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Whiteness Studies Biblio - mizzy - 07-24-2006 03:26 PM
An online whiteness studies bibliography can be found at
http://www.uwm.edu/~gjay/Whiteness/Whitenessbib.html
- brianold - 08-03-2006 11:22 AM
From LYDIA:
White Privilege Shapes the US
By Robert Jensen
Department of Journalism
University of Texas
http://www.nathanielturner.com/whiteprivilege.htm
Here's what white privilege sounds like: I am sitting in my University
of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white
student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he
opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned
advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United
States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever
benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? Yes,
he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white
privilege. So, if we live in a world of white privilege—unearned
white privilege--how does that affect your notion of a level playing
field? I ask. He paused for a moment and said, "That really doesn't
matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white
privilege: the privilege to acknowledge and you have unearned
privilege but ignore what it means. That exchange led me to rethink
the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to
me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people
carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of
what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that
comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in
that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly
about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is complex. In a white
supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not
they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but
such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other
aspects of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me other kinds
of privilege). Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has
played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European
heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states
in the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white world surrounded by
racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a
reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only
numerically significant non-white population, American Indians. I have
struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my
culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip
over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the
institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself,
one thing never changes--I walk through the world with white privilege.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission
to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't
look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those
things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of
themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am
white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice
critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. Some
complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled
with mediocre minority professors. I have no doubt there are minority
faculty who are mediocre, though I don't know very many.
As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action
policies were in place for the next hundred years, it's possible that
at the end of that time the university could have as many mediocre
minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn't
meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white
privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have
slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of
solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a
bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real
people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I
know, because I am one of them. I am not a genius--as I like to say,
I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have been teaching
full-time for six years, and I've published a reasonable amount of
scholarship.
Some of it is the unexceptional stuff one churns out to get tenure,
and some of it, I would argue, actually is worth reading. I work hard,
and I like to think that I'm a fairly decent teacher. Every once in
awhile, I leave my office at the end of the day feeling like I really
accomplished something. When I cash my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I
benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean
that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never
have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have
soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country
taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a
well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I
learned that white people like me made this country great. There I
also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take
standardized tests written by and for white people.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was
accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a
teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas,
which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and
in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one
non-white tenured professor. There certainly is individual variation
in experience.
Some white people have had it easier than me, probably because they
came from wealthy families that gave them even more privilege. Some
white people have had it tougher than me because they came from poorer
families. White women face discrimination I will never know. But, in
the end, white people all have drawn on white privilege somewhere in
their lives. Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my
life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there.
But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe
that "merit," as defined by white people in a white country, alone
got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work,
I got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to
protect me every day of my life from certain hardships.
At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that,
because I needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to
my individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American,
the rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's
mythology that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those
myths. Like all white Americans, I was living with the fear that
maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and
privilege had more to do with it than brains and hard work. I was
afraid I wasn't heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't
special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take
pride in, even when I know that the rules under which I work in are
stacked in my benefit. I believe that until we let go of the fiction
that people have complete control over their fate--that we can will
ourselves to be anything we choose--then we will live with that fear.
Yes, we should all dream big and pursue our dreams and not let anyone
or anything stop us. But we all are the product both of what we will
ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want
to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black
man and the security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I
am benefiting from white privilege. There is not space here to list
all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives,
but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day
white supremacy is erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day; I am realistic
about the scope of the task. However, I continue to have hope, to
believe in the creative power of human beings to engage the world
honestly and act morally. A first step for white people, I think, is
to not be afraid to admit that we have benefited from white privilege.
It doesn't mean we are frauds who have no claim to our success. It
means we face a choice about what we do with our success.
- brianold - 08-03-2006 11:25 AM
From: Lydia Howell
To: editor@...
Subject: Re: White Priviledge(Robert Jensen)
dear Brian,
I'd call it SYNCHRONCITY(instead of "irony") friend!
Meant to tell you the techincal obstacles have (finally!) been solved
for posting on The Boards!!!
Have a feeling at some point I'll have to get in on this exchange that
you've referred to in your note.
My fellow white folks do seem to have a very limited ability to tolerate
Black folks' anger...(often seems to me a sign of an "empathy deficit").
But, I gotta say creating trust across the colorline really IS a HELL OF
A LOT HARDER here "up South" than it ever was back in Texas.
