Me & White Supremacy (Prompts 1-6)

I came into this exercise a few days late, having discovered Layla Saad’s 28 Day challenge after it began. And even once I had discovered it, I hand wrote my first few responses in a notebook – the way I do my Tarot readings and my therapy homework – and it wasn’t until today, Day 6, that I realized (with the help of a conversation with a close friend yesterday)…you know, that’s white privilege too: being able to pick and choose how I engage with something difficult and deeply personal. Especially because today’s topic (Day 6) is white exceptionalism – meaning, the idea that you, a specific white person, are exempt from doing important anti-racist work that looks at yourself critically because you are “already a good person” or “already in the fight against racism.” I did not realize that such thinking might apply to me until I sat down to really consider it.

The challenge asks for public ownership, public testimony, and public accountability. Though my intentions to do the challenge privately might have been innocuous / not malicious (the genuine desire to better myself), they still also came from a mixed place of white fragility and exceptionalism (a fear of being labeled as evil in any way). But the conversation is nuanced: this will help me recognize my own problematic behaviors and thinking (microaggressions that contribute to a racist society as a whole), and help me work towards being an even better ally. And it is important to share my writings so that the other white people in my life may be called to do the same deep work with themselves. This is how we create lasting change – by realizing that there are no short cuts – and by holding ourselves accountable.

If you would like to take part in this exercise (and I do urge you to, white friends and family), visit Layla’s Instagram page, watch the introductory videos, and get started by commenting on her posts or posting in your own visible spaces. This post has all the info you need – please read it before taking part in the challenge.

So let’s begin.

DAY 1: YOU & WHITE PRIVILEGE 

My white privilege is being able to go mostly anywhere, take up mostly any space, without issue – because nobody has or will ever question me, nobody has or will ever attack me, and nobody has or will ever yell at me because of my race. I will never be stopped at the airport and called over for further examination, I will never receive anything worse than a traffic ticket from a police officer. The dirtiest looks I’ve ever received from other white people have been from older conservative white folks who don’t like tattoos – and they eventually get over it. Because I’m white like them.

I grew up with luxuries, with money, because my white father was able to work his way up through corporate America, and regardless of his work ethic or good intentions, America (and Capitalism) cater to no one else more than the white male and that is just a fact. I benefited from his earnings, and I benefited from the safe, positive spaces he and my mother were able to provide for me in mostly white neighborhoods in suburban American towns. I live in a diverse urban environment now, but I did not for the first 20 years of my life.

Emotions I have never felt (and don’t feel) because of my race: afraid for my life, afraid for my safety, confused about my existence, hyper-aware of my surroundings, anger because of unfair treatment. Any hardships I have faced have NOT been, and never will be, race-based.

I grew up without realizing how insidiously deep racism exists and has always existed in America – I was taught untrue histories about America (or histories that deliberately left out the true horrors BIPOC have endured in America) in my not-very-diverse suburban elementary, middle, and high schools, and I was constantly surrounded by people who also did not know or did not want to admit those true histories. I was not educated about, and I was not encouraged to become educated about, issues involving racism (beyond basic accounts of the things Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists fought for) until I was in college, in my early twenties.

I benefited from the collective white agreement to “not talk about race,” and for a long time, in my youth, I never had to stress about it. I grew up with a false sense of “things are much better now than they used to be” – simply because I was not exposed to anyone who was willing to admit and/or anyone who even knew for sure that that was a lie. It wasn’t until college, and then finally Trump running for president, for me to FULLY realize how much has not actually changed in this country – even though we also elected Obama, twice. I was indeed blind enough to think that Obama’s presidency would somehow create lasting change, unable to see how much work was still needed: how a single BIPOC president wouldn’t suddenly eliminate racism in America.

When I was a kid, if I did come across racist words or actions around me, in my community, unless they were extremely obvious, I had the privilege of being able to ignore them or not even recognize them in the first place. As a kid and teen, I was able to claim “I am not racist” without truly understanding what being racist looked like beyond the most extreme cases. I had (and still have) the privilege of simply thinking, “I am a good person”, without needing to dig any deeper into what that blanket statement about myself might mean, or how it might not be true (regardless of my good intentions, BIPOC friends, or charitable acts).

