a world of lies aka the countdown begins
oh man. so lately, i have been in the shittiest mood, right? but, now it's july and i am in the not shittiest mood. i am actually really happy and getting happier.
this is because of two three things.
thing number one: you know what i am going to say don't you? rock the motherfucking bells, baby. i can not express my level of excitement in any way except to say that i am excited over and over and over again to everyone ever. so, i apologize for telling you all how much i can't wait to see wu tang, but there just isn't another way.
thing the two: i am working again, sort of. the library has taken me back to it's loving arms. however, i had to deal with the crazy woman again. the one who thrusts her money at me without telling me why. the one who never believes me when i tell her that she has fines or that no, her book isn't in yet and then asks to see the screen and still insists that somehow i fucked something up.
thing numero three: supernatural crests. i have this sick love of making useless vexels. i love to make them in photoshop, despite everyone's flailing about how illustrator is like three gillion times better for vector. i have combined this love with my overwhelming love for supernatural and am in the process of making awesome family crests. be excited.
okay, so remember how i said i was going to post my white privilege essay and the story of the essay several days ago? i lied. but, i am going to post it now.
tl;dr productions presents
the tale of my crazy ass slightly racist written communications professor and the essay i wrote to smite her.
as soon as the words 'reverse racism' left her mouth...the level of annoyance i felt was unending. the battle had begun.'>it all began with a discussion of immigration laws and the round up of illegal immigrants. the class was fairly active and a few people were tossing ideas back and forth. my professor, who i will refer to as professor z, introduced a new topic to get the rest of the class involved. she asked whether or not illegal immigrants and their children should be allowed to receive financial aid for college from the government. the discussion was carrying on fine until a blond girl with a wibbly, i'm-on-the-verge-of-tears voice raised her hand to say, 'i don't think they should receive aid from the government. what if somehow i miss out on money because i'm a middle class white girl?!' her voice raised at the end of the question, cracking gently like a delicate piece of china and i rolled my eyes, wondering how anyone could maintain that level whiny-ness for so damn long.
understandably, her ridiculous comment caused a ruckus. everyone's hand shot up. sensing she had an impending loud and passionate discussion on her hand, professor z waved her hands up and down in that universal 'settle people, settle' movement. everyone turned toward her.
'okay, now before anyone says anything,' she paused for effect, looking around at each student, 'i just want you all to remember that sometimes race based scholarships and affirmative action type things are good,' she paused again and nodded, eyes googly and wide, 'and sometimes... sometimes they are reverse racism.'
prior to this moment, i had a fairly neutral opinion of the class and the professor. she had a tendency to say somewhat idiotic things at times, but she returned my papers in a timely fashion and let me ramble on in class. as soon as the words 'reverse racism' left her mouth, this all changed. the level of annoyance i felt was unending. the battle had begun.
she went around the classroom and let people say what they wanted to say. when she turned to me i let her see the craziness in my eyes. i was outraged. i expected this level of ignorance from a student, but not from a professor, especially one teaching a majority white class. did she not understand how her words could increase the level of stupidity in these kids? baffled, that is what i was.
from that moment, it was just me and her. we went head to head, and while i would like to say i completely destroyed her, i didn't. i explained again and again the way affirmative action and race based scholarships worked, i told her that as a white woman she benefited the most from affirmative action. i held back the urge to bang my head on my desk as i explained that no, white people do not need a special scholarship. i threw logic all over her face. what did she come back with?
well. she looked me dead in the eye and said, 'well, i never got a handout.' i have never in my life wanted to beat someone down the way i did then. however, after i gritted out that race based scholarships are not handouts, for the love of god, she just held up her hands and said, 'moving on.'
that's right. the bitch totally shut the conversation down.
let me say this now: i am not surprised. white people do this often when they enter uncomfortable conversations about race. at massart, i have experienced this over and over. what really got me was that fact that she was my professor. someone who is supposed to encourage learning and discussion.
needless to say, i had to tell this story over and over again until i felt better. i am sure a number of people can recited this event word for word. however, the madness didn't end there.
after this whole discussion happened, i quickly lost interest in the class. i still went and i still turned in kick-ass essays, but my willingness to participate was really dampened. thinking back on it now, i sort of wish i hadn't allowed that to happen. about a week after the event, professor z gave us an open ended essay assignment: ten pages on anything we wanted. i decided that i would write a paper on the history of white privilege with a special section on, you guessed it, affirmative action.
over the remainder of the semester, we were required to turn in multiple drafts of this essay. i cannot even express to you the level of ridiculousness in the comments she left on my papers. without fail, every time, she would jot some long, rambling story about her latino friend at BU who started a scholarship for white people. the story never completely made sense, and was always slightly different every time she told it. for the most part, i just ignored her comments. with every revision, i was kicking her ass with my words and that made me feel better. by the time i handed in my final, her comments had dwindled to weary looking smiley faces and unenthusiastic 'good points!'
i have chosen to believe that reading my paper six trillion times finally forced some knowledge into her thick ass head. she gave me a perfect score and i had pretty much let the issue go.
