There is the theory of anti-racism: folks on the margins of any society must always (are forced to) understand and predict the behaviours of those at centre and not the other way around. In fact, those in power can remain completely ignorant of those at the margins, with no harm to themselves or their families (so they think). Check, got it, thanks bell hooks.
Then there is how it feels to connect to this: when i realized today how vastly I have under-appreciated the extent to which people of colour are experts on white folks, i found myself feeling...exposed and embarrassed at my ignorance. I should know this.
But I didn't know--and now this seems incredibly, laughably naive. Did I imagine that my whiteness (and only mine) was imbued with some kind of special neutrality whereby it went unnoticed?
White lady, we have known you along.
Then this memory: I'm standing in a Toronto grocery store checkout at 22, watching a middle class white woman out of the corner of my eye, trying to memorize the exact way that she imperiously flicks her auburn hair and pulls off her burgundy leather gloves, the patronizingly gracious tone she uses when the checkout girl messes up her purchase. I record her movements, language and clothing, knowing that I need to be able to reproduce them if i am going to ensure that I am never on the other side of this checkout line. The side that wears a nametag.
I remember this moment in particular because it is one of the first times I felt cunning and angry, not ashamed at the distance between myself and white middle class ladies. I got the difference between wanting the power she wielded and wanting to be her. I didn't want to be her, I didn't want her fake politeness, the cloud of haughtiness that swirled around her.
But hell, I too have been clocked.
It's 3 am, somehow I hadn't noticed. Tomorrow is "family history" day where we examine our family's relationship to white supremacy and genocide. Looking at that sentence, I think not many white folks would be excited at that prospect but maybe I'm wrong. White people wanna know where we came from, what our families gave up in order to become "white" and reap the benefits of white supremacy. Ok, enough. time for bed.
G'night dears.
p.s. my friends in the Anne Braden Program here in San Fran have been writing some great stuff on what we actually do, if'n you're interested.
http://lynnejpurvis.blogspot.com/
www.skinnedkneeswingsblueprints.wordpress.com
http://rootlessnes.blogspot.com/
Oct 10, 2009
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1 comments:
thanks for journalling this process...
the parallels you articulate between how you have dissembled middle class privilege from middle class people and how people of colour have dissembled your white privilege is crucial...
if i have learned anything from the axes of oppression i face as a woman, as a queer etc then i have a responsibility to transfer that knowledge to my arenas of privilege. how can i destabilise rather than perpetuate my white privilege? what would it take to use the class privilege i have as a result of my education to deconstruct elitism?
your course sounds fantastic, i would love to have the opportunity to do it or work with others to develop something like it tailored for an australian context.
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