My white privilege (and upper-middle class privilege – the two are very interrelated in America) has allowed me to receive excellent medical care, dental care, vision care, nutrition, birth control, and opportunities to take better care of myself physically (such as access to a gym membership). I went to college debt-free. I was able to interview for jobs after college without worrying that what I looked like or where I came from or even how my name was spelled might prevent me from succeeding (except for perhaps a vague sense of “I am a woman, and women aren’t treated as fairly as men” – without realizing any of the nuance that goes into the fact that I am a white woman). Throughout my life, I have been able to hold onto the illusion that someone’s worth MUST be based entirely on their cleverness, their hard work, their talents, their personality – never once did it cross my mind that I or some other white person might be picked for a job or an opportunity or a conversation over a BIPOC because of our whiteness alone. Surely the world couldn’t be that evil, could it? It was a privilege that I was able to be so optimistic (and blind) for so long.

My white privilege comes down to the fact that, even though I have joined the fight as a conscious/awakened ally in my adult life, I can walk away from doing the work of dismantling white supremacy (having those hard conversations with other white folks, especially) at any time and still live a safe, happy, relatively comfortable life (at least where issues of race are concerned). I could make that choice – to disengage from the horrors of racism – and I would survive just fine. The fact that I do not want to make that choice doesn’t matter here: what matters is acknowledging that that choice exists for me and simply does not exist for BIPOC.

DAY 2: YOU & WHITE FRAGILITY

I used to feel afraid that admitting to my own white privilege would suddenly invalidate all of the ways that I have personally suffered in my life: experiences of antisemitism, bisexual erasure and hetero-normative pressures, sexism and sexual harassment, and being diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I used to feel afraid – if I admit that I have white privilege, will my struggles suddenly not matter? Should I give up on trying to overcome them? Is it even okay for me to be dealing with trauma? I still sometimes grapple with the issue of how to balance personal suffering with white privilege. This, of course, was – and is – white fragility in action.

The fact that I am itching to explain how I know that the conversation is nuanced (that a white person can still suffer but not because of race, for example), that’s white fragility. I want so badly to divert this blog post and write paragraphs about what I know, what I have learned, how I am a good person I swear – I want desperately to prove that I’m not really that shitty, I promise. I want validation that I’m not terrible. Wishing someone (a BIPOC, ideally) would tell me I’m doing a good job. That’s my white fragility in action.

I have also experienced a lot of white guilt. Tremendous amounts of inner guilt. Shame, sadness, and guilt – and even though all of these emotions are experienced internally, they are still forms of white fragility.

Being crippled (unable to do anything but cry in the shower, for example) by guilt, shame, sadness, outrage, and other negative feelings when racism occurs (because now I can really see it, how much damage has been done and is being done) is my white fragility in action – and I’ve definitely experienced that. I’ve been slow at times to channel outrage into action, and instead have taken time to sit with my sadness alone, weighing fear against the desire to do real good on the scales of my heart.

DAY 3: YOU & TONE POLICING

This is the hardest prompt so far for me to answer. I honestly do not think that I have ever consciously done this directly to a BIPOC (please call me out if you know that I have!), and I don’t even really ever think about tone policing at all when I am engaging with a BIPOC. I think my biggest issue, honestly, with tone policing, is not recognizing and calling it out when I see it happening around me, by other white people. Same with visible displays of white fragility (like public crying or defensiveness). I could be doing a lot better about paying closer attention to how people are talking to one another – white people to BIPOC specifically – in my work place, my social circles, sports teams, etc. and then saying something when I hear tone policing happening. I’ve also definitely seen it online, and not necessarily commented. A fear of conflict or angry conversations has definitely stopped me from making comments before, to other white people. Which rolls right into…

DAY 4: YOU & WHITE SILENCE

When Trayvon Martin was killed, I tried to discuss it with a family member, tried to challenge them to think critically about it and about systematic racism, but then the conversation became uncomfortable and tense. I should have pressed on, but I held my tongue when it seemed like a full on heated argument might break out. The fear of conflict – especially in a setting like a family gathering (the “no politics in certain spaces” type of white privilege) – held me back.

