White Male Privilege; White Male Grief

"How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see." - Bob Dylan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CwS60ykM8s

I encourage you to watch this TEDxTalk by Professor at SFSU (my alma mader) and High School Teacher in East Oakland, Jeff Duncan-Andrade. My thoughts below are inspired and contextualized in part by this TEDxTalk.

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There are many great white men who have throughout History done amazing things to help oppressed people. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Tim Wise, Subcomandante Marcos, my friend Guthrie Brown Fleischman come immediately to mind. So too do the unnamed white men who walked with black men and women side by side during the Civil Rights Movement, white men who faced the violence of other white men, police with batons and guns. Some of these white men, just a few, died acting on their convictions. John Brown's name is often thrown around, but from my limited knowledge of his history, he seemed a bit looney. But that is the History of white men in the United States: lunacy, insanity, horrific decision making that led, that continues to lead, to the tragic deaths of people of color in this wonderful, sparkling country of ours. Unlike John Brown, 99.999% of the white male lunacy in the History of this country caused harm to people of color, and did not attempt to provide them greater freedom. As Marc Anthony sang this week, God Bless America.

But tonight I'm not here to judge or yell at white men for being stupid or evil. I want to reach out to my living white brothers whose hearts are broken just for being white. On one side of the coin, whiteness is a wretched thing. White men inherit a History of the slave trade; slavery; lynchings; the Klu Klux Klan; the systematic policies of US and US State governments extermination of Native Americans: the definition of genocide; the multitude of white men, many representatives of the US Government, who have taken land, killed in mass numbers and continue to dehumanize Latinos; the white masters who brutally worked so many Chinese immigrants to their deaths while building the train tracks that would help propel this nation into its current place of wealth and power.

There are white men across this nation, young men, children, who now feel the wretchedness of their white skin. That white men across this nation now feel pain for being white is the victory of people of color and their struggles for justice and equality. The Civil Rights Movement can claim a piece of that victory. More and more white people are beginning to understand that white isn't the "norm". Whiteness is slowly becoming visible.

To you white men whose hearts are broken because of the History of whiteness, allow yourself the space to feel this sadness, this tragedy of History. This takes a great deal of strength and courage. You must allow yourself to exist outside the hyper-masculine stereotype of a man that destroys your right to shed tears. You must be allowed to feel, to feel this pain and wretchedness. In this process, you will need love and support. I certainly did. It is not you. You are not to blame. Black people know all too well what it means to be born into History with a certain skin color and what that skin color means today. Black people are not the racist black stereotypes that remain ubiquitous in our society. And young white man, you are not to blame once you come to realize the horrific significance of being white in this country.

I empathize. I went through this process myself, am still going through it. I send my love and support to you in your grief.

Simultaneously, I must demand that you do NOT take this sadness and do nothing. On the other side of the same coin mentioned above, whiteness: having white skin and being identified by others as white in this country, brings with it great privilege, one that people of color do not share. If we white men do nothing, we perpetuate the status quo. The current status quo leads to the unnecessary murders of innocent black children. The nationally televised examples are Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin. But there are examples of these senseless murders every day. Recently, here in Oakland, Alaysha Carradine, an eight-year-old African-American little girl nicknamed "Butterfly", was shot multiple times when she went to answer the door during a sleep over with two of her little friends. Alaysha was a human being, eight years old, African-American, innocent and now dead.

For those of you white folk still not sold on this idea of white male privilege, those skeptics among you, let me provide a basic, personal example, nothing as serious as homicide, but possibly something you can see:

I am a white male. When I go to a Subway Restaurant, the first thing I do is grab a bag of Sun Chips, open it and start eating it in the store. I'm waiting in line. I'm usually wearing a "professional" button down shirt and khakis. The employees at Subway, and I have been to various Subway restaurants hundreds of times in my life, have never once asked me to pay for that bag of chips first, before eating it. They have never once stared at me with a look of distrust, worried that I might just eat the bag of chips and leave. Now imagine an African-American male teenager in a hoodie walking into a Subway Restaurant and opening a bag of chips before paying for it. Would the Subway employees or store owner allow this young black man to continue to eat the Sun Chips? Would they smile at the black man? I believe the answer to these two questions is no. Would they stare, worried, and demand that the young black man pay for the chips before opening them? From my observations and experience, the answer is yes.

This is one small but critical example of white male privilege.  Professor Duncan-Andrade, in his TedxTalk, discusses a more serious, life and death example of white male privilege. White males and their children who live in Oakland are extremely unlikely to be victims of homicide. Homicide in the City of Oakland and the Island of Piedmont is a tragedy that radically and disproportionately kills mostly young African-Americans and Latinos. The percentage of white victims of homicide over the last three years in Oakland is roughly 3%, probably lower. (This statistic is based on my web research. I couldn't find any website, report or article that gave the exact percentage.)

The sadness that we feel, even momentarily, for being born white must be freed and expressed. This is when the personal healing begins, when we acknowledge the powerful privilege of whiteness in this country, when we begin to call attention to it, when we begin to work humbly with people of color, to listen, to take responsibility for our privilege and we begin to do something to give it up. By giving up our privilege, we take steps toward equality. If we do nothing, as I said, but it bears repeating, we perpetuate the status quo and the killings of innocent people of color continue.

with love for the expression of sadness and the tenacity to fundamentally change the meaning of being white,
Anthony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA - Blowin' In The Wind