Why White People are Afraid

http://www.alternet.org/story/36892/

I found this article by Robert Jensen of the University of Texas. He's pretty much nailed on the head why many white people who perhaps do have some idea of white privilege or racial injustice do nothing - fear, on multiple grounds. White people now have to deal with being the problem in the race discussion. This spurs all kinds of axieities of them.

A couple of things that he mentions are that whites in some degree fear what seems now inevitible: becoming the minority in the country. Whites likely will not be the majority demographic in the U.S. They may hold unequal amounts of wealth, but this loss in numbers can mean social and economic changes in the balance of power. This makes whites wonder if they will be treated the same way that non-whites were treated in the past and are currently treated today. Will whites no longer be the equivalent of "American", "normal", "standard"? This causes fear.

He also mentions that with greater economic justice and less privilege, resources would be more evenly distributed. This means whites lose some of the comfortable, higher lifestyle they've come to live in and become accustomed to. This also incites fearful reactions to such ideas of changing white privilege.

Along with the final fear in the article, which is the most obvious, that whites do not want to admit a degree of having been given an unearned head start due to their skin color, I must say that this article is dead on. Jensen points out what I believe is the biggest fear holding Whites back from helping to achieve racial and social justice - the above mentioned fear of "what will happen when we're the minority? How will we be treated?" And oddly enough, it is this fear that will likely lead to the worst result if it is used as an excuse to do nothing.

The more white people live oblivious to social injustice, not speaking out and recognizing the supremacist system set up in our country, and use their guilt and fear as a reason to do nothing, the less sympathy other ethnic groups will likely feel in the U.S. when a time may come when whites no longer hold all of the power demographically. If steps are taken now to correct inequalities based off of hundreds of years of past discrimination, and whites stop using cop-out excuses like "colorblindness", "I never owned a slave!", "my ancestors weren't even here!", "Affirmative Action discriminates against whites!", then maybe history may be kinder in such a hypothetical situation.

One thing is for certain: doing nothing does whites no good.

Colorblind only to themselves.

It seems that white America feels it has reached a social fork in the road so far as it pertains to racial discourse and identity. To the average “white” American, there are basically only two types of “white” person you can identify as in our society. The first is the less frequent, yet still existing, white supremacist/racist. This is the white person who feels pride about their European heritage and finds it superior (and by definition, others inferior) to all other groups based on skin color. The second is the more frequently seen and heard “color-blind” white person. This person sees that race shouldn’t make a difference in how we view each other (not a bad outlook in and of itself), but since that is true one then assumes we should treat social situations as though race is not a factor and does not exist, hence, being colorblind. This second mindset allows the colorblind person to not see being white as having any real effect on their lives.

Most white people are taught to be one or the other, with mainstream America favoring the colorblind ideology. Our conventional wisdom teaches us that being racist is bad and being colorblind is good. Choosing one or the other certainly seems to make a lot of sense; given these were the only two real options. The problem lies in the fact that this is a false dichotomy whites are presented and one they continue to acquiesce to day in and day out. The fact is that there are not only two choices and that there exist other philosophies on the matter. Furthermore, being a “colorblind” white person not only allows a person to not see the effects of whiteness in society, but also keeps a person from seeing discrimination based on color when it occurs, thereby perpetuating discrimination.

But, at least I'm not a "racist"!

In our post-Civil Rights social era, being “colorblind” has become the mainstream way to handle race discussions for many white Americans. Polls on racial topics consistently find white Americans supporting the principles of integration, racial intermarriage, and minorities living in or near their neighborhoods. On top of this, polls also show that white Americans believe racism to largely be a thing of the past. Others show whites supporting overwhelmingly the idea that racism is the fault of behavior and culture on the part of minorities. That said, whites in similar polls also reject the notion of legislation to overturn many years effects of institutionalized racism in America, namely that of Affirmative Action. Thus, we have what may be labeled a possible society of “Racism without racists”. That is, the deep divide in polls on whites opinions with respect to race and society reflect a want or need to maintain the racial order in the U.S. in a non-racial way. One can now vocally adopt non-racist platitudes and stands without completely combating racism or racist structures.

I just want everyone to be equal, so long as I'm still ahead.

