Last weekend I got to attend a conference hosted by my very own Childhood Studies department at Rutgers University in Camden, NJ, where I'm a PhD student. There were lots of great presentations, but one paper I heard especially sparked my interest. I'll tell you about it in a minute, but first, this little caveat. On the second day of the conference I woke up with pain and blurred vision in my right eye. My first response, as usual, was to go online and diagnose myself. Here were the options: brain tumor, stroke, or acute glaucoma. Every site I went to said the following: "This is a medical emergency. Seek medical attention immediately." Thankfully, I was able to get an appointment with my eye doctor right away, and it turned out to be nothing serious (just a treatable virus). Here's the interesting part -- not wanting to miss the conference, I asked if I could still drive to Camden. After all, my left eye was fine! The doctor didn't blink an eye (sorry) about my driving at high speeds on a major highway with less than perfect vision. Instead she said, "Ooh, Camden. You don't want to get lost there." Concerns of race and social class win out over general health and safety every time!
Anyway, I made it to Camden just fine and attended a session where a woman presented a study she'd done as part of her master's thesis. She'd analyzed children's books in preschool classrooms, looking at various views of childhood as depicted through characters in these books. To do this she'd created categories, such as body size, gender, class, age, sexuality, and ability, and counted how many characters she found that fit into each category. Her last category was culture. If you've been reading this blog for awhile, perhaps you see where I'm going with this. Culture as a category? Curious. What is culture? According to the dictionary, it is "the attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group." Since we're all part of a "particular social group," or of many particular social groups, we all experience the cultures of those groups. We are all products of those cultures that in a variety of ways work together to make us who we are. So I asked the presenter what she meant by culture. (When I told my son about this a few days later he wondered if I'd stood up and shouted, "Are you SERIOUS?" and thrown a chair. Gotta admire the direct approach.) Did she mean things like race, ethnicity, language? And why had she grouped them all together? Of course, that's exactly what the presenter meant. She explained that she'd grouped any characters that weren't white under the heading of culture. Further, she said that she'd done this because "the master's had to get done really fast." People in the audience chuckled at this -- those darn master's degrees! Gotta get 'em over with! No time to think about race or ethnicity! Just lump it together under culture -- that's good enough when you're in a hurry! Oh, and did I mention that the presenter was white? Didn't have to, did I?
I know, I'm being facetious. Nothing against this presenter, but I could not help but notice how her grouping of characters in children's books so perfectly reflected a common disposition among whites -- we're white, we're just regular. Culture, and by extension race, is something other people have. I know I've posted about this before, but it just keeps jumping out at me.
Dyer* notes that traditionally, the study of race has implied the study of races other than white (p. 9). The tendency of whites to see themselves as raceless allows them to believe that “other people are raced, we are just people” (p. 10). This, Dyer believes, keeps whites in the position of power, because while others can only speak for their particular race, whites believe that they represent the interests of all human-kind. Dyer suggests that as long as whites continue to see themselves as “normal,” white power will continue to reproduce itself (p. 12). This is important, because whites won't see how our race and culture interacts with others (both historically and in the present) if we don't think we have a race and culture.
Amazingly, all of these reflections, and this wonderful conference, took place in Camden. Who would ever have thunk it.
*Dyer, R. (2005). “The Matter of Whiteness.” In P. S. Rothenberg, White privilege: Essential readings on the other side of racism, NY: Worth Publishers.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
So What?
A while back I explained to a grad school professor that I wanted to study white privilege. He seemed genuinely puzzled, responding, "So you're white, you're privileged. So what?" In fairness to him, I think he was trying to get me to think more deeply about my research idea -- what will you do with this study of white privilege? is maybe what he meant to ask. But at the time it felt like he was saying, "Big deal. You're white. So what? There's nothing to study here. Think of something more important." As I progressed in my research, looking at how whiteness expresses and reproduces itself, this same prof told me on several occasions that he felt I was "too close to it" to study whiteness objectively. I have to admit this one confused me, especially since the person who made the comment is also white. I'm too close to whiteness, but he's not? Am I more white than he is? And doesn't my being white make me the perfect "insider" to study whiteness? Anyway, I ignored the comment and began to study the area of race, with special attention to what it means to be white in America. Hence, this blog.
A year or so later I was presenting a session to a group of young people on the topic of (you guessed it) white privilege. They were not impressed. One young woman eerily echoed my grad prof's words, "So whites are privileged. So what? Are they supposed to wear a sign on their foreheads that says 'I'M PRIVILEGED'?"
The so what? question is a good one, but I think it often masks a different sentiment that goes like this: "I'm white, I'm privileged, okay, you've made your point. But I was born this way, I didn't ask for it. So stop making me feel guilty!"
It's easy to feel guilty when studying the history of race in America if you're white. Conquest, slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, housing and job discrimination...there's lots in our past to feel guilty about. In a present sense, we might feel guilty if we've been exposed to a racist comment or joke made by another white person, but failed to speak out against it. A good friend shared this experience: she was walking her very large (but very sweet) dog around a track when she was joined by a high school class of African American female students, led by a white male teacher. Supposedly as a joke, the teacher said to one of his students, "Watch out. This dog doesn't like black people." My friend was shocked. She did the first thing she thought of, which was to smile at the student and reassure her that the dog is friendly and she was in no danger. Later, she regretted her response. Why hadn't she corrected the teacher? Why hadn't she thought quickly enough to say, "Wow, I'm surprised a high school teacher would say something so blatantly racist!" She felt guilty and complicit.
