to feel empathy toward people on the downside, white people must also see themselves on the upside to understand that discrimination results from privilege.”

 

Debby Irving references Peggy McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. The following is excerpted from Working Paper 189. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988), by Peggy McIntosh

 

Peggy McIntosh writes:  “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.  I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.   

Identify the statements that are true for you:

 1.      I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

 2.      I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

3.      If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

4.      I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

5.      I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6.      I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

7.      When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8.      I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9.      If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10.  I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11.  I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.

12.  I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13.  Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14.  I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

15.  I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16.  I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.

17.  I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18.  I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19.  I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20.  I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21.  I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

Why is it important to recognize white privilege?

Dominant White Culture

 On page 194, Debby Irving names beliefs and behaviors that make up dominant white culture. 

                  Ø  Conflict avoidance

Ø  Valuing formal education over life experience

Ø  Right to comfort/Entitlement

Ø  Sense of urgency

Ø  Competiveness

Ø  Emotional restraint

Ø  Judgmentalness

Ø  Either/or thinking

Ø  Belief in one right way

Ø  Defensiveness

Ø  Being status oriented

 She lists these in order to say: “Here are some dominant white culture ways of thinking and acting that are holding back efforts to dismantle racism.” 

On page 197, Debby Irving provides a continuum.  Statements on the left are often associated with the dominant white culture.  She states: “folks working to break patterns that maintain racism notice that thinking and acting in ways closer to the right side of the continuum can be useful in addressing racial healing.”  I invite you to take a minute and identify where you find yourself on that continuum.   

What did you learn about yourself?

Week Two - July 1

Wednesday, July 1

Question 1

Debby Irving remembers learning some of the following values and beliefs as a child:

• Money was mostly for accumulating; waste showed carelessness and flashiness.
• Accomplishment for anyone was simply a matter of intention and hard work.
• Being accomplished and busy were signs of good character.
• Complaining about anything was out of the question.
• Debby was expected to show emotional restraint, and keep an optimistic and chipper attitude at all times.  

What are some of the values and beliefs you learned as a child? How did you make sense of the fact that some people had great material wealth while others didn’t?

Question 2

Debby Irving writes: 

When we replaced the screens on our cabin’s front porch one summer, my parents had us carefully roll up and bind the old screens and set them off to the side “for the Indians.” Acts of charity for people I was taught to see as inferior fed right into my belief that the white race was not only better at achieving but an exceptionally generous and moral breed on whom others depended. Missing from my storyline was the part about how the land grant my family used to settle the town had been a catalyst for the demise of Native peoples.

As you think back to your high school or college history courses, whose “story” did you hear? White people, black people, brown people? What was included and what was left out?

Question 3

Debby Irving describes feeling “duped and alarmed” as she learned about government supported institutional racism. Following World War II, the “same GI Bill that had given white families like mine a socio-economic boost had left people of color out to dry.”

Watch the video (just over 6 minutes) "The House We Live In."

 

Has anything from this book, so far, upset your previous notions about why some people have great material wealth while others don’t? Why or why not?

Question 4

Debby Irving writes that systemic racism is far more than simply prejudice. She quotes a black woman who helped her understand the concept, “All racial groups have problems with people in other racial groups. White folks have not cornered the market on that. The difference between white folks and everybody else is that they have the power to turn those feelings into policy, law, and practice.’

 

How were lending practices following WWII an example of systemic racism? In your own words, how is undoing systemic racism different than encouraging diversity?

For further exploration of ideas presented in the first two sections of Waking up White

Podcast 1619:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/podcasts/1619-slavery-anniversary.html  Transcript is available on this sight as well.  I thought of this podcast as I learned a little bit about Lincoln's view on enslaved people that I was completely unaware of (on page 31 Debby Irving asks if you learned about Lincoln's view on enslaved black people).  

Debby Irving TED talk:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD5Ox5XNEpg