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Last Sunday: What to do with/about white folks?
By Robert Jensen (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)
Most of us live in overwhelmingly segregated worlds, and that fact makes us many of us uncomfortable. But here's the hard question: Are we uncomfortable with it because we really wish we didn't live in segregated worlds, or are we uncomfortable with it because we don't like having to face that we live rather comfortably day-to-day in segregated worlds? In one of our ordinary days, how much are we really bothered by that segregation?
So, the question: Do we want Last Sunday -- or any other event, group, or movement to which we white folks belong -- to be more multiracial so we don't have to face these facts? Again, I don't know, and I don't want to suggest there's one answer for all white people. But it's a question we should ask. That doesn't mean we shouldn't think about how this event might become a place where racial divides could potentially be bridged. Things have to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as any. I'm simply suggesting that we have to proceed on that project honestly. And, in my experience, we white folks aren't so good at being honest. There's a reason for that, I think. We're afraid.
White fears
Talking about the racial fears of white people in a white-supremacist society may seem silly. What do we white people really have to be afraid of? The easy answer is that we are afraid of ourselves.
Yes, it's true that some of us still harbor certain fears of non-white people. For example, I was socialized to be reflexively afraid of black men in public, and I still sometimes struggle with that in certain situations. And some white people fear that when non-white people gain political and economic power they may take some of "our" goodies away and then we might have to become a more just society in the distribution of resources. That would mean that we have less.
But I think the more troubling struggle for many of us white folks is the fear of being seen, and seen-through, by non-white people. If most of us white people carry some level of racism in our minds and hearts and bodies -- if we know that even when we've "worked on our racism" there are at least remnants of white supremacy in us -- we must know that it could come out at any time, maybe in ways we can't control, maybe in ways so subtle we can't even recognize it. And what if non-white people look at us and can see it? What if they can see through us? What if they can look past our carefully crafted anti-racist vocabulary and sense that we still don't really know how to treat them as equals? What if they know about us what we don't dare know about ourselves?
Maybe it is self-indulgent to talk about white people's fears, given the real threats that non-white people face in a white-supremacist society. But we have to talk about it because that fear often keeps us white people from stepping out and stepping up. Because we are privileged, we can back away from difficult situations, avoiding the risk of being seen more honestly by someone else, someone who isn't white. I know that in my life I have sometimes held back out of that fear. I have a feeling I'm not alone in that.
When we think we "get it"
I don't think any of this means we should give up, that we white people can never make any progress on racism, that it's all hopeless. Instead, it's like all the other struggles for social justice that force us to contend with oppressions that are deeply embedded not only into the institutions and systems in which we live but also in our bodies: We struggle, we make progress, we feel good about that, and then -- if we are paying attention -- we realize we have further to go. Here's an example of that process, one in which I play the fool.
Last year I was stopped by a police officer for running what he thought was a red light (I contended it was yellow, of course). It was late at night, I had been at work all day, and I was cranky. I was dressed in a ratty T-shirt and shorts. At the time I was driving a beat-up old Volkswagen Beetle. In other words, I looked like something less than one of Austin's leading citizens. When I saw the red lights flashing, I pulled off the busy street onto an unlit side street to get out of traffic. When the officer asked me for my registration and insurance, I opened the glove compartment and out popped a small knife, folded up, that I carry for emergencies. The officer, who was white, politely asked if I would mind if he held that knife while we talked. I handed it to him, he wrote me my ticket, returned the knife to me, and off I drove.
During a lecture on racial justice a few months later, I told that story as an illustration of white privilege. I made the obvious point that if I had been black when that knife popped out, the officer might not have been so calm. Maybe I would have ended up outside the car, face down on the pavement. Maybe worse. There's no way to know, of course, but that's the point of the concept of "driving while black (or brown)" -- it's not that every time you are stopped you are going to experience police violence, but that you can never be sure.
So, I'm telling this story, pointing out that when the knife popped out and the cop didn't treat me like a threat, didn't pull me out of the car with gun drawn, that I was benefiting from white privilege. A black man in the audience agreed with that, but then brought me up short. "You're right about all that, but what you don't understand is that your white privilege kicked in before the cop stopped you," he said. He went on to explain that he would have never pulled onto the unlit side street. "I would have pulled over to the side of the busy street, in plain view," he said. "You didn't even think about that, did you?"
No, I hadn't thought about that. I hadn't thought that if a cop wanted to mess with me it would be easier on an unlit street than on a busy street. I hadn't thought about it, because I didn't stop to think the cop might mess with me. I knew that the worse-case scenario would be that he would write me a ticket.
That black man was kind enough to point out to me that I didn't know as much as I thought I knew. He was kind in his critique, but he didn't hold back. For that I was grateful. I learned something that night. It's a good thing to learn.
The basis for real hope
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