An example of this mindset can be seen in the conservative, though not contained in this ideology, movement to end affirmative action in hiring policies on the grounds of it being “reverse discrimination” against white Americans. Affirmative Action as it is constructed today was started decades ago to combat what whites claim they are against now – affirmative action itself, only targeted towards a different group of people (you guessed it – whites). Indeed, white Americans themselves benefitted from various forms of affirmative action for the larger part of this country’s history and colonial times. Slavery, Jim Crow, restrictive Euro-centric Nationalization and Immigration laws, anti intermarriage-laws, and various government acts (such as the Homestead Act) all worked to maintain a white status quo, give European-Americans a leg up, and maintain dominance in American society. White Americans calling for the end of affirmative action policies today now claim a want for equal footing and grounding in employment and other areas when it was denied to so many for nearly 200 years. This all being said as numerous studies show existing inequalities, in various sectors of American life between minorities and whites. Nearly all studies show how affirmative action legislation has moved to reverse inequalities in the workplace, yet by removing this on the grounds of “reverse discrimination”, it would at best halt and stagnate any progress made on these grounds and at worst allow the work environment to return to a place of ethnic and racial discrimination.

Thus, being colorblind allows a person to make decisions based on their skin color without consciously, or perhaps only verbally, ignoring the effects their skin color has on them or their decision making. Even to those who acknowledge the existence of other races and their inequalities, it allows whites to ignore the privilege they’ve inherited in this country with respect to income, education, and power. To be more succinct, this ideology allows whites to be colorblind to whiteness. For example, a 2006 study by the University of Minnesota showed that while a majority of white respondents agreed that past discrimination put minorities at a disadvantage, a much lesser amount agreed that it had given whites an advantage. Thus, whites are allowed to see minorities as “underprivileged” without seeing themselves as “privileged”. Whites can see race as African-American disadvantage, but not one of white privilege.

In a Pew poll, 54% of whites said programs to increase the number of minorities in college are a good thing, compared with 87% of blacks. If based on similar polls, we can conclude that more often than not whites will admit to African-American disadvantage but will not support policies aimed at giving them advantages. That is to say, whites will admit aversively to being higher in society but only do so verbally in a way that justifies not feeling an inclination towards doing anything about it.

Where to go from here. A possible starting point.

So if one accepts that colorblindness is a dead-end in achieving racial justice in America, where can one turn? If the only other true choice would be that of racism, it would seem that we’ve come to a point of no resolution. The good news is that there is another choice: white racial awareness. That is, accepting ones heritage as European-white and even having pride about that, but acknowledging the inherited privilege one is given with that distinction in society and working to end the White-centric mold of American society. Racially savvy whites who work to overturn economic and social disadvantage by acknowledging their own advantages do more justice towards minorities than simply calling oneself colorblind and ignoring the world around them.

Happy New Year

I hope anyone reading has a happy new year. May all of your hopes be realized in 2009. I'll be back with a new entry within a week or so. Have fun. :-)

The Problem of the White Inferiority Complex

There is, every year, someone who snidely comments on Black History Month in schools. I heard one of them today on the radio. Some jackass stated that “it’s divisive” and “unnecessary” in American history, as “all it does it divide us further in putting people in groups”. The man also made a crack about how black people merely “survived” American history without making any real contributions to our society. Putting aside the absurdity of the latter claim on achievements by black-Americans, I think the superior attitude that allowed this man to comment as such is what should be addressed, for it is what is behind his words that to me outlines the main problem with white America today.

But, I voted for Barack! The aversive nature of today's racism.

First, there are many that no doubt outright challenge my notions of white supremacist forces in the U.S. today. I am often told that Barack Obama's success is proof of that. How could a man of his skin pigmentation get elected to the highest office in the land if there were such barriers? To them I point to the media's obsession with his race and his "transcending" of it making him more appealing to many voters. You see, even in the praising of his "being different from most blacks" and "post-racial", there is an implicit message being sent: most blacks have something 'wrong' with them. Even in the minds of many supposed enlightened, liberals praising his race and transcending of it, there are still supremacist feelings slipping out. I suppose it is only natural given our long history of such thoughts being institutionalized and conditioned. Thus, although aversive in nature, racist tendencies that have been conditioned are very real within a great many people. For most that hold these tendencies, it either comes out in those that are up front about it and not ashamed, or comes out from it's latent place in our psyche due to conditioning of someone elses doing.

On to the supremacists and the dilemma they face - You know what I notice of proponents of racial superiority? It’s always people that have never achieved anything that are making the claims. It’s always life’s losers that are calling others lesser and weaker. Indeed, proponents of their own racial superiority are more often telling you more about themselves than they are about those they seek to denigrate. Not only do you find out their insecurities about themselves, but possibly in the history of such movements do we see a sense of inferiority being projected onto others. How so?

