I am a straight, Caucasian woman from a middle-class background. Trust me when I say that I realize the privileges that I have. I was born in Alaska, and we lived in an Eskimo bush village where my parents worked as teachers and fought every day against the culture to try to keep the girls in school. The only white people in this tiny village at the mouth of the Yukon River were the teachers and their kids – no we could not see Russia, but we were a hell of a lot closer than Palin. Because of this I was the only white girl in my pre-school class. Let’s just say that one of the little Eskimo boys, for whatever reason, did not like this. So he bullied me, constantly. The two Eskimo women who ran the pre-school would literally give him a slap on the wrist and then send him back into the play group. When I started coming home with bruises, and one day a cut from the broken glass of the little telephone booth that he knocked over while I was in it, my parents decided that enough was enough and they pulled me out of school. We moved to Colorado full time when the school year was over.
So it is with that background, and those experiences that I feel 100% confident in saying that I have absolutely no clue what it is like to live as the victim of racism. Let me say that I again, I have no clue what it is like. I have an idea and I can empathize, but I will never experience discrimination and racism in the same manner as a person of color. Yes, when I was kid I sustained physical injury because of the color of my skin. But all my parents had to do to remove me from that threat was to move and enroll me in a different school that was predominately – read 99.9% – white. The discrimination became a thing of the past. Black parents do not have that option available to them. Hispanic or Asian parents do not have that option available to them. No matter where they go, the color of their skin goes with them, and therefore, so does the discrimination.
As a child I was taught that police officers were my friend. That I could go to them for safety and that I could trust in them to help me if I needed help. To me this was the norm. I have several family members and have friends in law enforcement, and they are good people. For a long time I thought that everyone had this same viewpoint. However, a friend of mine, who is black, disabused me of this belief. As a child she was taught to be wary of police officers. That even if she wasn’t doing anything wrong, she was to speak with caution and not make any sudden movements. If they had not acknowledged her presence, she was to give them a wide berth, and under no circumstances was she to draw attention to herself. This is just one of a hundred different examples of why I will never truly understand the discrimination and hatred that exists simply because of the color of one’s skin. Even with all of the research that I have done into the Civil Rights movement and the slave culture of the South, I as a straight – white – middle class – woman, will never truly know the pain of racism. But seeing it sickens me and makes my heart ache.
I have no solution and, upon seeing the fall-out after Ferguson, I fear that a solution may not be forthcoming in my lifetime. I do however, hope that there may be great strides made in the right direction. I believe that the answer must come from love. I do not deny or mean to ignore or brush aside the anger that many blacks feel. In my opinion it is a righteous anger and they have more than enough cause to feel it. The love and the acceptance needs to come from the whites. White people need to step up and acknowledge that all lives matter, regardless of color of skin, economic status or geography, and then act accordingly. They need to acknowledge that whether we want to admit it or not, being white affords a certain privilege in this country and that is racist. Feeling guilty about it, doesn’t help a damn thing. Bemoaning that being accused of being a racist is just as bad as being the victim of racism, is bullshit.
I feel like I have a leg to stand on for that, as I have been accused of being a racist. You know what, at the time it really sucked, especially since the accusation was completely fallacious and eventually dropped because of lack of any evidence. Not to mention that it became abundantly clear that the reason the charge was levied against me, was because I was the only white person in the group that the charge could be levied against. Despite this, I had to go through a humiliating deposition where I had to answer questions like, “What white supremacy groups do you belong to?” At the time, it was awful and I seriously began to question my own motivations and feelings toward other people. By the end I knew it to be what it was. It was a second charge tacked onto a wrongful termination suit in the hopes of getting more money. It is now over and two years later, it’s become an inside joke with my friends and my life isn’t impacted by it in any way. That isn’t anywhere near the same thing. Just like when I was a child, I got to close that particular door, walk away and not let it affect me anymore. That is the privilege of being white in this country. So, no, I will never be able to fully understand what it is to have the cloud of racism perpetually at my shoulder.
I guess the only thing that I can say, is that we need to learn to not only accept, but embrace and celebrate each other’s differences. Our differences should make us stronger as a group, not weaker. In the meantime, to all of my friends of color – past, present and future – stay strong. You have allies. All of my love.
A couple of articles that I found worthwhile:
The Root – 12 Ways to Be a White Ally to Black People
Thought Catalog – 23 Quotes That Perfectly Explain Racism (To People Who Don’t “See Color”)
Peggy McIntosh – White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack