No doubt about it, school districts are suffering. The downturn in the economy has resulted in budget cuts across the board, even for the more affluent suburban districts who are not used to such belt-tightening. In a recent opinion piece for the StarTribune*, Katherine Kersten complains that although there's no money for anything else, there's always money available to assuage white guilt. She seems a bit put out that money in her district is being spent to send teachers to a conference on the topic of white privilege. Her not-so-subtly sarcastic piece (I don't think I like her tone!) makes fun of conference topics and speakers, suggesting that the district is wasting precious financial resources on a "rich smorgasbord of white guilt," when the money could be spent on better things.
Underlying Kersten's diatribe are the beliefs that racism is over, America is a meritocracy, conferences like this are a waste of time and money, and people who speak and attend these conferences are laughable, over-sensitive wimps. Is she right? I'm here to tell you that she isn't. Racism is not over, and here's proof. Last week after a high school lacrosse game, my son told me that during the course of the game a player on the opposing team called my son's friend, who is African American, a "nigger." Of course, I was horrified, and asked if my son's friend had told the coach or the referee. He hadn't and didn't plan on it. I wondered why not. Could it be possible that this kid had learned that he wouldn't be heard? Now, for sure gender plays a role here -- as my son explained, "real men take care of these things themselves" -- still, I can't help but think that this African American kid, attending a mostly white suburban school, has been socialized to know that it's not okay to talk about race, and that complaining about being the target of a clearly racist act (even Kersten couldn't deny that it was) would be a pointless, unmanly exercise.
Maybe if teachers and coaches in our district had attended a white privilege conference like the one Kersten found laughable, the scenario would have played out differently. Maybe those teachers would have talked about racism in school, instead of adopting the "colorblind" ideology that is so prevalent in education today. Maybe this kid would have learned that it's important to tell. Maybe the offending white kid would have learned about his position of power and privilege and wouldn't have been so quick to use the racial slur. Maybe.
*http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/119508364.html
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Things White People Say
Yesterday I got my nails done. (No, this post is not about how my white privilege allows me to earn the money to waste on this frivolity.) As I was sitting at the drying station, I found myself in a conversation with the young white woman sitting next to me. Being a New Yorker, I don't usually talk to strangers, but she initiated the conversation so I went with it. One thing led to another, and she asked me where I live. When I told her, she complimented my town, saying what a nice place it is, and that her sister lives there, too.
So far so good. But then she added, "You have to drive through that one part of town to get to my sister's that's really scary, though." She was referring to the older part of town that has a higher population of people of color than the rest of the town. If there were a lot of criminal behaviors going on there it would reflect on the town averages, but crime stats are low for the town in general, much lower than the county and state averages.
I didn't answer, so she kept going. "Yeah," she said, "where my sister lives is really nice, but you should see the riffraff that she gets trick or treating on Halloween." (I swear I'm not making this up.) She never mentioned race, of course. She didn't have to. She was using the code, and she assumed that, because I'm white, I understood what she meant. And of course, I did. If I had suggested to this person that her ideas are racist, I'm betting she would have been mortified.
Of course, I'm complicit. I could have questioned this young woman further. I could have asked, "What do you mean by 'scary'? Have you ever witnessed a crime, or felt personally threatened while in this part of town?" I could have asked, "Why do you think the trick or treaters are 'riffraff'? Have they banged on your sister's door, demanded more candy than she was giving, broken a window, thrown trash on her lawn, or behaved rudely in any way?" But I didn't ask any of these things. I sat passively, albeit uncomfortably, and although I didn't agree with her, my silence gave tacit approval. Because I’m white, and sadly, that’s often what white people do.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
It's Not Easy, Being White
Here's a true story. A friend of someone I know is from South Africa. He's now an American citizen. So, when this friend of someone I know is asked to check one of those "what race are you" boxes on an application, he checks "African American." There's just one itty-bitty caveat to the story: he's white. The someone I know didn't understand my puzzlement.
"So what determines race?" I asked.
"You're whatever race you think you are," the someone answered.
"So if I think I'm African American, does that make me African American?"
The someone nodded. "It's what you feel inside."
Now, race scholars have argued for a long time that race is socially constructed. What does that mean? The genetic determiners of race are so insignificant that there is more genetic variation among people within race than among people of different races. However, saying that race is socially constructed is not the same thing as saying there's no such thing as race, which is what the someone and the someone's friend seemed to be saying.