Real superiority never needs cheerleaders. The work done by someone superior (a playwright, an inventor, a scientist, etc.) speaks volumes in and of itself. They are seldom, if ever, calling themselves superior to others. It is the supremacist, indeed, the white supremacist in this case, who is making such a claim. But how do these people secretly feel a sense of inferiority, you might ask? It’s all in historical context and present day reflection.

It was large numbers of black slaves, not white plantation owners that built levees, plow fields, or harvest crops. It was large numbers of Chinese Immigrants that made up the majority of Central Pacific railroad workers, all the while getting paid much less than other workers. The American Revolution itself was in large part funded by companies that profited from slave labor. Much of European “advancement”, let alone American advancement, would not have even had the foundation or framework possible for achievement had it not been for the need of whites to prop themselves up on the work of others by force. Perhaps it is a guilt drenched inferiority complex that allows blatant White-racists to believe such absurd notions about other groups 'inferiority", but it is there for any observer to witness.

The end of the White monopoly.

White supremacists now see that the privileged society they created for themselves is now on the downslide. Because of past notions of 'superiority', they kept non-White Americans in lesser places in society. Once freed, the claims of “not being able to survive” became rampant. Now that they have, survival has been downgraded to mere “passivity”, particularly in the comments mentioned earlier. Surviving attempts at cultural and racial genocide through public policy is no “achievement” in the aforementioned man’s eyes, as he has never had to deal with that.

This man, speaking words that are not strange to anyone in our society at this point, now sees groups that were once subjugated getting opportunities that their grandparents would have never had, and those groups are doing well and are increasingly represented in society. The Black middle class has risen. Asian Americans are doing well. This man, a microcosm of the white superiority class, simply can’t stand it. He has to deal with the fact that he is not “superior” based off of some “special” characteristic like a lesser amount of melanin. He has to deal with the fact that he is equal to anyone else in ability and achievement skills. This is the current dilemma of many in White America’s “superiority” class (and psst, here's a tip: most of said Whites are not affiliated with any extremist groups like Nazis or the KKK).

To the white racist faced with a changing society, a healthy solution and what he often chooses are two different things. Those conditioned white supremacists who are seeing the decline of the white supremacist system should not cry out in anger and insecurity over the changing dynamics in society, but rather applaud the representation of those people who were once kept down. They should view their own privilege from it's historical context, accept it, and work to end the injustice and to promote equal opportunities and representation for all people. Neither anger and denial, nor ignoring it by putting up a wall of "color-blind society" mantra are going to end the injustices.

To be clear. And a possible solution.

Let me make something clear in closing: I am not saying that all white people in America are suffering from this discussed inferiority complex. There are many that can and do overcome such feelings if they exist for any period of time. However, there are many more who don't. They don't even see that it exists. Our Eurocentric narrative in the country has allowed them to think otherwise for so long that it is near impossible to turn them away from such beliefs.

I guess it's up to each one of us to challenge these notions as we see them, so as to make sure they are not perpetuated any longer. This, to me, is the real test for progressive Whites in the realm of racism. Voting for Obama is not equal to fighting a privilege-laced system and thought process. It's time to start looking at our place in society through historical context and evaluating beliefs and statements as we hear them from that perspective.

Salam!

In the 2008 Presidential Campaign, and even before that back into the Democratic Primaries, there was a stinging accusation and subsequent myth surrounding Barack Obama: many claimed that he was a Muslim.

Now, to understand my confusion in why this became as big a deal as it did, one must first understand what a Muslim is. A Muslim is a believer in the religion of Islam, an Abrahamic religion not far separated from Christianity and Judaism. However, in our post-9/11 society, we as most Americans have been taught to group this term with that of “terrorist”. Thus, accusing Obama of “being a Muslim” was a blanket way to tie him to Anti-American ideology and tactics and in the end serve to make a loss for him more viable.

I am not here to defend Obama’s status as a Christian and debunk the myth of him being Muslim. I am here to ask one simple question: Why is being a Muslim a bad thing? When one reads into the religion, it is a religion that preaches just as much peace (and just as much violence, I might add) as Christianity does. Either religion has quotes that can be mined and taken out of context to serve some peaceful or violent end. So, again, why is it being used as a bad-word? If we go by the logic of some, that being Muslim carries with it some disposition to be violent against non-Muslims of the same fundamentalist persuasion, then we must also apply that same logic to most others in religious communities as well.