Hair-trigger anger is all too often right on the surface with Black
folks here & I'd say such a reaction is "inexplicable"---except it's
NOT! Get fucked w/on a REGULAR basis from followed regulary by
clerks/security while one shops to being stopped by the cops when you're
just rying to get wherever you're going---& all too often NOT being able
to express one's anger:well, common sense & Psychology 101 says, ANYbody
would have a fair amount of "free-floating rage" that can burst out at
any time.
Example: last wekeend:Had a Black woman shove past me in the grocery
checkout, while bagging groceries.All I said was "give me just a sec I'm
almost done". Didn't even say it in an angry tone! She continued to
basicly shove past me to get her stuff & I said (with yes, a bit of an
'edge' of annoynace in my voice) "I'm almost done."--after all, I was
ahead of her in line...) She just kept on so, I steped back, until she
finished. This was an interaction that lasted LESS THAN 30 SECONDS.
Walking in the parking lot to catch the train, this same woman almost
runs me over with her car! & then angrily says"You oughta watch who
you're talking to!"
Damn!
I wish I could say that this type of incident is unusual in my
experience, but, it's not.( Maybe, being a short 40-something white
woman I seem physically harmless & so an easy person to dump excess
anger on... ) I think most white folks just take incidents like this &
it becomes a terrible "confirmation" of whatever racist ideaas they've
got. For myself, even having some understanding of what I think is going
on, moments like that are really a bummer. NOBODY likes to be reduced to
a sterotyp[e about them based on their race (tho if yoou're white, it
CAN be a 'learning expreince"!!!& often has been for me).
In a white supreacist society there's a LOT of reniforcements to 'go
along to get along" with racism if you're white...& I think if my
personal history had been different(like if I'd grown up here in Land O'
Liberals!!! instead of the South) I wonder if I'd see things differently?
Your white friend does say something I wish people of color would at
least consider: white privildge is not the passort of perfect,
unadluterated opportunity. Issues of class & certainly of gender DO
matter...& as a woman who's been working poor since I left home at
barely 17(while still in high school---which I did graduate, while
working 4 to midnight shift), have survived domestic violence & rape,
have experinced discrimantion/disrespect based on gender. But, I often
feel my life experince is"invisible".
I'd like to feel there was more solidarity---that I wish I wasn't so
often automatically seen as The Enemy (tho, yes, I DO 'get it' about
WHY that's so---) I wish sometimes I could imagine counting on people
of color to have a bit of solidarity with me, TOO---rather than just
assume I'm some priviledged white bitch who's had it all handed to her &
never suffered a second(because of course, the Myth is white women are
ONLY absolutely Worshiped in this culture...well, it's just a bit more
complicated than that.)
But, none of these means I think differences should be papered over in
favor of only seeing "what we have in common". It's crucial (& LONG
overdue) for white people to face the 'differences'. I only wish the
picture could be seen with what I think is it's real complexity--which
also includes gendre, class, sexual orientation, disabilities.
solidarity,
Lydia
- brianold - 08-03-2006 11:25 AM
in can feel what you're saying.
check these comments out in this blog post...
http://www.liberatormagazine.com/weblog/2006/06/affirmative-action-never-ending-story.html
in one of them i'm talkin about how i had to catch myself from reacting to george will's newsweek piece and admiting that i too know a few "militant dependency preachers" (quite a few on the northside i must say... but we'll save that for the liberator expose'... shhh...)
but anyway... that one conversation with that white cat really was a good expereince for me even if in the end he sort of confirmed some of the things i thought. he also presented some logic to it... which doesnt excuse it... but it makes it easier to understand... which makes it all seem more human...
saul williams has a song where he goes... "substitute the anger and oppression for the guilt and depression... it's yours! it's yours!" and in an interview i read he was talkin about how he wrote those lyrics to illustrate the sameness in those feelings and that we all have burdens that we are carrying... like my father says... we're all sick in some ways and could all use some healin.
but i can't front... even after that convo with the white friend... i'm frustrated as hell that he settles for taking his place of "neutral" priviledge and calling it quits... i can see the logic behind it... but it's still corrupt as hell in my little humble opinion. if anything i think that's where white folks have their hands full... bringing the gospel to eachother that the system that affords them that comfort has to go completely (not just be"fixed")... and that they will be loosing much of that comfort in the process. mr. marley said it prophetically... "until the philosophy which hold one man superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited... everywhere is war."