What's going on here? A recent CNN article* titled, "Are Whites Racially Oppressed?" says that some whites think they are (racially oppressed). This is not a surprise. Whites have been troubled by "reverse discrimination" for decades. I hear from white students all the time the unfairness of scholarships offered only to "minorities." And, in an effort to right this terrible wrong, now there's a group in Texas that's offering scholarships to an under-served population: white males. The CNN story is filled with interesting facts of this nature. My favorite is this one: 57% of white evangelicals surveyed "identified discrimination against whites as being just as big as bigotry aimed at blacks and other minorities." The "whites as victim" motif is common; if you're white, like I am, you've heard it before. This is why we need to be colorblind, the argument follows. No group should have an unfair advantage over another. That's racism. We shouldn't look at race.
And perhaps the next step after "we shouldn't look at race" is the one taken by the someone and the someone's friend -- there's no such thing as race. We're all the same. I am who I think I am. Except I'm not. I'm white. The world has seen me and my ancestors as white, and has afforded us the advantages that come with whiteness for generations. To deny that now would require a kind of amnesia that, in other contexts, is the stuff of movies, and professional help would likely be in order. And even an amnesiac wouldn't have to look too far to see inequity that lives on as the legacy of discrimination. Just compare most urban schools with most suburban schools and you'll see what I mean. It ain't the white kids that are being offered a substandard education. The idea that whites are racially oppressed would be laughable, if it weren't so very sad.
*file:///Users/m_modica/Desktop/Are%20whites%20racially%20oppressed%3F%20-%20CNN.com.webarchive
Monday, February 28, 2011
R is for Ready...almost!
Last night I had the privilege of sharing an excerpt of The R Word (my young adult novel) with a group of young people. I'm excited that the novel is almost ready for print, and will be available on Amazon soon. If you're interested, check out the free excerpt, along with opportunity to purchase a PDF version of the text for a discounted rate, at www.morningjoymedia.com/pages/the_r_word.html.
Anyway, they seemed to like the story, which was great. But what I found most interesting was their response to my questions, "What's the racial atmosphere like at your school? Do people mix much? Is there tension?" While they admitted that there's not a lot of mixing going on, they were adamant in their assurances that it had nothing to do with race. It's culture, they said. It's learning styles. It's living styles. It's interests. It's where you come from. The racial self-segregation that they experience every day has nothing to do with race, they explained.
Now, this was a very open group -- they came to the session voluntarily, knowing that we'd be talking about race. Even, so, it was hard for them to admit that race plays a part in their every day lives. They wanted to be colorblind. And, their experience is born out by research -- just plopping kids of various racial backgrounds together does not guarantee integration, because they will tend to self-segregate along racial lines. (This group, by the way, was all white, proving the point about self-segregation). So what's the answer, and why should we care?
I'm not claiming to have all the answers, but I believe that interactions like the one we had last night are important because they get us thinking thoughts that aren't so comfortable to think. We need to keep the conversation going. Are we better off as a nation than we were a few decades ago? Of course. Are we "post racial"? The more we talked last night, the more these young people admitted that, well, come to think of it, they have heard the "N-word" used by whites at their school, and not in a very nice way, they said (is there a nice way to use that word? I wondered, but I didn't get the chance to ask.) There was that time, one person shared, when he was at the supermarket with an African American friend and the friend was accused of stealing, but nobody even looked at him. And they do feel uncomfortable sometimes with certain students of color. "It's like there's a wall," one person admitted.
The R Word is the story of how, for one white teenager, that wall comes down. It's my attempt to keep the conversation going.
Anyway, they seemed to like the story, which was great. But what I found most interesting was their response to my questions, "What's the racial atmosphere like at your school? Do people mix much? Is there tension?" While they admitted that there's not a lot of mixing going on, they were adamant in their assurances that it had nothing to do with race. It's culture, they said. It's learning styles. It's living styles. It's interests. It's where you come from. The racial self-segregation that they experience every day has nothing to do with race, they explained.
Now, this was a very open group -- they came to the session voluntarily, knowing that we'd be talking about race. Even, so, it was hard for them to admit that race plays a part in their every day lives. They wanted to be colorblind. And, their experience is born out by research -- just plopping kids of various racial backgrounds together does not guarantee integration, because they will tend to self-segregate along racial lines. (This group, by the way, was all white, proving the point about self-segregation). So what's the answer, and why should we care?
I'm not claiming to have all the answers, but I believe that interactions like the one we had last night are important because they get us thinking thoughts that aren't so comfortable to think. We need to keep the conversation going. Are we better off as a nation than we were a few decades ago? Of course. Are we "post racial"? The more we talked last night, the more these young people admitted that, well, come to think of it, they have heard the "N-word" used by whites at their school, and not in a very nice way, they said (is there a nice way to use that word? I wondered, but I didn't get the chance to ask.) There was that time, one person shared, when he was at the supermarket with an African American friend and the friend was accused of stealing, but nobody even looked at him. And they do feel uncomfortable sometimes with certain students of color. "It's like there's a wall," one person admitted.
The R Word is the story of how, for one white teenager, that wall comes down. It's my attempt to keep the conversation going.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
What Good Religion?
