Contemplating Whiteness

Our Racism Recovery Groups are underway.  The first week of content and conversation focuses on Contemplating Our Whiteness.

In a time like this, the challenge to do so feels absolutely clear and critical.  But the truth is, many of us haven't thought much about it.  We haven't had to.  Or wanted to.

I first encountered the term "white privilege" in theology school. I was taking a course called, Black Consciousness and the Civil Rights Movement, with a class that was about 50/50 students of color and white students, taught by a powerful, provocative black professor.  It was harrowing. And transformative. I remember crying with other white woman in the bathroom during the breaks, as some of my most cherished beliefs about myself (I'm not racist. I don't see skin color. I am rewarded for my merits, not my skin color) began to unravel.

We read Peggy McIntosh's classic piece, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." I had never heard the term "white privilege". And frankly, I hated it. You may recall, she names all these things white people can do, for the most part without fear, struggle or any kind of backlash: shopping in a store, renting or buying a home, getting pulled over by the police, seeing people like ourselves in groups, books, history. I got indignantly defensive. How are these privileges? Why should I feel bad or guilty that I can do these things? These are things every human should be able to do!

Exactly. There's the truth. AND my complete blindness to actual reality.

You see, I only intimately knew my own experience as a white woman, an experience that was overwhelmingly safe and comfortable, that followed what I thought of as the American script: Work hard. Apply yourself. Stay out of trouble. And the good things you desire - education, family, meaningful work, a home and things to enjoy-- will come to you. I naively thought this was true for every American, regardless of race or ethnicity. Here McIntosh was, waking me up to the reality that people of color often have a vastly different experience than my own. If I didn't want to believe her, I was face-to-face with fifty classmates, narrating in disturbing detail both the egregious and everyday injustices they experienced.  

It was painful to hear their truth, and once I did, I could not un-hear it. I had to come to terms with the gross racial inequities in our society.  And I've been wrestling ever since with the moral dissonance: how as a white person you can passionately believe in equality and justice, and at the same time benefit from the racial inequality. Even when you're painfully aware of it, it can feel hard to know what to do. What exactly does it mean to "give up" one's white privilege, when you can't give up having white skin?   

That class experience also led me to wonder:  How do we cultivate greater awareness of the racial disparities among us? We can all read data and statistics I know, but I don't think data and statistics change human hearts. When we only know our own experience, or see and hear others who are also white, how do we really know and understand what it's like to live in America with black or brown skin? I know, this seems like such an obvious point, but I'm amazed how often I hear white people talk about encounters or situations involving people of other races or ethnicities, but it's their own white experience of or perspective on it, not that of the people inhabiting it. When do we actually listen to their stories, their experiences, their struggles, rather than projecting our own white racial scripts onto them?

The sad truth is that before grad school, I had mostly lived separate from people of color. I grew up in Savannah, which was racially diverse, but very segregated. I lived in a white neighborhood, attended a white, private school, and attended a white church. Of course, we didn't say they were "white" at the time. But they absolutely were; I could count on one hand the non-white persons in any one of them. There were more students of color at my small, liberal arts college, but again, we mostly segregated ourselves at separate tables in the dining hall, different social groups. I had very few experiences or dialogues with black people, and certainly none that focused explicitly on their experience of being black in America.   

As hard and painful as that seminary course was, I have been so grateful for it in retrospect. Turns out, it was the most racially diverse community, and most searchingly honest conversation about race I would ever have to date. Because as we know, while we may have grown in our racial consciousness, many of us still live largely segregated lives. I am grateful to now live in a racially diverse neighborhood in Atlanta, but when I think about the people with whom I'm in community on a regular basis - through our church, workplaces and our kids' schools, they are still not that racially or ethnically diverse. There are complex reasons for that, I know.  And I think we have to watch that our desire for diversity and inclusion does not supersede others' need for safety. But still, I wonder how those of us born white acknowledge and heal our racial prejudices when we're not in trusting relationships and authentic dialogue with those born brown and black.    

I think often of this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr:

I am convinced most [humans] hate each other

because they fear each other.

They fear each other because they don't know each other.

They don't know each other because

they don't communicate with each other.

And they don't communicate with each other because

they are separated from each other.

How true, how true. How sadly still true. And I think of one of Brené Brown's chapters entitled People are Harder to Hate Close Up. Move In. in her most recent book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. She writes, We're going to need to intentionally be with people who are different than us. We're going to have to sign up, join, and take a seat at the table. We're going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain, and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness.

I want that. I imagine we can all agree we'd like less misunderstanding and disparity, less hate and fear.  Question is: What are we going to do to move in closer, to bridge the separation? I know the answer will be different for all of us, and most likely, it will take some real intentionality and effort to overcome all the barriers we've erected between us. But I hope we'll find the courage to pull up a seat and really listen to those who are different than us.