- brianold - 08-03-2006 11:26 AM
From: Lydia Howell
To: editor@...
Subject: Re: White Priviledge(Robert Jensen)
I DON'T think that place of "neutral" priviledge your white friend
settles for, is at all neutral. I concurr with point you made about
1.resisting OR 2.doing nothing to change it 3.actively keeping things as
they are---with 2 & 3 being 2 sides of the the same thing. Have LONG
felt this was so:first recognized after reading Anne Frank's diary @ 13:
absoutely ordinary non-Jewish [eople hid Ann & her family from the
Nazis. Those who did NOT take such actions but, who were neither ACTIVE
supporters of the Nazis were STILL keeping it going. Silence is taken
for APPROVAL.
So, it goes with racism/white priviledge.
I had an interesting exchnage w/a white guy(gardner in my
neighborhood/s.mpls). Lots of elements re:race...& his contention that
black folks were just bout as racist--sometimes MORE so--than many white
folk. Of course, cited what you'd probably expect: physical attacks &
crime by Black folks...assertions of superiority of Blacks to
whites,,,etc It was a real challenge getting into it with him. ANY
assertion that to see "from a Black perspective" just as a balance to
what he was saying was met with "EVERYone should be judged by their
BEHAVIOR".(Cited being knifed in a robbery by a Black youth & various
stuff going down on Blomgton Ave. wehre he lives)
I could understand where he's coming from to some extent...when things
'hit close to home" it's damn hard for people to see in a complex way.
Here in the city once segreation breaks down & people scrape up aginst
each other, it ain't always kum-bai-ya.
Part of that is white folks' carrying on with white priviledge to be
sure---NOT looking from others' perspective because "they don't have
to"...most of my life I've felt I've no right to ask(much less expect)
people of color to see a damn thing from my point of view. But, I'm
feeling that needs a bit of modifying.
Now,I'm not so sure that ALL of us shouldn't try a lot harder given how
f--ed up a situation we're all in here. I get weary of all-too-regularly
"understanding' bad behavior I'd NEVER 'make allowances for' if it
was a white person...where I woould just say "what a rude/sexist/crazy
jerk!"(pick whatever fits situation.) I know the other side is that
Black folks are held to HIGHER standards, NOT the SAME ones in most
every nook & cranny of this messed up country.
Sometimes the dialogue doesn't even begin .It says a LOT that you
engaged in the way you did with your white friend. And yeah, WHITE folks
should be doing that with ONE ANOTHER a hell of lot MORE.
I think I only got so far w/that white guy yesterday---he ended up
saying "We ALL need to be a LOT MORE EMPATHETIC & a lot MORE COURTEOUS
with each other. ALL of us. Not just white folks."
I could see where he was coming from on that---& have to say I agree.Too
often BOTH sides are 'reinforcing" the WORST view of one another---& a
bit of empathy/courtesy might mitigate some of that, creating a bit more
room to move & see/hear each other as individuals.
solidarity,
Lydia
- brianold - 08-03-2006 11:27 AM
i agree!
the guys final comment is valid.
but the facts cant be ignored either.
so i'd just amend that. instead of us saying "all of us just need to be..."
we can truthfully say that all of us being courteous and kind would help the situation... but what we can't say (and here's where white folks are in denial) is that if we do that "everything will be better"... or "all we need to do is..."
it's not all we need to do. you know that and i respect you for it.
i can't underestimate the importance of white people starting to dismantle their white identities. i'd even go out on a limb and say that if there is any "all we need to do"... white people dismantling their "whiteness" would be the highest "all we need to do" priority in existence.
i think ultimately it all comes down to what my friend said... he's just not willing to sacrifice his own self interest in such a dramatic way.
i think many people around the world are beginning to see this hesitancy on the part of whites to admit that the very roots of their civilization(s) are flawed and so the people of the world are saying... "we'll just have to move on without you guys."