I've recently read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass, who eventually made his way to freedom and became a famous speaker for the abolitionist cause, tells the account of his early life, a story filled with tales of the brutal mistreatment of himself and other slaves at the hands of white owners and overseers. Douglass describes whippings and starvation. I'd expected that -- it's a slave narrative, after all. These events took place almost 200 years ago, for goodness sakes. Surely this account holds no surprises.
Yet, I was surprised, not at Douglass' descriptions of the savage treatment slaves received, but at his scathing and perceptive indictment of the role religion played in the justification of that treatment. Douglass describes one of his owners, a particularly brutal master, who'd experienced a religious conversion at a Methodist camp meeting, in this way:
"Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest pretensions to piety. His house was the house of prayer. He prayed morning, noon, and night" (p. 57). Douglass explains how this master used religion to justify his cruelty, describing how he would "tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture -- 'He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes'" (p. 58). Sadly, this master was not an anomaly, and the hyper-religious culture of the South at that time did nothing to ease the suffering of slaves or advance the cause of the abolitionists. A short time later, when Douglass was given to a new master, he says this: "Another advantage I gained in my new master was, he made no pretensions to, or profession of, religion; and this, in my opinion, was truly a great advantage" (p. 74).
Ouch. The religious among us should feel ashamed, or at least a little embarrassed by these words. But, as I said, this took place centuries ago, and of course things are different now. No one can argue that. Still, I believe that if we're honest, we can draw some parallels, subtle though they may be, between the blind, self-righteous application of Christianity used by slave owners to justify their actions and the things we whites may tell ourselves to justify, or maybe to ignore, the racial inequity that still exists all these decades later. Since I'm a teacher, I'll focus my argument on the schools. The obvious fact is that suburban, mostly white schools provide a far better education for their students than urban schools that are mostly populated by students of color. There are lots of reasons for this -- the legacy of discriminatory housing policy, poverty, school funding practices, etc. Now, I've attended a lot of conservative white churches over the years. I've heard preachers rail against abortion and homosexuality. But I've never once, in all my years of attending these white conservative churches, heard a sermon against racism or against poverty, for that matter. I've never heard a preacher address the inequity of the public school system and suggest we do something about it. In fact, the only time I've heard race mentioned at all was on a few rare occasions when a preacher extolled the benefits of being colorblind.
Don't get me wrong, Douglass was not against religion, and neither am I. I do believe that we religious folk can learn from his account, though. Of course we are not committing the sins of the slave owners. But what of the sins of omission? What of ignoring inequity? What of the very unbiblical attitude, "God helps those who help themselves"? During his time on earth, Jesus condemned only one group of people -- the pharisees, a group of religious leaders who used scripture to justify promoting themselves at the expense of others, and who followed the letter of the law while forgetting the Spirit of the Law-giver. May we not find ourselves in their company.
Yet, I was surprised, not at Douglass' descriptions of the savage treatment slaves received, but at his scathing and perceptive indictment of the role religion played in the justification of that treatment. Douglass describes one of his owners, a particularly brutal master, who'd experienced a religious conversion at a Methodist camp meeting, in this way:
"Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest pretensions to piety. His house was the house of prayer. He prayed morning, noon, and night" (p. 57). Douglass explains how this master used religion to justify his cruelty, describing how he would "tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture -- 'He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes'" (p. 58). Sadly, this master was not an anomaly, and the hyper-religious culture of the South at that time did nothing to ease the suffering of slaves or advance the cause of the abolitionists. A short time later, when Douglass was given to a new master, he says this: "Another advantage I gained in my new master was, he made no pretensions to, or profession of, religion; and this, in my opinion, was truly a great advantage" (p. 74).
Ouch. The religious among us should feel ashamed, or at least a little embarrassed by these words. But, as I said, this took place centuries ago, and of course things are different now. No one can argue that. Still, I believe that if we're honest, we can draw some parallels, subtle though they may be, between the blind, self-righteous application of Christianity used by slave owners to justify their actions and the things we whites may tell ourselves to justify, or maybe to ignore, the racial inequity that still exists all these decades later. Since I'm a teacher, I'll focus my argument on the schools. The obvious fact is that suburban, mostly white schools provide a far better education for their students than urban schools that are mostly populated by students of color. There are lots of reasons for this -- the legacy of discriminatory housing policy, poverty, school funding practices, etc. Now, I've attended a lot of conservative white churches over the years. I've heard preachers rail against abortion and homosexuality. But I've never once, in all my years of attending these white conservative churches, heard a sermon against racism or against poverty, for that matter. I've never heard a preacher address the inequity of the public school system and suggest we do something about it. In fact, the only time I've heard race mentioned at all was on a few rare occasions when a preacher extolled the benefits of being colorblind.
