I Just Want to Feel Good About Being White Again
"We talk a lot about race in this land a lot, only nosotros don't include yous [in] the chat… I'one thousand interested in how you feel."
That's the open-ended question award-winning filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas poses to young white Americans in his (aptly named) new documentary: "White People."
The content of the film is interesting, but only scratches the surface. (To read a smart critique of "White People," go here.) But where the moving-picture show succeeds is in bringing up a basic truth that, unfortunately, many white people in this country are still terrified to face: We have to first talking about and interrogating our whiteness.
We are two white women. Nosotros are also self-described progressives and critical thinkers, who write professionally most the manner sexuality, gender and race intersect with the globe we live in. Nonetheless we however recognize an internalized reticence to engage in conversations most race and racism. Neither of us can retrieve a clear moment in our young lives during which we realized we were white, and what that meant. When we're pulled over past a cop, our biggest fearfulness is that nosotros might go an expensive speeding ticket. We have always seen faces that look like ours on TV and in movies. All of these things speak to the depth of our white privilege -- and the fact that people of colour certainly tin't say the same. We practice not live in a "post-racial" world.
The same mode men need to exist forced to confront, interrogate and reckon with masculinity in club to address sexism, white people need to face up their whiteness. And information technology is not the responsibility of people of color to educate white people about race. People of color don't need to exist taught that racism exists -- they live it every twenty-four hour period. Information technology shouldn't (and tin can't) be on their shoulders to enlighten the rest of us. Nosotros take to do that for ourselves.
Here are 11 things every white person who doesn't want to be Part Of The Problem should know:
1. Everyone has a race -- even yous.
"Racism is the fact that 'White' means 'normal' and that annihilation else is different," writer John Metta wrote in a blog published on HuffPost. Considering whiteness is viewed every bit the "default," white people have the privilege of distancing themselves from the concept of race or denying it altogether. The offset step towards combating structural racism is acknowledging its existence -- and the ways in which cultural ideas nigh whiteness prop up those structures.
2. For white people, talking about race is uncomfortable. For people of color, it's a necessity.
No, talking about race isn't fun. Against privileges and structures far larger than yourself -- ones which you may feel you lot take picayune-to-no control over or no idea how to modify -- will always exist uncomfortable. But… tough shit. "The entire give-and-take of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings," wrote Metta. (See: "white fragility.") Many people don't have the ability to ignore these issues, because they worry that the colour of their skin could mean dying in constabulary custody after existence pulled over for a routine traffic violation, or existence killed for walking downward the street wearing a hoodie, or being massacred by a white human in their business firm of worship. Discussions of racism can't exist dictated by the emotions of white people.
iii. You're not "color blind."
You practice see race. You lot make snap judgments. Pretending that you don't encounter race simply means that y'all haven't had to. Guess what? That's the epitome of privilege. People who are discriminated against don't go to just wake up and decide race doesn't matter, that information technology doesn't exist. Neither exercise you.
iv. Yous need to recognize that you benefit from white privilege in gild to move the chat forward.
As i student in the documentary noted, as a white person, "you don't have to bear witness you're one of the good ones." Think about how often that applies. If you lot're pulled over past a cop, your innocence is assumed. If yous're looking to move, your neighbors will believe yous're a skillful person without any proof. If you're shopping in a store, y'all won't be followed by an employee. Y'all don't get to choose whether you do good from white privilege or not -- information technology'due south the structures in place that automatically grants it to you. Denying that but makes you complicit in continuing that cycle.
five. #BlackLivesMatter doesn't suggest that other lives don't -- it'due south near making sure that black lives practise.
Presidential candidate Martin O'Malley learned this lesson after he said that all lives matter at the Netroots Nation conference. Of form they practice, but declaring information technology misses the indicate.
six. People of color are allowed to be angry about racism. Don't dismiss that anger, take it in.
Social change requires making some noise. As the Black Lives Matter protest at the Netroots Nation briefing proved, activists of color are going to concur all influencers -- allies or otherwise -- accountable. And doing so probably will involve "disruption," fueled in part by (righteous) acrimony. Every bit white people, we have to accept that anger is a natural response to being systematically oppressed. And it can be an effective tool. "Frustration. Anger. Silenced. Talked over. Ignored," reads a post on Eclecta Weblog, nearly the Netroots protestation. "Every single one of these emotions are felt acutely and painfully every unmarried twenty-four hour period by racial minority groups in our land."
7. Everyday racism is subtle and insidious.
Breathy racism is like shooting fish in a barrel to recognize, and easy to split up ourselves from. As President Barack Obama stated in a June podcast, "It'due south non merely a thing of information technology not being polite to say 'nigger' in public. That's non the measure of whether racism however exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior." Racism is everywhere -- black actors and actresses are sidelined in Hollywood. In the workplace, the wage gap hits blackness women and Latina women the hardest past far. And people of colour experience racial microaggressions on a daily ground. (Comments like: "What are you?" and "You don't actually act black.")
8. Words matter.
Before y'all speak, think about the impact the words yous cull could have on the people effectually y'all. At i point in "White People," a black student breaks out in tears when a white daughter doesn't empathize why casually calling her white friend's behavior "ghetto" was a trouble. As BuzzFeed'due south Tamerra Griffin put it, when a white person says "That's ghetto," black people hear, "That is a negative thing I associate with blackness and/or the working form." See Griffin's list of 14 Words That Acquit A Coded Pregnant For Black People for more phrases you should consider banning from your vocabulary. (Yes, describing a trend as "urban" is racist.)
9. The conversation nearly race implicates you, but your voice should not exist at the heart of it.
As Taylor Swift learned from her recent Twitter dorsum-and-forth with Nicki Minaj, when people of color criticize structural inequality information technology's not nigh y'all, personally. Once more: It'south. Not. About. You. Personally. So don't endeavor to make information technology all nigh you lot. White people need to take responsibility for the large and minor means we perpetuate racism. But oftentimes that means taking a step back and listening to the people who are impacted past racism twenty-four hour period in and day out. If you're going to add your vocalism to a dialogue -- which you should -- make sure you lot're adding value to the conversation, and not simply silencing the grievances of people of colour.
10. "Reverse racism" isn't a thing.
Watch comedian Aamer Rahman debunk the term (really, do yourself a favor and watch this):
11. Don't think you know it all -- or even nigh of it. Listen, listen, listen.
Also On HuffPost:
Powerful Black Lives Matter March In Washington
butlermovenciought.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/11-things-white-people-need-to-realize-about-race_n_55b0009be4b07af29d576702
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