Can A White Person Successfully Give Up Their Privilege?

I was reading this post at the anti-racist parent blog about White Noise, a Minneapolis-based group of "white parents with white children" who want to end white supremacy. The name sounds a bit too similar to militia/supremacist groups which is why I initially decided to research them. I was going to write about this the other day but the Sodini shooting took precedence. Speaking of which - his merely thinking he could lose some privilege was enough to incite violence. 

Let's ask those teabaggers and birthers how they feel about the prospect of having less power even when it's the perception and not something that has come to pass. This kinda proves my point and informed by initial response. There are certain rules that govern a society. Smart groups focus on dominance for their survival - amongst other things. Who voluntarily tries to step back from the meat brought in from the kill while they examine how it got there and whether they should cut off a piece to give away?  Others aren't going to wait around, they're "hungry" and will eat it. They may also decide to get rid of the ones who aren't grabbing for it because it might cause the group to be weakened beyond repair. So all in all I think the premise is a bit ridiculous!

It hit me while I was still pregnant. Standing there at the Mall of America, looking up at the huge rotunda of bright lights and countless stores, I realized something. This baby I carried inside of me, at this point no bigger than a knucklebone, was going to be privileged with a capital “P.” And with that awareness, I entered a place of contradiction. You see, I could already feel the mama-self growing in me; that place where my bear claws would live, where the desire to do anything to make this child safe, make this child whole, would growl as it grew stronger. That mama-self doesn’t feel like a choice. It’s in there, hooked around my mitochondria and woven into the DNA.

But there’s this other self; sometimes called the political self or the activist self or the stand back and pay attention self. It knows that my child — white and raised by white parents in a family where the adults have the gift of education, have choice about their work, and own their own home — is a privileged child. Every gain my mama-self wants to support my child in making will be on the backs of other children, children with mother’s whose mama-selves are just as fierce as mine but who have to fight against real monsters like hunger or violence.

I know. I know. I bet some of you would have thought I'd applaud the efforts and say, Right On! No. This isn't Utopia. In the real world groups fight for dominance. In the real world said groups change the rules all the time at their leisure and apply them discriminately to retain an advantage. Even the definition of whiteness shifts - and will continue to do so for the ones they chose to grant "whiteness" to. Black people will never be allowed to be white. That one drop rule will always apply. So everybody else can get a crack at it but not us. Not even after you've declared yourself Cablasian. Not even after you marry into and immerse yourself in the proximity of whiteness. At least half the people in this country who identify as white weren't considered white at some point in our history. For the purposes of elevation they had to pit themselves against the more obviously non-white peoples to step into their whiteness.

That's not to say I don't appreciate the efforts of the benevolently privileged in examining their power infrastructure. Men can be feminists after all. Blacks can be racist. Which is also my point. People who've been given the short end of the stick can and do find someone else weaker to pick on. Like how some black men take out their frustration at not being able to successfully complete against white men as a collective and bash black women and abandon their children. Like how some black people use religion as an excuse to bash LGBTs and say it's about "following God" as if other people don't have a spiritual practice of their own. 

So the white mother in that post mentioning having a "partner" versus a "husband" caught my attention. I wonder how much her orientation (if I was reading between the lines correctly) has something to do with her efforts. Again, orientation alone is no guarantee of being equitable. Part of the response I got to my initial critique in the comment section was that these parents are focused on what's going on today. That they're not trying to deny having cultural and ethnic pride nor do they want to insist their children attempt to make up for historical wrongs.

Well....if that isn't examined properly and in context to what they're trying to accomplish perhaps I'm missing the point to this initiative. Or they are. As I replied the focus is leaning heavily on race as a construct not class. Are these a bunch of yuppie white parents trying to be "down"? I may be a little harsh on them and their efforts but they don't get a cookie or gold star. Like I said I think they need a bit of a reality check. If they have limited interaction with non-whites how are they putting into practice what they want to preach? Also have they considered what the response of other privileged white people will be? Do they allow themselves to be graded on by non-whites?