on the second to last class, she asked us to give her a written evaluation of her class. they were anonymous, but i made sure she knew exactly who was writing. i brought up our argument and let her know just how offensive the whole thing was and told her that she killed my enjoyment of her class. and i threw in that most of the reading material sucked (which it did).
in turn, professor z emailed me and said she just felt awful about the whole thing. she had no idea how she'd made me feel! she'd been tired that day! she hadn't had her morning coffee! sometimes you say things that you Just Don't Mean! she asked if we could meet so she could explain herself.
i rolled my eyes and said yes. i was going to finish the argument she cut off. i was going to make this bitch cry. no motherfucking mercy, right?
so the day of our meeting came and she pulled me into this quaint little office and we sat on couches and she was leaning forward so much, she was practically holding my hands. she gazed deeply into my eyes and i had to hold back the waves of laughter. i was embarrassed for her.
'cori,' she whispered, 'i just want to tell you that i am so sorry.' i was really stunned, because i thought that she was going to come in, guns blazing, and try to tell me about every way she wasn't a racist.
i raised my eyes in surprise and said, 'ooookay.'
she went on to say that she'd talked to some other professors and that man, she really learned her lesson and that my paper was really really good and blah blah blah.
it was slightly disappointing, not being able to verbally kick her in the face because she was already pretty much doing it herself.
so i kind of shrugged, told her that i appreciated her apology and left. it was very anti-climatic.
anyway, here are selections from essay i wrote on white privilege. it's long, read it if you dare.
a/n: i cut out a bunch of introductory commentary on the article that this paper focused on (wading toward home by michael lewis about the white upper class of new orleans' response to the katrina tragedy), but left some of it in towards the end. this might make the last few paragraphs slightly confusing.
What I Knew or What I Thought I Knew (Every Month is White History Month)
American society, despite its hazy past with centuries of slavery and genocide, has long believed in its mythological status as the ever-just, meritocratic nation. With much of the nation's cultural identity built on the concept of individualism, it is unsurprising that a sizable number of Americans believe fully in the fable of pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps. The belief praises seemingly assistance free ascensions to success, while implying that the inability to achieve such success is the deserved consequence of laziness and ineptitude. As overly simplified as such a sentiment seems, for many, its fallacy is difficult to detect. The reluctance or even inability to critique or refute America's supposed meritocracy can be attributed to many things, the most pertinent and perhaps the most malicious of all being white privilege.
When examining the effect of white privilege in American society, an understanding of the history of race and whiteness is imperative. Scientifically unfounded, the idea of race exists only as a social construct. Its status as a social construct as opposed to a scientific truth, however, does not denote any less seriousness to its existence, rather it speaks to the depths of human manipulation and greed. Like many concepts held dear to the American mythology, race and whiteness have their basis in the practice of colonization and imperialism. As discussed in Gregory Jay's "Who Invented White People?", prior to the rise in the popularity of colonialism and imperialism that occurred following the Renaissance, the primary way people differentiated from each other was based in language, geography and religion. They were divided into what we now call "ethnicities," rather than by skin color. As the Age of Exploration grew and languages and locations were exchanged, the primary division fell to religion. Colonialism's focus on converting natives as well as exploiting them, however, too frequently blurred the line between Christian and non-Christian and a greater distinction was needed. Europe's interest in the burgeoning "scientific racism" and its easy categorization of people as inferior based on facial structure and skin tone led to a new way of understanding individuals which prevails to this day. Under "scientific racism," Europeans of various cultures could ban together under a new, pan-ethnic race: whiteness.
Through this new pan-ethnic race, "[w]hiteness [functioned] as the ideal against which other people [were] considered and judged" ("A User's Guide to White Privilege"). The action of banning together under whiteness allowed the newly formed race to define itself by what it was not. White people assumed the stance of normative, neutral, and ideal through the processes of othering. They were allowed to paint Africans, Natives, and other people of color as savage, immoral, and indicative of all that was not right--thus all which was not white.
In coming together to oppress groups of people, further steps were taken to cement the more powerful group's dominance, one of those steps being stereotyping. Stereotyping plays a large role in white privilege because it works repeatedly to establish the same dichotomy between the oppressed group and the oppressor, always casting one as a foil for the other. Oppressed groups are always to be cast negatively in a way which highlights the innate goodness of the oppressor, enforcing a inferior/superior contrariety that is difficult to overcome. The effect of such dichotomies in the black/white context have lingered even after the collapse of slavery, Jim Crow, and the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
The multiculturalism of the 1990s, with its emphasis on political correctness, brought about a new way of thinking about and dealing with race. Much of the overt displays of the past were replaced with more covert and more neglectful expressions of racial ignorance. There was the development of the sense that in talking about experiences with racism or that in complaining about racism, people of color were being divisive--a notion which still occurs today. Many individuals continued along that line of thinking, coming to the conclusion that if people of color could stop talking about race, American culture could move beyond its tarnished past to embrace the colorblind future it truly deserves. Such pleas, though seemingly idyllic, are rooted firmly in white privilege.
As Peggy McIntosh explains in her influential article, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," because white people think of themselves as neutral, normative, and most importantly, raceless, it is easy for one such person to come to the conclusion that simply ceasing to examine race might make it go away. If one believes firmly that his or her life experience is not colored by his or her race, one speaks to an unawareness--conscious or unconscious--of what it is like to be racial. This in turn speaks to the idea that in believing oneself to be raceless, one can transcend the boundaries of race, experiencing life as simply a human rather than a white human. However poetic or ideal such an existence may seem, it remains inefficient in the grand scheme of race in America. What seems like entering a state of colorblindness, is in reality, a state closer to a blindness to whiteness.
In a culture which has fostered such blindness to the effects of white privilege, it becomes somewhat more understandable that white people, having no part in creating white privilege but benefiting tremendously from it, are unable to see why a meritocratic system cannot be trusted to work fairly. Though the majority of white people have undoubtedly been granted access to greater levels of wealth, education, and social networking for hundreds of years, thus creating a very skewed playing field, these factors often go unremarked upon. In one of the most hotly contested issues concerning the meritocracy, affirmative action, the frantic calls for change are not calls for a more rigorous enforcement of the policy so that the meritocracy might get closer to its ideal, but calls for the policy's dismantling on the grounds that it supports "reverse racism."
In the struggle to identify and consider white privilege and its effects, belief in the concept of "reverse racism" has become one of its most potent obstructions. To aptly examine the flaws of such a concept, one must first examine the definition of racism in America. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary describes racism as "racial prejudice or discrimination." Such simple definitions are common across the collective psyche of most white Americans for a variety of reasons ranging from a lack of discourse about race and racism in American culture to the plain fact that such definitions, on some level, are true. If a white person angrily shouts the word "nigger" at a black person, there is no question about whether or not this action should be considered racist--the word's formidable history as a tool of the oppressor typifies it as inherently prejudiced. In making no reference to the institutional forces of racism, however, the Merriam-Webster definition severely limits the scope under which racist actions can be examined.
[Racism] take[s] both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth. (Peggy McIntosh "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack")
McIntosh draws an important conclusion in highlighting the difference between an underdeveloped understanding of racism and a more nuanced comprehension. The more guileless of the two understandings makes no mention of the institutional weight the white person's prejudice is backed by, acknowledging only the active form of racism. It casts the white person's act of shouting "nigger" at the black person as a single instance of racial rudeness rather than connecting the act to the institutional racism prevalent in almost every facet of American society. It is from this notion that the concept of "reverse racism" springs.
The definition of racism among anti-racists and those invested in seeking knowledge about the intricacies of racism and white privilege varies greatly from that presented by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. Rather than ascribing the label of racism only to situations of overt bigotry and prejudice, anti-racists and other like-minded individuals have expounded upon the common definition. In doing so they have made the same distinction McIntosh brought attention to. Racism is not simply "individual acts of meanness" ("White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"), but the "systematic mistreatment experienced by people of color [as] a result of institutionalized inequalities in the social structure ... [whose] imbalance consistently favors members of some ethnic and cultural groups at the expense of others." (Ricky Sherover-Marcuse "A Working Definition of Racism: Revised 7/88"). Within the framework of this definition, it is clear that "reverse racism" could not occur within American society as it exists today because American society still operates to continually uplift those with white skin privilege while devaluing those without it. Cries of "reverse racism," in actuality, are often cries of prejudice or, more benignly, the shocking loss of white privilege.
The distinction between prejudice and racism is often difficult to see. However, when the earlier explored example is revisited and the races of the people are reversed, the difference becomes almost glaringly obvious. In most situations, if a white person were referred to as a "cracker" or "honky" by a person of color, their reaction might be confusion or mild upset, rather than the stinging pain a black person might feel when faced with the word "nigger." The difference between the two reactions relates directly to the lack of systematic power had by people of color. Because America's social-political system has never been controlled by people of color, people of color have never had the opportunity nor the capacity to create widely believed and accepted humiliating and debasing terms which enforce false ideas about the subhuman nature of white people. Without the context of institutional power's predilection toward those with white skin privilege, the two examples have the possibility of existing on the same level of meaning. When the history of race relations is taken into account, however, the implication of each action is drastically altered. It is necessary to apply the same notion to affirmative action policies.
False ideas about affirmative action are abundant in American society, the core belief mostly being that affirmative action and race-based scholarships are, in a multitude of ways, damaging to the jobs and educations of hard working white citizens--a notion whose key perpetrator lies in the the subtle, shape-shifting nature of white privilege. Though it is often assumed that the key benefactors of affirmative action are people of color, the reverse is true. In an effort to unite and encourage white male and white female citizens to vote against affirmative action, the policy has been hugely racialized. Statistically, it has been white women who have benefited the most from affirmative action. They have gained tremendously and by 1993, their median income was 16% higher than that of women of color. (Tim Wise "Is Sisterhood Conditional? White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action"). However, politically motivated terms such as "preferential hiring and promotion" used in place of the term affirmative action, have acted as powerful triggers signifying a threat to white privilege to such a degree that statistic findings revealing the positive effect of affirmative action on white women have been almost completely ignored, despite the adverse economic consequences felt by majority white female owned businesses when affirmative action policies were dismantled ("Is Sisterhood Conditional? White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action"). Though it is convenient and easy to believe that the meritocracy operates within a raceless, sexless vacuum, this notion is not and has never been true. The meritocracy takes into account not only the work ethic and recommendations received by the the individual, but it evaluates the family one comes from by way of yearly income, which in turn determines both the high school and college one would have the opportunity to attend, which would effect the level of job the individual would be applying to. In the winding web of the meritocracy, white families receive a disproportionate amount of opportunities not afforded to families of color because they hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, are able to send their children to disproportionately better schools, and have disproportionately more education than families of color.
The notion of affirmative action and race-based scholarships seriously damaging the abilities of white students and workers to get jobs is as ridiculous as the idea of there being a White History Month to counterbalance Black History Month. It is ridiculous because ninety-three percent of college scholarship money goes to white students ("White Whine: Reflections on the Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege"), because white people still benefit from affirmative action ("Myths and Facts About Affirmative Action"), and because every month is White History Month.
More interesting than the concept of affirmative action and race-based scholarships being unfair to white people is the fact that such concerns are actually raised. There is a clear juxtaposition between the awareness of privilege and the ignorance of privilege which begins only with the threat of the privilege's removal. Further explored in Lewis' article, this theme discusses the inherently contradictory nature of white privilege, revealing its ability to hide in plain sight.
In focusing mostly on the wealthy white inhabitants of New Orleans, Michael Lewis paints a vivid portrait of the effect of white privilege. Geographically stratified along racial and class lines, the wealthy white residents showcased in "Wading Toward Home," are indicative of those fish out of water kind of people, coming face to face with their white privilege only upon the threat of losing it.
When the homes of the New Orleans citizens in both rich and poor areas are damaged, something breaks loose within the wealthy white community. The possibility that young black men, angry and displaced, might invade the living spaces of wealthy white people settles in the forefront of the community's mind. Outlandish rumors featuring murderous young black men begin to circulate among the men who have chosen to stay behind to guard their homes.
"Stereotypes of African-Americans as savage leads many whites, often against their own conscious intention, to fear blacks and mistrust them" ("A User's Guide to White Privilege"). This sentiment holds remarkably true as story upon story of young black males raping, stealing, looting, and killing white people without remorse is told and readily believed. The stereotypes, fabricated to keep white privilege and white power in place, work as a foil for the virtue of whiteness, once again pitting good (white) against bad (black), in order to stabilize the innate rectitude of the white character.
From Tuesday to Thursday, the stories had grown increasingly terrifying. On Thursday, a police sergeant [said,] 'If I were you, I'd get the hell out of here. Tonight they gonna waste white guys and they don't care which ones.' (Lewis 200)
The prominence of and variation on the theme of the roaming black gang looking for white people to kill is a reflection of the deep-seated fear of the slaves revolting and burning down the master's house. This is to say that subconsciously, whites fear the uprising of the black masses because the downfall of white biased power structures would be inevitable. The previously unacknowledged urge to protect white privilege, thus comes forcefully to the forefront of the fearful white minds in "Wading Toward Home." The fear of black people somehow shedding their ascribed blackness is revealed almost poetically in the rumor of black youth robbing clothing stores:
Most shocking of all, because of its incongruity, was the news that looters had broken into Perlis, the Uptown New Orleans clothing store, and picked them clean of alligator belts, polo shirts with little crawfish on them, and tuxedos, most often rented by white kids for debutante parties and the Squires'Ball. (199)
Among the alleged thefts, killings, and rapes, this rumor stands out for it's lack of overt physical violence. Rather than physical, the violence in the passage is metaphorical. In stealing clothing most commonly associated with the white youth of New Orleans, the fictional black thieves are portrayed as wanting to remove their blackness. To steal these clothes is to gain the master's privilege by proxy. The clothing rumor is another manifestation of the wealthy white people's fear of losing their invisible privilege.
Unsurprisingly, almost none of the rumors are found to have any semblance of truth to them. They were fictional constructs created by white privilege's need to be protected. The legacy of white skin privilege is a path so convoluted, that for the people it effects most, it is almost impossible to see. However, like many lurking elements in the human psyche, the presence of white privilege can reveal itself to its benefactor in times of stress. As shown in Michael Lewis' "Wading Toward Home," like the fish dying out of water, the threat to the normative prevalence of white skin privilege can lead individuals into almost absurd action, allowing them to believe the most ridiculous of things. However absurd this reaction, it can lend a sliver of hope into an unjust world: if there is reaction, there is cause. The threat to white privilege can perhaps lead to the widespread admittance that it is there.