and they have no problem doing it... however, it's interesting that there's always a white person who considers themselves "a good one" (like my friend) who wants to tap that movement of people on the shoulder and ask why they didn't invite him... and when they tell him the reason why he wasn't invited was because he couldn't let go, he doesn't want to accept that as a valid reason and instead wants to sit and argue... luckily for my friend... i'm patient and enjoy dialogue. most people i know woulda just cussed him out and moved on. and it's sad cause i really wish i could make all white people see what they need to do and make them willing to do it... but it's so counter intuitive, that at times it seems hopeless that we'll even convince them on a mass scale... there are a few, even historically who have been able to dismantle their whiteness...
unfortunately in conversations with my friends... when they come to the realization that most white people are unwilling to dismantle their whiteness, the only future they see is one of more war because they theorize that if the world moves away from whiteness and whites dont wanna come then whites will fight to maintain the dominance of "whiteness" and the rest of the world will defend itself... and the result is more fighting. it can make you feel hopeless. but what really can you do when someone doesn't want to come with you but has proven themselves as willing to fight in order to get you to stay where you are?
have you read "Two Thousand Seasons?" It is a must read. It's fiction but it resonates so clearly.
Then I think about you saying that if you'd react differently if someone were white and disrespected you...
That's funny. Cause I too will more quickly excuse something a black person does as oppose to a white person. But it's not because I feel sorry for the black person or feel a duty to no yell at them as if they are a child... but i feel more respect for them. I see more humanity in them and can therefore more easily forgive a mistake. For better or for worse, I feel like when black people act like asses they are doing so moreso because of their condition, presently and historically... in other words they have been negatively influenced. Like Carter G. Woodson argues in "The Miseducation Of The Negro"
But when white folks are disrespectful there's the sense that it's just how they act. That it comes more natural... cause there doesn't seem to be any excuse for it. So I'm quicker to be upset.
BUT... I think in modern day times, black AMERICANS are especially starting to buy more and more into "whiteness".... and it becomes harder to tolerate. It makes you feel like Moses who was trying to get his people do live a certain way but the environment they found themselves in was just so tempting that it corrupted them and Moses was fed up with them.
Here's where it gets interesting... and the concept of Nationalism comes to play... like Moses, when you've struggled with a people you are forever bonded with them... and so even tho black people disappoint you still love because they are "my people" the people who i've struggled with... and in essence you realize that but it for a slight twist of fate you'd be in their shoes and they'd be in yours. This leaves the human realm at this point and becomes something spiritual and even feeling Divine... to truly love someone even though you perceive them as undeserved of it...
I don't know if white people are capable of loving black people to that extent... and that's i think the skepticism of alot of black people... will you still be supporting me when I'm not a "good nigger"... would white people still be supportive of keith ellison even if he WAS in the nation of islam right now and even if he did say all that stuff and even if he said it today??? Black people might disagree with him, but we'll still love him.
I asked my professor one day, "Dr. Carr, when can we stop being black?"
He said to me, "just as soon as white people stop being white"
So I think what white people wont take on is the responsibility that you guys have to make the first move if we're to escape the racial construct because you guys created it.
Further, what does it really mean to dismantle whiteness? Can America look the way it looks now? Can society be structured the way it is now? For most white folks to accept that so much would have to change or that they'd have to be in support of such drastic change (in which they dont know where they'd end up) is too scary and just not worth it.
- brianold - 08-03-2006 12:22 PM
From: Lydia Howell
To: editor@...
Subject: RE;(pt 1)White Priviledge(Robert Jensen)
Quote:> i agree!
> (in fact we should be having this conversation on the message boards!)
>
> the guys final comment is valid.
>
> but the facts cant be ignored either.
>
> so i'd just amend that. instead of us saying "all of us just need to be..."
>
> we can truthfully say that all of us being courteous and kind would help
> the situation... but what we can't say (and here's where white folks are
> in denial) is that if we do that "everything will be better"... or "all
> we need to do is..."
*** ALL of us being courteous & kind is only a STARTING place. It's
certainly NOT the end of discussion, re-thinking how we got here, the
end of white supreamcy ot defining what's needed for deep
soical/economic/political change.
Quote:> it's not all we need to do. you know that and i respect you for it.
>
> i can't underestimate the importance of white people starting to
> dismantle their white identities. i'd even go out on a limb and say that
> if there is any "all we need to do"... white people dismantling their
> "whiteness" would be the highest "all we need to do" priority in existence.
