Thinking about my white privilege

In my last Wespeak I said that it is the responsibility of everyone at Wes to challenge embedded oppressions. David Wiener wrote back asking if I excuse myself from my white privilege because I am female. I do not. I believe that racism is a system of power (privilege) and prejudice. Unless I am challenging racism, I am perpetuating it. In recognizing my own racism and working on strategies to confront my own and other’s racism, I seek to disturb a historically rooted, but very prevalent system that oppresses people of color and negatively affects my life.

Because it is seen as the norm, whiteness gives me unearned privileges in this society and at Wesleyan because it is conceived of as the norm. I’ve always felt comfortable speaking in my classes at Wes. When I speak from personal experience, my words are not seen as representative of white people’s experiences. I’m frequently able to speak authoritatively, even if I am not an authority on the subject. I’ve felt free to walk around campus, attend any campus party or event, and travel abroad without the anxiety that I may have to deal with racism, overt or covert.

I have depended on people of color to teach me about what I assumed was “their culture,” or “their race” by asking them about their personal experiences. I have said things like “just because I’m white, doesn’t mean that I’m racist” as a way to situate “society” as the problem and not me. I have wallowed in white guilt as a way to distance myself from my own racism, not realizing that white guilt is an extension of white privilege—often causing me to ask people of color “what can I do,” thinking that I was being a good ally, when really, people of color should not have to, and don’t, care about my white guilt. Reflecting on my white guilt, I realize that it often refocused conversations to be about white people, thus perpetuating white dominance.

I have been able to repeatedly experience these privileges because white society expects and allows me to be complacent in my racism. Over the last three years, I have come to recognize my agency in society. Choosing to do nothing about my own racism means that I’m continuing racism and making it worse. I have developed some strategies for confronting my racism with insights of teachers, students, and authors of color, but consciously anti-racist white people too. Even though I can articulate these strategies, I am not always effective in fully implementing them and often, trying to confront racism means using my white privilege.

The most useful tool I have found in confronting everyday racism is being consciously self-reflexive. I try to question when and how I use my voice and in what situations. For example, I find it very easy to dominate conversations that revolve around theory and to shy away from conversations that ask me to critically engage my personal experiences. I try to question when and how I speak as an authority, and to contextualize my “authority” in my personal location.

I try to support people of color in their activism and not ask them to be “bridges” for me to learn from, or access student of color activism through. I try to recognize that when I feel uncomfortable in predominantly student of color spaces that this discomfort may be how many people of color often feel. I am careful of how I use the word “we,” cognizant of who I am including and how.

While these strategies are not foolproof or an easy answer for challenging racism, they have been a good starting point or me. I make an effort to talk to my white friends and family about their experiences confronting their own racism, and I encourage white people on this campus to do the same. White people have a responsibility to challenge, confront and resist personal, everyday and institutional racism.

This is not a request for white people to constantly feel guilty. Instead, I am suggesting that white folks think about how whiteness grants us privilege in social, academic and political spaces. White people need to tlak about race and privilege more, but do so critically and don’t expect any progressive award or cookie for it.

If you would like a place to start, visit www.whiteprivilege.com, check out Peggy McIntosh’s article “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” or read Beverly D. Tatum’s book “’Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?’ and other conversations about race.” You can also email me at ejaeger@wesleyan.edu.