-cori, yay my new bathing suit came in the mail!
this is because of two three things.
thing number one: you know what i am going to say don't you? rock the motherfucking bells, baby. i can not express my level of excitement in any way except to say that i am excited over and over and over again to everyone ever. so, i apologize for telling you all how much i can't wait to see wu tang, but there just isn't another way.
thing the two: i am working again, sort of. the library has taken me back to it's loving arms. however, i had to deal with the crazy woman again. the one who thrusts her money at me without telling me why. the one who never believes me when i tell her that she has fines or that no, her book isn't in yet and then asks to see the screen and still insists that somehow i fucked something up.
thing numero three: supernatural crests. i have this sick love of making useless vexels. i love to make them in photoshop, despite everyone's flailing about how illustrator is like three gillion times better for vector. i have combined this love with my overwhelming love for supernatural and am in the process of making awesome family crests. be excited.
okay, so remember how i said i was going to post my white privilege essay and the story of the essay several days ago? i lied. but, i am going to post it now.
tl;dr productions presents
the tale of my crazy ass slightly racist written communications professor and the essay i wrote to smite her.
as soon as the words 'reverse racism' left her mouth...the level of annoyance i felt was unending. the battle had begun.'>it all began with a discussion of immigration laws and the round up of illegal immigrants. the class was fairly active and a few people were tossing ideas back and forth. my professor, who i will refer to as professor z, introduced a new topic to get the rest of the class involved. she asked whether or not illegal immigrants and their children should be allowed to receive financial aid for college from the government. the discussion was carrying on fine until a blond girl with a wibbly, i'm-on-the-verge-of-tears voice raised her hand to say, 'i don't think they should receive aid from the government. what if somehow i miss out on money because i'm a middle class white girl?!' her voice raised at the end of the question, cracking gently like a delicate piece of china and i rolled my eyes, wondering how anyone could maintain that level whiny-ness for so damn long.
understandably, her ridiculous comment caused a ruckus. everyone's hand shot up. sensing she had an impending loud and passionate discussion on her hand, professor z waved her hands up and down in that universal 'settle people, settle' movement. everyone turned toward her.
'okay, now before anyone says anything,' she paused for effect, looking around at each student, 'i just want you all to remember that sometimes race based scholarships and affirmative action type things are good,' she paused again and nodded, eyes googly and wide, 'and sometimes... sometimes they are reverse racism.'
prior to this moment, i had a fairly neutral opinion of the class and the professor. she had a tendency to say somewhat idiotic things at times, but she returned my papers in a timely fashion and let me ramble on in class. as soon as the words 'reverse racism' left her mouth, this all changed. the level of annoyance i felt was unending. the battle had begun.
she went around the classroom and let people say what they wanted to say. when she turned to me i let her see the craziness in my eyes. i was outraged. i expected this level of ignorance from a student, but not from a professor, especially one teaching a majority white class. did she not understand how her words could increase the level of stupidity in these kids? baffled, that is what i was.
from that moment, it was just me and her. we went head to head, and while i would like to say i completely destroyed her, i didn't. i explained again and again the way affirmative action and race based scholarships worked, i told her that as a white woman she benefited the most from affirmative action. i held back the urge to bang my head on my desk as i explained that no, white people do not need a special scholarship. i threw logic all over her face. what did she come back with?
well. she looked me dead in the eye and said, 'well, i never got a handout.' i have never in my life wanted to beat someone down the way i did then. however, after i gritted out that race based scholarships are not handouts, for the love of god, she just held up her hands and said, 'moving on.'
that's right. the bitch totally shut the conversation down.
let me say this now: i am not surprised. white people do this often when they enter uncomfortable conversations about race. at massart, i have experienced this over and over. what really got me was that fact that she was my professor. someone who is supposed to encourage learning and discussion.
needless to say, i had to tell this story over and over again until i felt better. i am sure a number of people can recited this event word for word. however, the madness didn't end there.
after this whole discussion happened, i quickly lost interest in the class. i still went and i still turned in kick-ass essays, but my willingness to participate was really dampened. thinking back on it now, i sort of wish i hadn't allowed that to happen. about a week after the event, professor z gave us an open ended essay assignment: ten pages on anything we wanted. i decided that i would write a paper on the history of white privilege with a special section on, you guessed it, affirmative action.
over the remainder of the semester, we were required to turn in multiple drafts of this essay. i cannot even express to you the level of ridiculousness in the comments she left on my papers. without fail, every time, she would jot some long, rambling story about her latino friend at BU who started a scholarship for white people. the story never completely made sense, and was always slightly different every time she told it. for the most part, i just ignored her comments. with every revision, i was kicking her ass with my words and that made me feel better. by the time i handed in my final, her comments had dwindled to weary looking smiley faces and unenthusiastic 'good points!'
i have chosen to believe that reading my paper six trillion times finally forced some knowledge into her thick ass head. she gave me a perfect score and i had pretty much let the issue go.
