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Many white Americans would like to believe that we are in a post-racial era, and yet, as Grace Elizabeth Hale said, “central to the meaning of whiteness is a broad, collective American silence.” This silence is a “denial of white as a racial identity,” and a “denial that whiteness and [white privilege] has a history.” If Americans ever hope to improve inter-cultural understanding and communication, and make justice a reality, we need to have frank discussions about the dynamics of ‘race’ and racism, whiteness and privilege; they stand in direct opposition to the basic American values of liberty and justice for all.
I am choosing to end the silence by sharing three dramatic examples from my own life that show what racial privilege looks like from the perspective of someone who is neither white nor privileged by the circumstance of ‘race.’
The first example happened when I was very young – nine or ten years old. I was standing on a corner in New York City, waiting for the stoplight to change. A white man in a car stopped in front of me. Unprovoked, he yelled angrily at me – a stranger and girl waiting to cross the street – “Why don’t you go back to Africa!!!” He then drove off.
It was a stunning and confusing moment that I never forgot. I was a child, and I didn’t understand why this stranger was screaming angrily at me, or why my very existence seemed to infuriate him.
The second incident occurred about thirty years later, when I was a professional educator and a well-established suburbanite shopping in my own Long Island neighborhood. I had parked my car on one side of the street, and was waiting to cross the street to shop in a store on the other side. Before I could cross, a white man driving in a car pulled up in front of me, and asked “Can I give you a ride to Wyandanch?”
Wyandanch was a nearby town that had a population that was about 90% Black. That man took one look at me, and seemed to assume several things: (1) That I didn’t belong in that predominantly white, middle-class, suburban neighborhood, (2) That I had no car and (3) That I was without resources and needed, or wanted, his ‘help.’
The third incident happened when I decided to apply for an office job at the Veteran’s Hospital on Long Island. At the time, I had completed two years of college and had an Associate’s Degree.
I was dressed in my grey ‘interview’ suit, and went to the basement where the personnel department was located. The office door was open.
Just as I was about to enter, a white woman inside the office saw me and shouted at me from across the room: “We don’t need any kitchen help!!” Stunned, I just stood there in my grey interview suit before turning away.
I never got to enter the room.
I never got to present my resume.
I never got to even say my name.
I never got to tell her my ‘story.’
I never got to tell her that I was smart, and had some talents.
That I could play the piano,
That I could read,
That I could write,
That I loved literature,
That I had a degree.
Race and privilege are implicated in all three of these incidents. Whether consciously or not, the two men and the woman were driven by a sense of racial superiority which they believed gave them the power and the privilege to demean and dismiss me because of my skin. They felt a sense of entitlement to control me; to control my life.
In a single glance, each of them saw me only through a racial lens, and to them, I embodied a one-dimensional cluster of negative racial stereotypes. This is why two random white men believed that they could and should control where I live, and what space I could, or should occupy in my own country. It is why a white woman could take one look at me, and in a moment dismiss and demean me as unskilled and unwanted.
In each of those moments, skin – white skin and black skin – became metaphors for racialized values of human worth. And, these racialized values of human worth are very American. America’s racial history is undeniable.
And yet, even though Americans live in what Toni Morrison called a “wholly racialized world,” many Americans have made an industry of ignoring, dismissing, denying it all:
Denying that race and racism has meaning in the context of culture;
Denying that race and racism infect or inflect our thinking about, and behavior toward, people and cultures that are ‘different’ from the perceived ‘norm;’
Denying that race and racism influences official policies and practices on the federal, state and local levels; and
Denying the connection between race and privilege.
This denial is emblematic of the sinister nature of racism, and the sinister nature of racialized power, control, and privilege. It fertilizes the ground so negative stories and stereotypes can grow and thrive, about those who don’t look like “us.”
In the end, democracy is what we have to guide us. Its core values provide the template for how we should live, and how we should interact. It invites us to be fair and just. True democracy is demanding; it imposes a deep and abiding responsibility on us to know what justice is – and what it is not. This responsibility is ours, to embody the American ideals.
And if we want to actualize those lofty ideals of individual freedom and justice for all, we have to listen differently, learn deeply, and stretch. Otherwise, in the end, true Democracy will remain an abstract ideal beyond our reach. Poet Audre Lorde said “…it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”
Gloria Graves Holmes, PhD, is Professor Emerita in the School of Education at Quinnipiac University, and a Professor of education at the University of South Carolina. She is author of “Justice in Search of Leaders, A Handbook for Equity Driven School Leadership.” Dr. Holmes earned a PhD in English and MA in Liberal Studies from SUNY Stony Brook, and a MS in English and Education from Queens College in NY.
To reach Dr. Holmes directly: Gloria.Holmes@quinnipiac.edu
I am in appreciation of your heart sharing. It moved me deeply. I remembered myself, I remembered my experiences with racism.
I wonder how many of us have carried these stories that can be like small fires inside ourselves. Small does that produce smoke that distort so many like sustaining things
Thank you for sharing. I’ve learned that we all need to learn how to listen to each other, and value each other’s ‘stories.’ It sounds easy, but it’s not… I bought a tee shirt a few months ago that says: HUMANKIND – Be both. I think that’s where we have to begin….
Thank you. You are a major voice in articulating the effects of and challenging concerning white privilege. Each story you shared resonates with my own experiences through the years. I live with the simmering emotions. It is a daily effort to not be stymied by the latent stigma of racial indignities, white privilege unacknowledged. The blessing is that there are purposeful individulals such as your self who articulate the issues for us to ponder and proactively dismantle racism and white priviledge.
I appreciate your comments. We both know that this is very hard work; sometimes it feels like chipping away at a very large rock mountain with a small pickaxe. But do we have a choice? Sometimes I think about the starfish parable… We can’t change the world, but hopefully we can help to change individuals one at a time…
Thank you for sharing….I was listening.