Minnesota doesn't exactly have a large non-white population. I can guarantee if they had to compete on equal footing with others and "had to share" privilege all of that talk would go right out the window. If they were inconvenienced past a certain comfort zone they wouldn't want to give up anything. If they had to deal with an underclass population in their daily lives they'd move to separate themselves immediately. Having the friend, confidant, lover or neighbor is no guarantee of being free from racist/sexist attitudes either. 

So I could be the benevolent Negress and applaud their (misguided) efforts but since everything's on their terms they don't need my approval. 

Update: I found a web site that according to them "provides resources and tools for white people who are motivated to investigate their white cultural conditioning" that's called UNTRAINING.

4 Little Girls + Dr. Tiller: 2 Murderous Acts At Churches

Last week I was having a conversation with someone about Katrina and how despite our having a Black President many people are still unable to return to New Orleans. The Obama administration has plans to offer mobile homes to some of those still displaced that are to be sans the chemicals that have made many sick. The person I was speaking with mentioned how much they enjoyed the Spike Lee documentary on Katrina. I thought it was some of his best work as well. I actually prefer when he sticks to historical events instead of feature films because he does not know how to write female characters. That got me thinking about his earlier documentary on the 16th Street church bombing that claimed the lives of 4 Little Girls. I believe we must continue to say their names so we don't forget they were human beings worthy of protection. Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson.

The use of violence at houses of worship by fundamentalists (or what I'd rather call racist/sexists hell-bent on dominating by terror and violence) is nothing new. It was a desperate exercise in maintaining white privilege that led some men to decide to kill African-Americans where they worshipped. It's a sacred place for some and tends to be a place of refuge for many. As if killing them on the streets and in their homes hadn't sufficed. Thankfully the public outrage was such that it gave others pause that there were some lines you don't cross. Unfortunately today there is no such decorum. As we examine the aftermath of the cold-blooded execution of Dr. George Tiller I cannot help but think how these scenarios are tied.

Here's an excerpt from an interview by Denene Millner with Maxine McNair from 1997:

MAXINE McNAIR: All bad things should be talked about, so that they won't be repeated. Otherwise one day the world is going to suddenly cease to be. We're letting hate take over - look at what happened in Oklahoma City. We're too busy listening to gossip while our lives are going to hell in a handbasket.....Maybe this movie will help people understand that it was something that didn't need to be. Violence just doesn't solve anything.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Yet I'm not necessarily getting the sense that many others are seeing the similarities. Not in who was harmed, but why. As well as the mentality behind those that are willing to carry out such acts of violence and violation. White supremacy is like a virus that mutates and like HIV it can't be cured. Any treatments used on it are swallowed up as it takes on another form to continue its decimation of the host body. The only thing you can do is take a certain medical cocktail that keeps it at bay but it requires daily diligence. Otherwise that's it!

Again, this isn't about arguing about whether abortion is "okay". If it doesn't involve you personally you just need to mind your own business. Dr. Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services Inc. will now permanently close. All the women he serviced - including the ones who did carry their pregnancies to term - now have to seek another health care provider. If it was me I'd be so angry...and scared. Wealthy women and those with connections will ALWAYS be able to get the care they need. It's the working class, poor and women and girls of color who will get the short end of the stick.

Now is NOT the time to stand on the sidelines watching. It's psychological warfare, but I'd also dare to hope that it will result in a shift in consciousness as well as policy. Like combating HIV. People were forced to adapt new behaviors in order to prevent the epidemic from wiping out the majority population. We may not ever be able to get humans to stop trying to kill each other or derive pleasure from oppressing others, but we can certainly lessen the payoff for them to do so.

A Funny Thing Happened While Watching Milk

First I have to confess I only just got around to seeing it a few days ago. I was very moved by Sean Penn's rousing Oscar acceptance speech and it was on my list. Anyway I tend to see movies alone because I think the admission costs too much and I limit what I see when first released. Now I'll just wait the 3-6 months for the DVD rental period. I also tend to find myself distracted, checking for my guest's reaction. So I was watching with another person and I also tend to talk out loud to myself - or at the film if you will. I hear this is something Black people do a lot, lol! 