on the second to last class, she asked us to give her a written evaluation of her class. they were anonymous, but i made sure she knew exactly who was writing. i brought up our argument and let her know just how offensive the whole thing was and told her that she killed my enjoyment of her class. and i threw in that most of the reading material sucked (which it did).
in turn, professor z emailed me and said she just felt awful about the whole thing. she had no idea how she'd made me feel! she'd been tired that day! she hadn't had her morning coffee! sometimes you say things that you Just Don't Mean! she asked if we could meet so she could explain herself.
i rolled my eyes and said yes. i was going to finish the argument she cut off. i was going to make this bitch cry. no motherfucking mercy, right?
so the day of our meeting came and she pulled me into this quaint little office and we sat on couches and she was leaning forward so much, she was practically holding my hands. she gazed deeply into my eyes and i had to hold back the waves of laughter. i was embarrassed for her.
'cori,' she whispered, 'i just want to tell you that i am so sorry.' i was really stunned, because i thought that she was going to come in, guns blazing, and try to tell me about every way she wasn't a racist.
i raised my eyes in surprise and said, 'ooookay.'
she went on to say that she'd talked to some other professors and that man, she really learned her lesson and that my paper was really really good and blah blah blah.
it was slightly disappointing, not being able to verbally kick her in the face because she was already pretty much doing it herself.
so i kind of shrugged, told her that i appreciated her apology and left. it was very anti-climatic.
anyway, here are selections from essay i wrote on white privilege. it's long, read it if you dare.
a/n: i cut out a bunch of introductory commentary on the article that this paper focused on (wading toward home by michael lewis about the white upper class of new orleans' response to the katrina tragedy), but left some of it in towards the end. this might make the last few paragraphs slightly confusing.
What I Knew or What I Thought I Knew (Every Month is White History Month)
American society, despite its hazy past with centuries of slavery and genocide, has long believed in its mythological status as the ever-just, meritocratic nation. With much of the nation's cultural identity built on the concept of individualism, it is unsurprising that a sizable number of Americans believe fully in the fable of pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps. The belief praises seemingly assistance free ascensions to success, while implying that the inability to achieve such success is the deserved consequence of laziness and ineptitude. As overly simplified as such a sentiment seems, for many, its fallacy is difficult to detect. The reluctance or even inability to critique or refute America's supposed meritocracy can be attributed to many things, the most pertinent and perhaps the most malicious of all being white privilege.
When examining the effect of white privilege in American society, an understanding of the history of race and whiteness is imperative. Scientifically unfounded, the idea of race exists only as a social construct. Its status as a social construct as opposed to a scientific truth, however, does not denote any less seriousness to its existence, rather it speaks to the depths of human manipulation and greed. Like many concepts held dear to the American mythology, race and whiteness have their basis in the practice of colonization and imperialism. As discussed in Gregory Jay's "Who Invented White People?", prior to the rise in the popularity of colonialism and imperialism that occurred following the Renaissance, the primary way people differentiated from each other was based in language, geography and religion. They were divided into what we now call "ethnicities," rather than by skin color. As the Age of Exploration grew and languages and locations were exchanged, the primary division fell to religion. Colonialism's focus on converting natives as well as exploiting them, however, too frequently blurred the line between Christian and non-Christian and a greater distinction was needed. Europe's interest in the burgeoning "scientific racism" and its easy categorization of people as inferior based on facial structure and skin tone led to a new way of understanding individuals which prevails to this day. Under "scientific racism," Europeans of various cultures could ban together under a new, pan-ethnic race: whiteness.
Through this new pan-ethnic race, "[w]hiteness [functioned] as the ideal against which other people [were] considered and judged" ("A User's Guide to White Privilege"). The action of banning together under whiteness allowed the newly formed race to define itself by what it was not. White people assumed the stance of normative, neutral, and ideal through the processes of othering. They were allowed to paint Africans, Natives, and other people of color as savage, immoral, and indicative of all that was not right--thus all which was not white.
In coming together to oppress groups of people, further steps were taken to cement the more powerful group's dominance, one of those steps being stereotyping. Stereotyping plays a large role in white privilege because it works repeatedly to establish the same dichotomy between the oppressed group and the oppressor, always casting one as a foil for the other. Oppressed groups are always to be cast negatively in a way which highlights the innate goodness of the oppressor, enforcing a inferior/superior contrariety that is difficult to overcome. The effect of such dichotomies in the black/white context have lingered even after the collapse of slavery, Jim Crow, and the rise of the Civil Rights movement.
The multiculturalism of the 1990s, with its emphasis on political correctness, brought about a new way of thinking about and dealing with race. Much of the overt displays of the past were replaced with more covert and more neglectful expressions of racial ignorance. There was the development of the sense that in talking about experiences with racism or that in complaining about racism, people of color were being divisive--a notion which still occurs today. Many individuals continued along that line of thinking, coming to the conclusion that if people of color could stop talking about race, American culture could move beyond its tarnished past to embrace the colorblind future it truly deserves. Such pleas, though seemingly idyllic, are rooted firmly in white privilege.