All in God's name.

Let’s take for example the loudest group that seemed to blow this horn - conservative Christians. Christianity has a long history of intolerance to non-believers where Muslims were generally more tolerant. It was Christianity that expelled Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492. It was Christianity that fed the notion of “Manifest Destiny” and the killing and exhausting of resources of indigenous American peoples. It was Christianity that fueled the movement of the Ku Klux Klan. It was Christianity that fueled The Army of God, a fundamentalist group responsible for numerous bombings of abortion clinics, gay nightclubs, and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. However, we don’t see rabid conservatives ready to vilify Christians for the history of violence, hate, and intolerance tied to them.

While everybody was calling Obama a Muslim as though it were a bad thing (though his father was the only one raised a Muslim and who never actually raised Obama himself) nobody was saying that Timothy McVeigh’s devout Roman Catholic upbringing had anything to do with his actions in blowing up the Oklahoma City building. Nobody tied Christianity to violence when in July of 2008 Jim D. Adkinson shot several church members due to “liberal” viewpoints and teachings. Nobody called Christians are group of hate when in Indonesia, circa Sept 2006, 2 Muslim fishermen were murdered and beheaded by 3 Christian farmers.

Our anti-Muslim sentiment was so strong just a mere few years ago that of some respondents polled, nearly half believed that Muslim-Americans should have some rights suspended.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6729916/

Of course, those who believed this were more likely to be of this mindset after watching much of the American news media. Of course, there was no clamoring for Christians to have their rights suspended after their ties to violence acts in history, particularly the United States.

Naturally accentuating the Negative.

Conservative Christians are so quick to venerate people for being “good Christians”, yet so comforted in ignoring achievements by Muslim-Americans in our society. Of course conservatives fail to mention that a Muslim-American, Fazlur Khan, designed the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center, some of our mainstays in American tourist attractions. Nor do we hold up Ahmed Zewail, winner of the 1999 Chemistry Nobel prize. We are so quick to glorify Muhammad Ali, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar as sports icons and household names, yet ignore their Muslim backgrounds in the process.

Part of me suspects that race had a small hand in this as well. Late in campaign, a McCain supporter was on camera accusing Obama of being an "Arab", when none of his family is from the Arab Peninsula, but rather Africa and Kansas. Again, here they are attempting to tie "Arab" with "Muslim", thus perpetuating more obfuscation. If Arab identity really were an issue to these people, why then is Ralph Nader (a MUCH more left-wing candiate that Obama) ignored on grounds of ethnic suspicion, who has heavy Lebanese ethnic background? Could it have anything to do with his skin color? Just a thought, nomás.

America, in many respects, needs to grow up and get real. No, Obama was not and is not a Muslim. But so what if he were? Given the history of our Christian reared citizens propensity towards violent movements, I'd ask something to the contrary: "Why NOT a Muslim President?"

White Ignorance

I think being a European-American, or "white" as we call it in the U.S., is something one can be proud of. There is a long history of great art, music, language, and culture that comes with that area of the world. There many great innovations that are due to Europeans and their American diaspora. Having said that, I wonder how most White Americans aren't sort of embarrassed to be in that category after what I hear some of most ardently spoken White Americans say.

There is nothing wrong with being a white person. Let me state that again, as often times my reflections in this philosophical arena tend to cause others to think the inverse of this: there is nothing wrong with being a white person. Nothing wrong with it anymore than there is being a black person in America or being of Asian descent in America. However, there is something wrong with being ignorant and indifferent to a society that is clearly Eurocentric and based on Euro-superiority. This is what I am talking about when I mention the embarrassment factor, as white people are the ones that are benefitting from the society itself.

The privilege to be oblivious.

I don't know how some white people don't get laughed out of entire rooms sometimes. Who else but a white person can make such absurd statements as "How come it's wrong for me to call someone the 'n' word, but they can call me a honky or a cracker?", as if the two words are even worth comparing historically and socially? The word "honky" does not carry with it a history of oppression, dehumanizing behavior, and even downright terrorism towards a group of people. it doesn't ressurect a painful past. Terms like "cracker" don't have any real effect on white people other than a momentary nuisance.