What did I say? Well I wondered if Gus Van Zant was interpreting Harvey Milk's campaign organizational methods or if he was simply relaying them on the screen free of embellishment. I saw so many parallels with the anti-gay Propositions and the resistance to change it eerily reflects how little things have changed. They've certainly inched forward in degrees but as I stated in my blog post from yesterday I think there's a constant push back on any significant change to the status quo. Just look at how much resistance PBO's getting from the Washington gatekeepers who are trying to thwart his efforts - and I'm not just talking about Republicans!

So I said something along the lines of, "Did he only (mostly) work with white men (who were gay)." The person watching the film with me got a little hot under the collar and asked me if I had a chip on my shoulder. I'd also snorted when one of the characters in the film referred to San Francisco as being named for St. Francis and how the Castro was a bastion of Irish pride. Now I have no comment about the pride, but if you get how my mind works I immediately thought of the native populations who'd been "displaced" and how California had been claimed for Spain, then Mexico and finally the United States. I responded how important it was to always acknowledge the whole truth of a situation, not the history from the victor's perspective.

I wondered about Milk's involvement with women and non-whites because I think we've let many opportunities pass us by to build allies and be politically shrewd. There's been too much short-term gain but a loss of overall momentum. So the comment I'd made became the basis of a larger conversation about racism and equality. The person I was speaking with would probably consider themselves to be liberal and "not racist". What I found interesting was how quickly that got tested when a Black person (me) was accused of having an "attitude" (because Black women are apparently ALWAYS ANGRY ABOUT SOMETHING) and how my perspective from actual lived experiences was so quickly dismissed by someone because they decided to tell me what I should I be feeling and thinking about race, class and gender. 

There was this assumption that I must have somehow done or said something that would generate less than pleasant responses (during my entire life). Being called in for an interview once by a headhunter who'd reviewed my resume and gushed about my stellar credentials only to tell me she wouldn't be able to place me due to her "conservative clients" when we met in person must be about anything but race. Then I'd love to know what.  

It was very akin to asking a woman who's been raped if she had worn something inappropriate or flirted with the perpetrator as if that was a justification for the aggression. So I was supposed to have my actions scrutinized by someone I'd recently met so they could look for clues in my behavior to "prove" that it was my fault and not external oppositional forces at play. Not to say that I don't evaluate my choices or am unwilling to accept proper evaluation and helpful tips. I realize there are ways we may be able to reduce the impact of certain individual's actions against us. 

There are still numerous systematically entrenched methods for denying everyone equality because it benefits those that deny it to do so. There's a world of difference from that and hearing the equivalent of "it's all in your head" or because so many whites voted for Obama that racism is dead. Yes, that line was used and I cut that one off immediately. I didn't even let the conversation escalate to where one of us would have an emotional outburst, because it's just not worth it. This person is from a different generation than I and whose daily life is seriously lacking in any diversity of ethnicity or thought. We agreed to disagree but I could tell it really bothered them to have their opinion (which they consider the only correct perspective) challenged. For the record dating, working with, having a neighbor or even birthing a child of another ethnicity or race doesn't make you an expert and doesn't mean you won't have prejudices. Shoot - people who share a common ethnicity or race aren't immune to that! Men have daughters and they can still be sexist.   

My concern is always about us seeing the big picture and not missing opportunities for our advancement. Our elders in the Civil Rights Era were fractured to begin with in many respects and there was much focus on individual advancement in my opinion. Think about it for a second, before integration the bulk of Blacks had to live in the same residential neighborhoods. Well you could have a doctor at one end and a bum at the other but the mix of classes helped elevate those that could use the most help. Once people were free to live wherever they wanted those structures fell apart quickly. Things continued to be ignored and as the situation worsened (like with the crack epidemic) you have areas that are completely blighted today. There may be many layers to how this occurred but of course now people don't want to do the work at addressing things either. I can't ignore the apathy any more than I can ignore the original displacement. Neither should anyone else. 

People who have the option of opting out - and would take it - are not reliable for those who want to continue with progress.