As Peggy McIntosh explains in her influential article, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," because white people think of themselves as neutral, normative, and most importantly, raceless, it is easy for one such person to come to the conclusion that simply ceasing to examine race might make it go away. If one believes firmly that his or her life experience is not colored by his or her race, one speaks to an unawareness--conscious or unconscious--of what it is like to be racial. This in turn speaks to the idea that in believing oneself to be raceless, one can transcend the boundaries of race, experiencing life as simply a human rather than a white human. However poetic or ideal such an existence may seem, it remains inefficient in the grand scheme of race in America. What seems like entering a state of colorblindness, is in reality, a state closer to a blindness to whiteness.
In a culture which has fostered such blindness to the effects of white privilege, it becomes somewhat more understandable that white people, having no part in creating white privilege but benefiting tremendously from it, are unable to see why a meritocratic system cannot be trusted to work fairly. Though the majority of white people have undoubtedly been granted access to greater levels of wealth, education, and social networking for hundreds of years, thus creating a very skewed playing field, these factors often go unremarked upon. In one of the most hotly contested issues concerning the meritocracy, affirmative action, the frantic calls for change are not calls for a more rigorous enforcement of the policy so that the meritocracy might get closer to its ideal, but calls for the policy's dismantling on the grounds that it supports "reverse racism."
In the struggle to identify and consider white privilege and its effects, belief in the concept of "reverse racism" has become one of its most potent obstructions. To aptly examine the flaws of such a concept, one must first examine the definition of racism in America. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary describes racism as "racial prejudice or discrimination." Such simple definitions are common across the collective psyche of most white Americans for a variety of reasons ranging from a lack of discourse about race and racism in American culture to the plain fact that such definitions, on some level, are true. If a white person angrily shouts the word "nigger" at a black person, there is no question about whether or not this action should be considered racist--the word's formidable history as a tool of the oppressor typifies it as inherently prejudiced. In making no reference to the institutional forces of racism, however, the Merriam-Webster definition severely limits the scope under which racist actions can be examined.
[Racism] take[s] both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth. (Peggy McIntosh "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack")
McIntosh draws an important conclusion in highlighting the difference between an underdeveloped understanding of racism and a more nuanced comprehension. The more guileless of the two understandings makes no mention of the institutional weight the white person's prejudice is backed by, acknowledging only the active form of racism. It casts the white person's act of shouting "nigger" at the black person as a single instance of racial rudeness rather than connecting the act to the institutional racism prevalent in almost every facet of American society. It is from this notion that the concept of "reverse racism" springs.
The definition of racism among anti-racists and those invested in seeking knowledge about the intricacies of racism and white privilege varies greatly from that presented by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. Rather than ascribing the label of racism only to situations of overt bigotry and prejudice, anti-racists and other like-minded individuals have expounded upon the common definition. In doing so they have made the same distinction McIntosh brought attention to. Racism is not simply "individual acts of meanness" ("White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"), but the "systematic mistreatment experienced by people of color [as] a result of institutionalized inequalities in the social structure ... [whose] imbalance consistently favors members of some ethnic and cultural groups at the expense of others." (Ricky Sherover-Marcuse "A Working Definition of Racism: Revised 7/88"). Within the framework of this definition, it is clear that "reverse racism" could not occur within American society as it exists today because American society still operates to continually uplift those with white skin privilege while devaluing those without it. Cries of "reverse racism," in actuality, are often cries of prejudice or, more benignly, the shocking loss of white privilege.
The distinction between prejudice and racism is often difficult to see. However, when the earlier explored example is revisited and the races of the people are reversed, the difference becomes almost glaringly obvious. In most situations, if a white person were referred to as a "cracker" or "honky" by a person of color, their reaction might be confusion or mild upset, rather than the stinging pain a black person might feel when faced with the word "nigger." The difference between the two reactions relates directly to the lack of systematic power had by people of color. Because America's social-political system has never been controlled by people of color, people of color have never had the opportunity nor the capacity to create widely believed and accepted humiliating and debasing terms which enforce false ideas about the subhuman nature of white people. Without the context of institutional power's predilection toward those with white skin privilege, the two examples have the possibility of existing on the same level of meaning. When the history of race relations is taken into account, however, the implication of each action is drastically altered. It is necessary to apply the same notion to affirmative action policies.