And besides, I usually ask the person asking me the question (who is almost invariably a white person), "Why do you care so much about using that word to begin with?" Is it something people want to be connected with, a word that to many educated people represents ignorance in the most raw form and an attitude of disrespect towards a group of people?

I'm also tired of hearing "Why don't we get to have 'White Pride Parades' or 'White History Month'?" This might frustrate me just a little more, as it is rooted in an ignorance of the privileged system that European-Americans are living in daily. In case the "White" population hasn't noticed, every month of the year is White-History month. History curriculums in all schools are Eurocentric to boot. We learn European history and American history as the concentration. We learn about European composers and European inventors (save for a token mention of George Washington Carver to assuage ourselves). We even revolve the fundamental statements of this continent and country around absurd, Eurocentric notions. One off the top of my head would be the most famous: Columbus discovered America (well, except for all of those indigenous people that were already here, right?). The state of Eurocentrism and Euro-superiority is evident in our national fixation on whether Obama was a Muslim or not, as though being of a Middle Eastern ethnic persuasion is something to be "investigated" or ashamed of.

Media and society are plastered with European ideas of beauty and prestige. Even acceptable behavior is based on Eurocentric attributes. Don't believe that? Notice the reaction someone has when you tell them that they're "acting like a black person". Many white people will become offended in at least a minor way, as that is "undesirable", as though there were something wrong with being of that racial designation. It is also an attempt to tie undesirable behavior with a person of dark skin color.

So why do white people ask these ridiculous questions? Are white people really so blind as to see that Whiteness has become so embedded in American society that it is now "the norm"? Our society does not need a "White Pride Day", as our society is white pride. Our society sends that message socially and institutionally every day.

Transcending Whiteness and Acknowledging White Privilege

Even when we give people of other racial groups recognition, it is accompanied with an asterisk. Race is nearly always noted up front in the achievements of non-White Americans. Asian-Americans, for example, have been called "Model Minorities" in recognizing their success in many respects. However, though it may be a noble attempt to credit them, it devalues individual effort in calling it "a good Asian's achievement", whereas nobody would credit a white, European kids achievement as "a credit to his race". In fact, race is barely mention in regards to "white people". Whiteness is mebedded as a norm, and race seems to always belong to "others".

Take a recent example to accentuate this point: President-elect Barack Obama. During primaries, in many articles and pundit broadcasts Obama was praised for "transcending race". Do journalists and Americans as a whole think that being black is something one must rise away from? When was the last time a white candidate was asked to transcend race? You will not hear that anytime soon, as ethnicity and race are things that "other" groups have that somehow does not apply to European-Americans. That, my friends, is institutional and social white privilege at it's most salient.

It is privilege that allows White Americans to not ever have to think about themselves as a race, or if not that then to be able to hold others accountable in a race-based manner of thought. It is privilege that allows White Americans to think of racism in extremities such as the KKK and racial slurs and to deny or be oblivious to the institutions or social constructions it is supported by. It is this on display when studies show that when most white people are asked about the image they get of a drug dealer or a violent criminal, they often respond with the image of some other ethnic minority. This is ridiculous when most violent crimes are perpetrated from whites to other whites and an equal amount of white people do drugs as black people. It is privilege that allows this mindset to continue unchallenged and unfettered in The United States.

I'll restate this once more, so as to keep misconceptions of my message at bay: I'm not "anti-White". In fact, I'm typing this because I don't want to see White America become drowned in this problem to the point that it destroys them. I want this problem to be solved by beginning an honest discussion on the matter. This marginalization of other groups through a white-centric system is damaging to everybody involved, even the people who benefit from it directly. The first step towards correcting it is getting our society conscious about it.

So sparing me the "colorblind society" mantra, let me know what you really think. I welcome all critiques, praise, or questions.

Confetti, Fanfare, Music.

I think America, or any society in general, can reach a point where we get so complacent and self-satisfied, so balkanized and fragmented from each other, and so divided and unwilling to communicate, that we reach a point where we abandon our goals of fixing society's ills as we go and pass it off on someone else.

We reach a point where we "it's cool", "don't rock the boat", "chill out" ourselves to a certain social death. We reach a state of what could be perennial apathy and aquiescence to the status quo of modern society, where we are ready to just accept our state as it is in the name of "chilling out, man".

For the interested reader, I'm here to start honest discussion on topics and give one the tools to go out and start the discussion on ones own.

I talk about a lot of things - race, religion, social privilege, intellectualism in society, poverty, politics, and power.

So let the boat rocking begin.