***absoulutely in AGREEMENT with you. One of the most powerful,
life-altering moments for me was reading Malcolm's
autobiography:returning from Mecca, his observations about going on The
Haj with Muslims from every ethincity. What he said about European
Muslims who had "wiped the white from their minds". It made clear that
the problem wasn't BEING white, it was THINKING white.Great cure for all
that white, liberal guilt bs, that is one obstacle to white folks
dismantling their white supreamcy(obviously,there are other obstacles,
as well!!! Like white skin priivledge.)
Quote:> i think ultimately it all comes down to what my friend said... he's just
> not willing to sacrifice his own self interest in such a dramatic way.
**That is EXACTLY what it comes down to...and on BOTH white
conservatives AND white liberals feel the same as yor friend.
Ironically(?) this dynamic has grown fra more clear to me livnng here in
MN, than it was in Texas.
Quote:> i think many people around the world are beginning to see this hesitancy
> on the part of whites to admit that the very roots of their
> civilization(s) are flawed and so the people of the world are saying...
> "we'll just have to move on without you guys."
***It IS daunting to (most?) white folks to recognize (as you said) that
"the very roots of their civilization(s) are flawed"...and that it is
those very ROOTS which are STILL being played out in terrible things
happening right now(war/occuaption in Iraq for example). Too many white
"progressives" I know who in my view ONLY want to "fix the symptoms"
(end US occup[ation of Iraq, say--which ,opf course, I WANT to
do!)--yet, don't seem to get it, taht WITHOUT SEEING THE SYSTEMATIC
NATURE of HOW that policy happened,well, it will only happen again &
again & again. That's where Dr, King's call for a "revolution in values"
was so right on...the "world moving on without {whites)" is a matter of
survival not only for them--but, it's looks like for the planet itself!
Presoanlly, I've long been MOST inspired by the movements of epople of
color BECAUSE they usually get down to the roots of what's wrong.
Currently.what's happeing in Latin America offers the msot inpiration
for me.
Quote:> and they have no problem doing it... however, it's interesting that
> there's always a white person who considers themselves "a good one"
> (like my friend) who wants to tap that movement of people on the
> shoulder and ask why they didn't invite him.
***but,damn it PART PF THE PROBLEM is your friend's attitude of "why
didn't you INVITE ME?" No person of color in TX or here EVER 'invited"
me to be part of the stugggle. I felt it was my RESPONSIBILITY to be
part of the struggle!!! That old '60s slogan of "If you ain't part of
the SOLUTION, you're part of the PROBLEM" still holds true. It an't abou
white folks "being invited"--what's really going on, is white folks (I
hesitate to say, "like your friend" since I don't know him) want o LEAD
EVERYTHING...when havng some damn humility & trying to simply be
TRUSTWORTHY ALLIES should be their goal. I feel so damn lucky that I cut my political teeth in TX & NOT here in MN:where a great deal of my
political activism was LED by people of color. Frankly, I'd sure
appreciate a hell of alot MORE leqadership of that sort here---& I don't
mean the opportunistic, self-proclaimed "community leadres" who shill
for the white politicians.(you know who I mean!)
Quote:>.. and when they tell him
> the reason why he wasn't invited was because he couldn't let go, he
> doesn't want to accept that as a valid reason and instead wants to sit
> and argue... luckily for my friend... i'm patient and enjoy dialogue.
> most people i know woulda just cussed him out and moved on. and it's sad
> cause i really wish i could make all white people see what they need to
> do and make them willing to do it... but it's so counter intuitive, that
> at times it seems hopeless that we'll even convince them on a mass
> scale... there are a few, even historically who have been able to
> dismantle their whiteness...
***Believe it or not, I understand your frustration (expressed above).
Vast majority of white folks HAVE NOT DONE THEIR HOMEWORK. People of color should NOt have to waste their time/energy to "convince them on a mass scale"--frankly, white folks who say their 'progressive" SHOULD be doing that work on themselves!!! On a regular basis, I say to white
activists:are you reading the newspapres/magaines/books written BY
people of color? are you listening to radio BY people of color? This is
Anti-Racism 101: just shut up & LISTEN to what people of color are
saying, take it in, contemplate it, apply thei analysis to issues, to
your own life. Like the "courtesy & kindness" this is ESSENTIAL STARTING
POINT for white folks inho.How often do I ehar from white activists,
that they DON'T even do this!!!(regularly take in media by people of
color). it's the most basic white supreamcy if you ask me: that blind
blockhead notion of thinking people of color have nothing to teach white
folks---even about their own issues/lives!!! & then.to add further
insult to injury,these same white folks who don't do basic homework also
can't see how this is white supremacy in-ACTION. Without committment to
this basic "self RE-education process", white eople CAN'T dismantle,
their whiteness, Brian....and even WITH this process,(speaking from
experince) one has to engage in what is an onging
process/challenge/committment.