False ideas about affirmative action are abundant in American society, the core belief mostly being that affirmative action and race-based scholarships are, in a multitude of ways, damaging to the jobs and educations of hard working white citizens--a notion whose key perpetrator lies in the the subtle, shape-shifting nature of white privilege. Though it is often assumed that the key benefactors of affirmative action are people of color, the reverse is true. In an effort to unite and encourage white male and white female citizens to vote against affirmative action, the policy has been hugely racialized. Statistically, it has been white women who have benefited the most from affirmative action. They have gained tremendously and by 1993, their median income was 16% higher than that of women of color. (Tim Wise "Is Sisterhood Conditional? White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action"). However, politically motivated terms such as "preferential hiring and promotion" used in place of the term affirmative action, have acted as powerful triggers signifying a threat to white privilege to such a degree that statistic findings revealing the positive effect of affirmative action on white women have been almost completely ignored, despite the adverse economic consequences felt by majority white female owned businesses when affirmative action policies were dismantled ("Is Sisterhood Conditional? White Women and the Rollback of Affirmative Action"). Though it is convenient and easy to believe that the meritocracy operates within a raceless, sexless vacuum, this notion is not and has never been true. The meritocracy takes into account not only the work ethic and recommendations received by the the individual, but it evaluates the family one comes from by way of yearly income, which in turn determines both the high school and college one would have the opportunity to attend, which would effect the level of job the individual would be applying to. In the winding web of the meritocracy, white families receive a disproportionate amount of opportunities not afforded to families of color because they hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, are able to send their children to disproportionately better schools, and have disproportionately more education than families of color.
The notion of affirmative action and race-based scholarships seriously damaging the abilities of white students and workers to get jobs is as ridiculous as the idea of there being a White History Month to counterbalance Black History Month. It is ridiculous because ninety-three percent of college scholarship money goes to white students ("White Whine: Reflections on the Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege"), because white people still benefit from affirmative action ("Myths and Facts About Affirmative Action"), and because every month is White History Month.
More interesting than the concept of affirmative action and race-based scholarships being unfair to white people is the fact that such concerns are actually raised. There is a clear juxtaposition between the awareness of privilege and the ignorance of privilege which begins only with the threat of the privilege's removal. Further explored in Lewis' article, this theme discusses the inherently contradictory nature of white privilege, revealing its ability to hide in plain sight.
In focusing mostly on the wealthy white inhabitants of New Orleans, Michael Lewis paints a vivid portrait of the effect of white privilege. Geographically stratified along racial and class lines, the wealthy white residents showcased in "Wading Toward Home," are indicative of those fish out of water kind of people, coming face to face with their white privilege only upon the threat of losing it.
When the homes of the New Orleans citizens in both rich and poor areas are damaged, something breaks loose within the wealthy white community. The possibility that young black men, angry and displaced, might invade the living spaces of wealthy white people settles in the forefront of the community's mind. Outlandish rumors featuring murderous young black men begin to circulate among the men who have chosen to stay behind to guard their homes.
"Stereotypes of African-Americans as savage leads many whites, often against their own conscious intention, to fear blacks and mistrust them" ("A User's Guide to White Privilege"). This sentiment holds remarkably true as story upon story of young black males raping, stealing, looting, and killing white people without remorse is told and readily believed. The stereotypes, fabricated to keep white privilege and white power in place, work as a foil for the virtue of whiteness, once again pitting good (white) against bad (black), in order to stabilize the innate rectitude of the white character.
From Tuesday to Thursday, the stories had grown increasingly terrifying. On Thursday, a police sergeant [said,] 'If I were you, I'd get the hell out of here. Tonight they gonna waste white guys and they don't care which ones.' (Lewis 200)
The prominence of and variation on the theme of the roaming black gang looking for white people to kill is a reflection of the deep-seated fear of the slaves revolting and burning down the master's house. This is to say that subconsciously, whites fear the uprising of the black masses because the downfall of white biased power structures would be inevitable. The previously unacknowledged urge to protect white privilege, thus comes forcefully to the forefront of the fearful white minds in "Wading Toward Home." The fear of black people somehow shedding their ascribed blackness is revealed almost poetically in the rumor of black youth robbing clothing stores:
Most shocking of all, because of its incongruity, was the news that looters had broken into Perlis, the Uptown New Orleans clothing store, and picked them clean of alligator belts, polo shirts with little crawfish on them, and tuxedos, most often rented by white kids for debutante parties and the Squires'Ball. (199)
Among the alleged thefts, killings, and rapes, this rumor stands out for it's lack of overt physical violence. Rather than physical, the violence in the passage is metaphorical. In stealing clothing most commonly associated with the white youth of New Orleans, the fictional black thieves are portrayed as wanting to remove their blackness. To steal these clothes is to gain the master's privilege by proxy. The clothing rumor is another manifestation of the wealthy white people's fear of losing their invisible privilege.
Unsurprisingly, almost none of the rumors are found to have any semblance of truth to them. They were fictional constructs created by white privilege's need to be protected. The legacy of white skin privilege is a path so convoluted, that for the people it effects most, it is almost impossible to see. However, like many lurking elements in the human psyche, the presence of white privilege can reveal itself to its benefactor in times of stress. As shown in Michael Lewis' "Wading Toward Home," like the fish dying out of water, the threat to the normative prevalence of white skin privilege can lead individuals into almost absurd action, allowing them to believe the most ridiculous of things. However absurd this reaction, it can lend a sliver of hope into an unjust world: if there is reaction, there is cause. The threat to white privilege can perhaps lead to the widespread admittance that it is there.
-cori, yay my new bathing suit came in the mail!