The steady barrage of sirens speeding down freeways becomes the city’s white noise machine. A week of exercising American liberty is punctuated by sand canons and the whirl of turbine blades overhead. The blasts reverberate off every scaffold and soul in the city. Against the landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic, unrest is epidemic. This white noise machine hiccups like an old record player, in perpetual deja vu, marked by desperate cries over a system that refuses to see people of color as people. The plight belonging to the Black American community is a trauma I cannot understand, I cannot fathom, and I cannot hold. Every day their existence is bound by the mercurial spinning of a barrel in a literal game of Russian roulette, for no other reason than the sentiments provoked by the pigment of their skin. This noise serves as a cogent reminder that the casualties brought on by racism are unquantifiable.
When cries of #whiteprivilege began to proliferate social media, I will shamefully admit, I jumped on that denial bandwagon. Adamant proclamations of, “not I!,” were followed by justifications like, “I grew up dirt poor, I went through, {insert grievance here}, and {insert lament here}. Not only did I misunderstand white privilege, but I experienced an internal resistance to understand it from any perspective other than my own.
There are insidious consequences of denying the existence of white privilege. Denial of white privilege is an iteration of racism and, by extension, perpetuates racism.
What is white privilege? White privilege is judgment based on the color of your skin, not the merit of your character. What is white privilege? White privilege is the ability to walk into a convenience store with a counterfeit bill and not have the police sicced on me like a rabid dog.
From birth, we are all subjected to systematized pavlovian conditioning. Racist sentiments are reflected at every level of our cultural, political, and economic infrastructures: media, pop culture, fashion, sports, education, history. Racism is inherited unconsciously: it is porous and poisonous; it seeps into our minds through the propaganda in advertisements and satirical stereotypes seen in cartoons and media.
The conscientious acknowledgment of my white privilege is a crucial step in dismantling this inherent racism. Acceptance is a reparation owed to the black communities for the systems that have kept them barefoot, illiterate, and disadvantaged to our (white-skinned) benefit. As long as this ideology is challenged, the threshold of racial disparity will only widen.
Below are the four pathologies I identified during my evolution in coming to an understanding of white privilege:
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- Marginalization: Perhaps the most conspicuous of all excuses is the illusion of marginalization. My instinctual reaction to the phrase ‘white privilege’ was: my struggles didn’t have value. The admission of white privilege does not invalidate personal struggle. White privilege is acknowledging that my suffering is different from those of the black community. White privilege is understanding that my suffering is not exacerbated because of the color of my skin. The irony of denying white privilege is that it marginalizes the black community. If you didn’t like how marginalization felt, imagine how they must feel daily?
- Admission of Wrong-Doing: Emphasized by the pejorative tone that ushered in the white privilege conversation, I felt shameful, like I was born with this ‘original sin’ that defined my actions despite my best intentions. I thought if I owned my white privilege that translated into: I wasn’t an ally to the black community. I misunderstood the conversation. All I heard was the tone and not the words. The admission of white privilege does not imply wrong-doing. There is nothing wrong with admitting that which you did not know or understand. There is no shame in evolving and learning; that’s part of the human condition. It shows strength in character to take accountability despite intentionality. However, there is a distinction between ignorance and willful ignorance. The ability to stay ‘willfully ignorant’ is another form of white privilege and a segue to my next pathology:
- Entitlement: The Black American experience is not the same as the White American experience. Nothing illuminates the racial double standard quite as poignantly as having the choice to remain ignorant. Choice equals freedom. The white community compartmentalizes their issues from the black community when it benefits them. The option to stay uninvolved while the civil liberties of the black community are impinged upon is a privilege unique to the white population. Over the last week, this has become painfully pronounced as I’ve heard countless White Americans disengaging from the unfolding civil unrest because it’s become ‘overwhelming’ and ‘toxic to their mental health.’ Do you think Black Americans have the privilege of taking a seat in the sidelines during their genocide? To believe that you are immune to white privilege is a form of entitlement in and of itself. You are not. None of us are.
- Point of Relation: Emotional relativity is the bedrock of the human condition. We yearn to feel connected to our communities. In an attempt to show solidarity, many of us invent a point of relation that exists in a vacuum. “I’m a woman, I understand discrimination” or, “I grew up in the sticks of the deep south, I understand poverty.” These statements are declared with such urgency to prove camaraderie they take on a martyrdom-like status. Most of these statements are devoid of mal-intent but perpetuate harm nonetheless. Whether we are conscious of its repercussions or not, reducing the conversation to an ‘I’ statement shifts the focus from the black equality conversation to your personal problems, and that — is marginalization in a nutshell.
Claiming you aren’t racist and striving to be anti-racist are different genuses. It’s easy to say, “I’m not racist,” but what are you doing to combat racism? Anti-racism is a practice in identifying, acknowledging, and fighting racist practices and thoughts. It is a practice; to practice is a verb — an action, which requires effort. Without action, words fall into the bog of useless passivity or worst, the ‘slacktivism’ category. The black community needs solidarity in the form of advocacy.
While there are many forms of activism, if you believe yourself a champion of the Black American cause, start with reconciling your duplicitous cognitive dissonance and acknowledge your white privilege.
The heartbeat of a society is measured by how we care for our disadvantaged. America is a thinly veiled fascist country hiding under the guise of democracy and freedom. We are at a pivotal junction being called upon to reckon with our identity. If you believe in freedom, the black struggle is your struggle. Systematic racism affects every single one of us. If we remain silent, we allow the consequences of our inaction to define freedom for future generations. In silence, we lose our civility. When we allow our government to infringe on one minority’s constitutional rights, this should give all of us pause. Who’s to say your rights won’t be next?
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Previously published on “Equality Includes You”, a Medium publication.
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Photo credit: Frankie Cordoba on Unsplash