So many other instances of silence. So many times I didn’t post a comment online or hold someone else accountable in person. I am shy, private, and thoughtful a lot of the time. I have anxiety. I overthink constantly, second guess my every word. I communicate better through visual art. I’ve tone policed myself, in a way – telling myself not to start trouble, or get into any big arguments, to just be a nice person (with other white people). I’ve prioritized my comfort over initiating necessary conversations. I’ve stopped myself from commenting about racism at work or on coworkers’ social media accounts, out of fear of making work relationships more awkward or difficult.  I have stopped myself from saying anything in spaces where BIPOC might see me mess up, out of fear of making mistakes, of stumbling, of a BIPOC thinking I’m not actually a very good ally after all.

DAY 5: YOU & WHITE SUPERIORITY

I am an artist and a role-player / tabletop gamer. Almost every character I’ve role-played in games has been white – not sure if this is truly superiority, but it’s certainly been me sticking to what feels most comfortable for me (also, a fear of “not playing a BIPOC correctly” in a game – therefore, not trying in the first place). Almost every character I latched onto as a favorite, in movies or books, when I was a kid, was white (which is, admittedly, a symptom of there having been far fewer movies, shows, and books with BIPOC main characters when I was younger – but I didn’t go out of my way to look for them, either, back then). I drew a lot of white characters in my early artist years, favoring white bodies because they were familiar and easier to draw (not necessarily more beautiful or more visually appealing, I do want to be clear there – but easier). I am a much more varied and diverse artist now, but I need to own that history…and I need to be willing to admit, I still default to doodling people who look like me, when I’m zoned out sketching. My favorite books of all time – the Lord of the Rings – have some problematic imagery in them (“white” vs “black”, quite literally) as well as a general lack of diverse main characters, and I was in denial about that for a long time, elevating the books as “perfect” rather than taking a more nuanced approach.

DAY 6: YOU & WHITE EXCEPTIONALISM

I’m going to roll right into Day 6 – because I believe for me, white exceptionalism is much more present than superiority in my day to day life (though exceptionalism is a form of superiority). I really do not believe any one race is more superior than another; I believe that diversity is beautiful and vital. But those beliefs don’t exempt me from being complicit in a racist society – because I am guilty of making sure I remind myself that I am an exception when other white people do horrible things to BIPOC – to protect myself against despair. Just because I don’t say anything out loud doesn’t mean I’m not thinking it.

I have thought to myself – “but at least I’m not like that” – when I’ve read about some new terrible thing a white person has done to a BIPOC. Denying that group membership is significant is a form of white exceptionalism, and white fragility. I always have that knee-jerk reaction when I read about explicitly racist white people – “holy shit, that person is awful – they are disgusting – I would never -” as if they were a different species entirely, and not someone in my very own racial group. I used to distance myself much more, pretend like blatantly racist white people couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me. Every time I see the statistic that 53% of white women who voted in the 2016 election voted for Trump, I immediately remind myself that I wasn’t one of them. That is the first thing I have to tell myself, so that I can even move forward with reading whatever article or post I’m looking at. I am protective of my own decency, my moral successes: white fragility combined with white exceptionalism. I didn’t vote for Trump, but did I do enough to convince white people in my community not to? That’s what I should be thinking about – and how to make a plan for every election moving forward.

I’ve also used reverse-exceptionalism to try to convince myself that the horrible white person acting outwardly racist on the news must be an outlier. That the extremist right-wing groups, that Trump, are truly the worst of the worst. Surely most white people (the people I know…) wouldn’t do something like that, right? Surely the news only reports on the most severe cases, the craziest of the crazy, right? I have used this to try and stay hopeful, which keeps me feeling comfortable enough to not get crippled by negative emotions. Even though deep down, I know it’s not true. And yet, the internal battle rages on: how to remain hopeful while truly seeing how deep racism runs in white society.