Quote:> unfortunately in conversations with my friends... when they come to the
> realization that most white people are unwilling to dismantle their
> whiteness, the only future they see is one of more war because they
> theorize that if the world moves away from whiteness and whites dont
> wanna come then whites will fight to maintain the dominance of
> "whiteness" and the rest of the world will defend itself...
***the world MUST defend itself
Quote:>and the
> result is more fighting. it can make you feel hopeless. but what really
> can you do when someone doesn't want to come with you but has proven
> themselves as willing to fight in order to get you to stay where you are?
***I have a thin shred of hope t at least some white folks will come to
see their own survival bound up in rejecting what James Baldwin called
"the European vision of the world--which is obsolete"...did I send you
the Tim Wise esssay along these lines? if not,I'll hunt it up
Quote:> have you read "Two Thousand Seasons?" It is a must read. It's fiction
> but it resonates so clearly.
***No. who's the author of "Two Thousand Seasons" ?
Quote:> Then I think about you saying that if you'd react differently if someone
> were white and disrespected you...
I think as a white person I HAVE to ALWAYS be asking myself that
question(would I react differently in a situation if the person was
white). Frankly, the escalated level of rudeness, 'road rage' & lack of
courtesy IN GENERAL (no matter WHO does it) is one of my pet peeves.
When a white person does it, I guess my reaciton is similar to yours: I
just think "what a jerk!" when a person of color does it--especially
Black folks(who seem to be more often 'dumping anger" in situations lke
the one I described at the grocrey), believe it or not, I do ask
myself"What has this person been subjected to in terms of someone
DISRESPECTING THEM, but, it was a situation whre the power differential
was so tilted AGAINST the Black person they COULDN'T challenge the white person at that moment...so, now it's being displaced on to me." But, in periods of my life where the PRIMARY "interations" I'm having w/Black
folks are either 1.people asking for cigs or money on the street (or if
male--sexual harrassment) or 2. 'anger displacement moments like the
grocery store incident...well, what can I say? It's alienating as
hell!!! I try to find ways to 1.learn from some of these situations: a
GLIMPSE of what it's like to be treated in a shitty way becuase the
other perosn reduces you to your race(& let me emphaisze so I'm not
misderstood: this is something I can only GLIMPSE, get a marginal
APPROXIMATION of what it's like for people pf color...hope you can see
what I'm trying to say here)...sometimes I actually challenge Black
folks in these situations...tho I guess 'challenge" is an aggressive
word & that's NOT the way I take on these moments. It's more of a matter of quietly saying to the person that I'm a human being just like
them--that to NOT even say hello, mcuh less please before demanidng a
cig or money, feels crummy (& it also undermines my natural sense of
generosity,frankly...so,sometimes I dont freely give what I could).
W/nasty sexual comments from Black men,. I've gotten up my nerve & said that "being treated like public pussy doesn't feel any different to me
than when someone treats them like a 'criminal'n--r. It tells me I dont'
have a right to just walk down the street without having my humanity
shit on." While it;s always scary to be that honest (tho maybe this is
an example of what your Saul Williams quote "Vulnerability is power"
MEANS?), most of the time the response is varying degrees of
postive...only occassionally does someone say 'fuck off bitch'. Mostly,
we end up having a for real moment of connection.
Quote:> That's funny. Cause I too will more quickly excuse something a black
> person does as oppose to a white person. But it's not because I feel
> sorry for the black person or feel a duty to no yell at them as if they
> are a child... but i feel more respect for them. I see more humanity in
> them and can therefore more easily forgive a mistake. For better or for
> worse, I feel like when black people act like asses they are doing so
> moreso because of their condition, presently and historically... in
> other words they have been negatively influenced. Like Carter G. Woodson
> argues in "The Miseducation Of The Negro"
>
> But when white folks are disrespectful there's the sense that it's just
> how they act. That it comes more natural... cause there doesn't seem to
> be any excuse for it. So I'm quicker to be upset.