Don't get me wrong, Douglass was not against religion, and neither am I. I do believe that we religious folk can learn from his account, though. Of course we are not committing the sins of the slave owners. But what of the sins of omission? What of ignoring inequity? What of the very unbiblical attitude, "God helps those who help themselves"? During his time on earth, Jesus condemned only one group of people -- the pharisees, a group of religious leaders who used scripture to justify promoting themselves at the expense of others, and who followed the letter of the law while forgetting the Spirit of the Law-giver. May we not find ourselves in their company.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A Little More on Huck...
Last week I talked a bit about the new version of Huck Finn coming out soon, in which the "N-word" is replaced by "slave," and "Injun" by "Indian." The horrible racism of the time depicted in the story would, of course, remain, but it would be told with less offensive language. I questioned the motives behind this change. A friend of mine who is African American shared his feelings about the issue, and put his finger on what I was trying to say. I thought I'd share his words here (with his permission, of course):
"I don't think this controversy is really about black people at all. I really don't think America cares enough about the opinions or feelings of black people for this to be on their radar. I think this is more about white people feeling awkward about their use of the word. Besides, if you're looking to be offended, try to ignore the thousand times the word is used and look at the depiction of Jim...that's pretty offensive on its own."
Language is important -- I believe that. But racism is not only about language. It's about policies and real estate values and schools. It's about expectations and opportunity. It's about remembering the past the way it was, not in some sanitized version that makes whites feel less guilty.
But remembering the past, even through an uncensored version of a book like Huck Finn, isn't enough, as far as I'm concerned. My kids read Huck Finn (uncensored) in our mostly white, suburban high school. They learned, from their white teachers, about racism and how terrible it was. What they didn't learn through the reading of that novel, or in any other way that I can tell, is how the legacy of discrimination continues to impact people today. They discussed racism as a past social problem, as something that was solved by the Civil Rights Movement. In their minds, racism ended when Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus. Don't get me wrong, works of history and historical fiction are an important and necessary part of education. But they are not enough. The timeline can't stop at the "I Had a Dream" speech. We need to find ways to explore the topic of racism with students in the present tense, not only as a thing of the past. And, obviously, that can't happen if the teachers think racism is over.
Teachers out there, what do you think?
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Huck's in News Again
It's all over the internet -- apparently NewSouth Books is coming out with a censored version of Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a version that removes racial slurs and replaces them with more "acceptable" words. The pros and cons of this move are many. Detractors cry censorship; defenders argue that TV censors movies all the time to make them acceptable to a wider audience, how is this any different? Defenders say the basic story has not changed with the removal of the few blatantly racist words that keep this book on the challenged list and out of the hands of many students. Detractors of the bowdlerized version say that the words were there for a reason -- they show the true nature of our racist past and they're important.
What do I think? I guess it depends on how you view Twain and his works -- did his books illustrate his own racism, or did they critique the racism of his time? Scholars have debated that question for decades, and I certainly won't attempt to answer it here. And, I have to admit that I've read accounts of African Americans who were forced to read Huck Finn in school and cringed at the racist language. They felt humiliated in front of their white teachers and classmates. I'm sure the same would hold true for any Native American children in the same situation. Since I'm white, I can't really know how that would feel, so I don't think it's really my call.
Still, I'm interested in what's behind the desire to remove the racial slurs from the text. Whether these words are included or not, the depictions of the people of color in the novel are clearly racist (or a clever critique of racism, depending on your belief about the author). So it seems to me that by including the book in school curriculum, but removing a few racist words, we're saying that we want our kids to learn about our nation's racist history, but we don't want them to be too uncomfortable as they learn it. And we certainly don't want to disrupt the comfort level of the white teachers who will teach this work. After all, we wouldn't want anyone to feel guilty about racism, would we?
What do I think? I guess it depends on how you view Twain and his works -- did his books illustrate his own racism, or did they critique the racism of his time? Scholars have debated that question for decades, and I certainly won't attempt to answer it here. And, I have to admit that I've read accounts of African Americans who were forced to read Huck Finn in school and cringed at the racist language. They felt humiliated in front of their white teachers and classmates. I'm sure the same would hold true for any Native American children in the same situation. Since I'm white, I can't really know how that would feel, so I don't think it's really my call.
Still, I'm interested in what's behind the desire to remove the racial slurs from the text. Whether these words are included or not, the depictions of the people of color in the novel are clearly racist (or a clever critique of racism, depending on your belief about the author). So it seems to me that by including the book in school curriculum, but removing a few racist words, we're saying that we want our kids to learn about our nation's racist history, but we don't want them to be too uncomfortable as they learn it. And we certainly don't want to disrupt the comfort level of the white teachers who will teach this work. After all, we wouldn't want anyone to feel guilty about racism, would we?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)