The Problem with Whiteness: a Christmas Message

by Mona Shaw

Note:  I have friends (decent white men all) who are troubled by a college course titled, "The Problem with Whiteness."  They believe the title is "race-baiting" and discriminating against white people on the basis of race.  This is my response.

Fred (not his real name) says he’s not comparing apples and oranges.  He insists there is a moral and actual equivalent between a white man robbed by a Black thinking all Black men are criminals, and a person of color thinking all white people are racist. I.e. he says one is as bad as the other.  That, frankly, blows my mind out of the stratosphere.

First, let me point out, there is empirical data that shows Black men are far less likely to rob someone than white men.  So, the only reason for that assumption can be racism.  (That, and the fact that Hollywood, etc. have so prolifically portrayed the criminal as Black and more recently middle-eastern).

On the other hand, people of color have endured more than 400 years of abject torture, persecution, and oppression on U.S. soil.  They have endured not just wage slavery, but actual chattel slavery, been slaughtered and forced onto reservations, covered in Small Pox blankets, kidnapped, beaten, and murdered to this day for simply not being white.  After 250 years of chattel slavery (which really didn’t end until 1945), they’ve been though cross-burnings, churches bombed, lynching, Jim Crow, their children kidnapped, forced sterilization, job discrimination (which didn’t become illegal until the 1970s), police murder and brutality, mass incarceration, and medical experiments that would make a Nazi wince.  (E.g. the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, in which Black men were intentionally infected with syphilis to study treatment of the disease. The study was conducted without the benefit of patients' informed consent and didn’t end until I was 21-years-old.)  Even in 2015, you can be at a prayer meeting in church and have someone walk in shoot you dead just because you are Black. The reason we have Black Lives Matter is that too damned many still don’t believe that black lives matter.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but let’s talk about the “good” white people.  Those who believe racism is wrong, those who agree there is still white supremacy out there. (Both assumptions leave me responding, “Duh,” by the way.) 

White people who perpetuate racism aren’t only those who see people of color as inferior or wish them ill. 

White people who perpetuate racism aren’t only those who see people of color as inferior or wish them ill. 

White people who perpetuate racism aren’t only those who see people of color as inferior or wish them ill.  (I repeated this on purpose.)

Now there have been a few white people who have put their bodies on the line to resist the madness of racism, embarrassingly few, but there have been some.  From the early abolitionists to the Quakers who ran the Underground Railroad, to voter registers and marchers in the 1960s.  White people, too, have stood up and even lost their lives trying to change things.  I pray every day to be more like these white people.

But the clear majority of white people did nothing.  We watched it happen and did nothing.  We returned slaves to their masters, because that was the law.  We called the Freedom Riders “trouble makers” who were hurting their cause.  We put up with segregated housing and schools and never challenged it any meaningful way.  Even most of the “non-racist” white people didn’t like Martin Luther King, Jr. until he was murdered.  He was “too radical” and going about it the wrong way.  He hated white people.  Yeah, a lot of “good” people said that.  You didn’t see most “good” white people at anything resembling a civil rights march.

Even though the evidence is clear, many “good” people doubt there is racism in incarceration and want more proof.  (There is a ton of proof, if people care to read it.)  Few of us go to Ferguson or Standing Rock or help others go.  I can probably count on both hands the number of people I know who’ve ever bothered to even write their legislators about any of this.

We don’t quit our jobs when a boss says something racist.  We rarely even confront that boss, except behind his/her back.  We laugh at racist jokes because we “don’t really mean anything by that,” and almost never challenge those jokes.  We drive on roads, ride on trains, and walking through buildings (include the White House) built by slaves and let that fact sink into our souls.  We eat a melon picked by Latinos paid a $1.00/hour and never give that a thought.

Only a tiny minority of us even have several people close to us who are not white.  Talking to your co-worker or being pleasant to store clerk you see most days doesn’t count.  A close friend is someone you’re most apt to go to the movies with, someone you celebrate holidays with, someone who’s slept at your house and you’ve slept at theirs. Someone you know will want to say something at your funeral.

That’s the problem with whiteness.  We think we can know about racism by our “gut.”  We want people of color to act as if there is a level playing field, when there clearly is not.  We say the damnedest, dumbest things like “Why can they say the “n” word, but I can’t.” Or, "I never owned any slaves."

We feel little to no obligation to educate ourselves about it.  We can’t even seriously ask the question, “Why do people of color see this differently?”  What’s our theory about that?  Is every person of color (or white people who agree with them) only seeking attention, trying to get something for nothing, trying to divide us, or playing victim?  Is that your theory?  Because that’s more than a little wacky.  What would be the point of any of that?  Are we projecting, perhaps?

We get pissed at people of color when they don’t teach us, and we get pissed at them when they try.  We have the arrogance to criticize how, where, and or when the say it.  We approach the issue like consumers, “Give us a list, and let us decide what we like.”  When we do on rare occasion show up at a resistance effort, we think we have the right to tell the affected group how to do it.  And when we create movies about racism, we always have some white savior who saves the day.  “Gone with the Wind” was a patently racist movie, some of us are surprised that Black people don’t like it, because Mammy was so cool.  Pro-tip:  To the tiny degree that they have, people of color won own their rights, white people didn’t do it for them.  It's a good thing to learn this.

So, when a person of color thinks I’m racist (it does happen), I don’t say, “How dare you?”  I say, “I don’t blame you.” or "Why wouldn't you?"   Because there more than likely was something racist in something I said or did.  Of course, that would never be my intent.  With every fiber of my being I want everything I do to resist racism not perpetuate it.  But, my intentions (while I think they matter) aren’t nearly as important as my impact. And, I’m white.  I was raised in white culture and exposed to a plethora of racism.  I’m not that special.  There’s simply no reason for me to believe that none of that affected my thinking, assumptions, or perceptions, not to mention my lack of sensitivity about how something I may say or do affects others. Rather than be offended, I have learned to be grateful for having this brought to my attention.

The problem with whiteness is that white people don’t see they’ve been spared the ravages of racism inflicted upon people of color.  They refuse to see the obvious privilege in that and take it for granted. They, outrageously, try to equate some social slight or misunderstanding with the terror of being a person of color in American culture.  It's hard to see racism when you're white, and not seeing the problem with whiteness is the problem with whiteness.

P.S.  Jesus wasn't white.  I'm pretty sure he saw the problem with whiteness.