>
> BUT... I think in modern day times, black AMERICANS are especially
> starting to buy more and more into "whiteness".... and it becomes harder
> to tolerate. It makes you feel like Moses who was trying to get his
> people do live a certain way but the environment they found themselves
> in was just so tempting that it corrupted them and Moses was fed up with
> them.
*** I don't think that one can reduce all human chracteristics to race,
Brain. Your comment above seems to imply that all negative
characteristics are white, postive ones are Black...so, (such as saying,
"it comes more natural" to white folks to be disresctful...or that Black
person is "acting white" if s/he behave like an asshole. So, is greed a
white trait? or dishonesty? or behaving in an exploitve way? I think
this is damn dangerous waters! Tosome degree, simply a REVERASL of the claims of white supreamcy, which claimed all positves were white
traits,all negatives aere Black traits.
I'm NOT saying that the values of the white-dominant society don't
impact people of color negatively & one has to see HOW that's operating.
Example: for many eyars, I've felt that there's a kinmd of
'values-parallel" between rise of (white,obviously) Corporate CEO
outlook and (youth of color) gangs'attitidues. Both could be summed up
as "I'm ging to get MINE by any means necessary & I don't give a fuck
WHO gets hurt." Gangs are simply taking the values of the coporoate
suites to street level...so, if we REALLY want to confront gang youth's
destructive acts, we better look up to the TOP of the food chain, to the
Enron creeps, the Dcik Cheny's, Wal-Mart etc (or to put it it another
way:shit rolls DOWNhill.) It's funny but, I shared this observation sort
of off the cuff w/a local elected official who's Black & s/he
absolutelly agreed w/the parallel.
However, even udnerstanding the truths this might hold DOSEN'T mean NOT calling out gang youth on what they're doing to themselves & their
communitites! I think that there's elements of BOTH of the arguemtns
that I'm amking here that are true: that is, 'racializing character
traits' is tircky but, white-domnated society certainly is creating
negative paradiyms th some people of color replicate.
Quote:> Here's where it gets interesting... and the concept of Nationalism comes
> to play... like Moses, when you've struggled with a people you are
> forever bonded with them... and so even tho black people disappoint you
> still love because they are "my people" the people who i've struggled
> with... and in essence you realize that but it for a slight twist of
> fate you'd be in their shoes and they'd be in yours. This leaves the
> human realm at this point and becomes something spiritual and even
> feeling Divine... to truly love someone even though you perceive them as
> undeserved of it...
I have stuff to say about what you're saying in the above & below
paragraphs...but, referring again to "Vulnerability is power", I gotta
get up some nerve for this one,Brian! More for sure later.
Thanks for being willing to engage in the dialogue here. It's an
antidote to alienation and dispair about change.
solidarity,
Lydia
Quote:> I don't know if white people are capable of loving black people to that
> extent... and that's i think the skepticism of alot of black people...
> will you still be supporting me when I'm not a "good nigger"... would
> white people still be supportive of keith ellison even if he WAS in the
> nation of islam right now and even if he did say all that stuff and even
> if he said it today??? Black people might disagree with him, but we'll
> still love him.
>
> I asked my professor one day, "Dr. Carr, when can we stop being black?"
>
> He said to me, "just as soon as white people stop being white"
>
> So I think what white people wont take on is the responsibility that you
> guys have to make the first move if we're to escape the racial construct
> because you guys created it.
>
> Further, what does it really mean to dismantle whiteness? Can America
> look the way it looks now? Can society be structured the way it is now?
> For most white folks to accept that so much would have to change or that
> they'd have to be in support of such drastic change (in which they dont
> know where they'd end up) is too scary and just not worth it.
- brianold - 08-13-2006 11:41 AM
RACE & LABOR MATTERS: New Book Press Release
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006
Press Release
RACE & LABOR MATTERS IN THE NEW US ECONOMY
(Rowman & Littlefield)
New Book Finds a Growing Economic and Racial Divide in
US as "People of Color" become the Working Class
Majority
A landmark five-year research project directed by the
Graduate Center For Worker Education of City University
of New York at Brooklyn College definitively finds that
race is the foremost predictor of class in the U.S. The
newly published research edited by Manning Marable,
Joseph Wilson, and Immanuel Ness finds that in the
absence of racial justice, working-class justice is
impossible. The contributors to "Race and Labor
Matters in the New U.S. Economy" (Rowman &
Littlefield), are leading scholars: Robin D. G. Kelley,
Dan Clawson, Bill Fletcher Jr., Michael Goldfield,
Mandi Isaacs Jackson, Manning Marable, Aldon Morris,
Manny Ness, Steven Pitts, Chris Rhomberg, Louise
Simmons, Stephen Steinberg, Joseph Wilson, and Roland
Zullo.