Authors Nile & Straton* explain that guilt is a common response for whites who begin to think about their position of social privilege and power. They explain that, while it may common and even natural, guilt is not really helpful, because it becomes an "emotional trap that keeps many European Americans stuck in a lack of both understanding and compassion for people of color" (2). They suggest we "set aside" (which is not the same as deny) feeling of guilt, and instead admit the realities of historical racism, acknowledge the ways that racism currently functions, and do something about it. In other words, become an ally in big or small ways to groups who have been marginalized historically.
What does an ally do? The origin of the word is to bind together. An ally binds herself to a friend, partner, affiliate, or group, and there, right there, is the so what of white privilege. So what? So this -- I'll speak up when I hear racism on an individual level. I'll vote when I perceive racism on an institutional level. I'll write a letter, a paper, a blog, a novel, a poem, a song, a dissertation. I'll stop complaining about "reverse discrimination" when I don't get a scholarship that's meant for a "minority" student, or if I lose some other opportunity to an equally qualified person of color, recognizing that such events are not racist, they are attempts to equal the playing field in a country with a very long history of inequality. I'll interrupt racism at the dinner table, the office, the lacrosse field, the nail salon, the track, the classroom. Because, as Nile & Straton point out, "It is time, very simply, to get out of ourselves and get into the world" (6).
*Nile, Lauren N. and Jack C. Straton. "Beyond Guilt: How to Deal with Societal Racism." Multicultural Education, 10 (4), Summer 2003.
A year or so later I was presenting a session to a group of young people on the topic of (you guessed it) white privilege. They were not impressed. One young woman eerily echoed my grad prof's words, "So whites are privileged. So what? Are they supposed to wear a sign on their foreheads that says 'I'M PRIVILEGED'?"
The so what? question is a good one, but I think it often masks a different sentiment that goes like this: "I'm white, I'm privileged, okay, you've made your point. But I was born this way, I didn't ask for it. So stop making me feel guilty!"
It's easy to feel guilty when studying the history of race in America if you're white. Conquest, slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, housing and job discrimination...there's lots in our past to feel guilty about. In a present sense, we might feel guilty if we've been exposed to a racist comment or joke made by another white person, but failed to speak out against it. A good friend shared this experience: she was walking her very large (but very sweet) dog around a track when she was joined by a high school class of African American female students, led by a white male teacher. Supposedly as a joke, the teacher said to one of his students, "Watch out. This dog doesn't like black people." My friend was shocked. She did the first thing she thought of, which was to smile at the student and reassure her that the dog is friendly and she was in no danger. Later, she regretted her response. Why hadn't she corrected the teacher? Why hadn't she thought quickly enough to say, "Wow, I'm surprised a high school teacher would say something so blatantly racist!" She felt guilty and complicit.
Authors Nile & Straton* explain that guilt is a common response for whites who begin to think about their position of social privilege and power. They explain that, while it may common and even natural, guilt is not really helpful, because it becomes an "emotional trap that keeps many European Americans stuck in a lack of both understanding and compassion for people of color" (2). They suggest we "set aside" (which is not the same as deny) feeling of guilt, and instead admit the realities of historical racism, acknowledge the ways that racism currently functions, and do something about it. In other words, become an ally in big or small ways to groups who have been marginalized historically.
What does an ally do? The origin of the word is to bind together. An ally binds herself to a friend, partner, affiliate, or group, and there, right there, is the so what of white privilege. So what? So this -- I'll speak up when I hear racism on an individual level. I'll vote when I perceive racism on an institutional level. I'll write a letter, a paper, a blog, a novel, a poem, a song, a dissertation. I'll stop complaining about "reverse discrimination" when I don't get a scholarship that's meant for a "minority" student, or if I lose some other opportunity to an equally qualified person of color, recognizing that such events are not racist, they are attempts to equal the playing field in a country with a very long history of inequality. I'll interrupt racism at the dinner table, the office, the lacrosse field, the nail salon, the track, the classroom. Because, as Nile & Straton point out, "It is time, very simply, to get out of ourselves and get into the world" (6).
*Nile, Lauren N. and Jack C. Straton. "Beyond Guilt: How to Deal with Societal Racism." Multicultural Education, 10 (4), Summer 2003.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The R Word is here!
I'm happy to announce that my young adult novel, The R Word, is now available in print and Kindle editions. I wrote The R Word because I wanted to explore contemporary attitudes about race in a supposedly "post racial" culture. The novel is aimed at youth 12 and above, or at adults like me who love young adult fiction. While, of course, my primary goal was to tell a good story, The R Word is also intended for classroom use, where I hope it will stimulate discussion about present-day racial inequity on a structural level. I hope you'll check it out.
A recent blog entry from Eastern University's Urban Studies Department reiterates much of what I've been trying to say through this blog, and through The R Word. Whitney Monn, the author of the post, shows through economic statistics that racism is far from over. She says, "...racism still exists. I believe it has just grown sneakier, hiding from the public eye in economic practices and policies." You can read the entire post at http://ccgps.eastern.edu/urban-studies-blog.blog/2011/04/04/racism-a-past-evil-or-present-foe.
I like Whitney's use of the word, "sneakier." Racism used to be blatant. It used to look like signs at a water fountain or separate entrances for people of color. It used to sound like Archie Bunker. But that was a long time ago. Now it looks like a public school system that is largely segregated and unequally funded. It sounds like the argument about "reverse discrimination." It sounds logical and fair. It argues that we should be colorblind, which means we should forget the past and move on. Sounds good, but the problem is that in forgetting the past we absolve ourselves from doing anything about the present. Sneaky.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
White Guilt?
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
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
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.
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