The modest economic gains of the Civil Rights movement
have been fully reversed as Federal and State
government abolishes Affirmative Action, social and
economic benefits, privatizes services, and the failure
of U.S. labor unions to preserve wage gains or address
racial inequality. The downturn in economic conditions
of African Americans and Latinos is pushing down wages
and benefits for all workers in the U.S. With the
Civil Rights economic gains eliminated, the research
finds that the capitalist class is pushing successfully
for the elimination of the New Deal accord. As labor
unions marginalize and submerge racial economic
disparities, the power of the entire working class is
collapsing.
Historian Gerald Horne calls Race and Labor Matters "a
powerful compilation of penetrating contributions
revealing essential contradictions of race and class in
America." The declining socioeconomic status of Black
and Latino workers is incapacitating unions. Without
an established labor movement, the study asserts that
workers of all races must struggle in solidarity in
their places of work and in their communities to build
new institutional models capable of struggling against
neoliberal capitalism.
Bill Fletcher's research indicates that the established
labor unions have now lost credibility among working
class peopole of color. The exploitation among African
Americans is so extreme that a new movement is
necessary if unions are to survive in the U.S. "The
task of black worker organizations, leaders, and
organized labor itself is to harness the energy and
enthusiasm of black workers as part of the rebuilding
process for a genuine labor movement in the United
States. Ignoring black workers is equivalent to a
drowning person ignoring a life preserver, to borrow a
metaphor from the old Industrial Workers of the World.
Yet the strength of white racism and the fear of losing
control may be strong enough to scuttle the attempts at
rebirth and, instead, plunge the union movement into
the depths from which it may be unable to reemerge."
The editors share this perspective that emerges from
the research, arguing that the exclusionary racial
composition of union leadership at the national level
is echoed in labor's failed liberal ideology. The
decline in U.S. union membership and density is
occurring in spite of dramatic increases in the labor
force. Perhaps the most important indicator of the
wellbeing of unions is African Americans membership,
the life blood of organized labor, is in decline. The
crisis is reflected in the precipitous decline of
nearly 15 percent among African Americans in unions
over the past five years.
"As the class divide grows precipitously in the United
States, far too little attention is drawn to the racial
divide. The research that emerges from Race and Labor
Matters is sobering, revealing that the color line
remains bound with growing poverty and declining wages
for all workers," according to David Addams, a leading
Civil Rights scholar. Through an examination of the
underlying socioeconomic conditions of African
Americans the collection lays bare the obstacles to
transforming the system of racial and class oppression.
- mizzy - 08-13-2006 12:01 PM
I think that the U.S. is also in massive (I mean massive) denial of the exploitation of earth's resources, without reciprocity. There can be no way to deny that what has been done in terms of environmental exploitation will effect our lives as we have known them. All stereotypes about environmental Indians and whatever aside, I hear an echo of that exploitation in the studies of these scholars. Every single one of my relatives on my mother side, as well as my mother's first husband's family were workers for the past two and a half generations. They worked mostly in construction, iron working, and mining across the midwest and the western U.S. These are communities whose labor was exploited after annexation of their lands and livelihoods into U.S. empire. This is how we all know that this exploitation is also about the subjugation of land, water, and resources. I agree with these scholars assessments, and hope they might go to that place where we can confront the ways we live in this place we all call home.
Again, with regards to this article. I think the critique of labor is honest and needs to be addressed. The decline of labor unions is serious and portends a bleak future. Let's remember how hard they worked, go easy on ourselves, and remember that while work and money is necessary, it is also necessary to remember that the place where we live also needs rest and time to renew. This can also be a form of action and protest.
Whose Ally?: Thinking Critically about anti-racism.... - Nathaniel - 10-10-2006 11:14 PM
http://colours.mahost.org/articles/obrien.html