What is whiteness? Is being white even a thing? Why do I feel more white today than I ever have? Is it good to feel white? Should I feel bad if I'm white?
There is no biological difference between white persons and persons of other races save a slight melanin change. So just as you have blue eyes and I do not, she has more melanin and I have less melanin.
If there's not biological difference between us, then what is race?
Race is a social construct created to establish power.
It's not our skin color that has separated us but our investment in our skin color that has separated us.
As George Lipsitz writes in Bill Moore's Body, whiteness: "has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educations allocated to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the relatives and friends of those who have profited most from present and past racial discrimination, and especially through intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations."
Race might be just a social construct, but it is one that weighs heavily on all of life.
From the hospital you're born in to the doctor who treats you for your first ear infection;
from the preschool you attend (or don't) to the elementary teacher's disciplinary actions toward you;
from your high school involvement to your college application process;
from the adults involved in your life to the careers you're encouraged to pursue;
from investment opportunities afforded to you to your neighborhood and your kid's neighborhood.
Race weighs heavily on it all.
Let's back up for a second. You might be asking me, what does this mean? This "social construct" idea? What even is that?
Social constructs, according to Foucault, Bakhtin, Vygotsky and a bunch of other old white guys, are how we create reality.
The theory of constructionism is in opposition to the theory of essentialism, which basically says that things are how they are because that's how they are.
For instance, many people would argue that boys are born with an innate set of personality traits. Boys are strong. Boys are non-emotional. Boys are natural leaders.
Some would argue that these are essential traits - they are biological - they are predetermined.
A constructionist would argue, however, that these traits are not innately "male," they are instead taught. They are constructed. The idea of the boy is a social construct. Over time we have created the reality of boy-ness, requiring these characteristics and teaching, albeit not directly, that effeminate qualities are inappropriate in boys. This is especially problematic when a boy feels that he does not exhibit these "masculine" qualities naturally as some would expect.
This discussion of sex v. gender is extremely oversimplified, but I provide it only as an attempt to explain what a social construct is.
We construct our reality in an attempt to organize our world. Through billions of years we've developed as a species, building our societies on what we have deemed best practice overtime.
Why do we do this? Why must we organize our world and create our reality?
It always comes back to power. Everything is about power. Everything.
We organize our world - we create our reality - so that we can establish systems of power.
To go back to the gender example, if there are constructed male qualities that over time are deemed better than constructed female qualities, we will invest in the male qualities instead of the female. And the more we invest, the more power is held.
So race. How is race a social construct? And what does this construct have to do with power? And what does this construct have to do with me?
Over time we have invested in whiteness. This was not an individual's decision. No future KKK member came out to a group of white folks and said, let's demonize the black person so that we can hold power over them. This idea of whiteness has evolved.
As human beings we naturally work in our best interest and our best interest is to hold the power. Therefore we have overtime created a series of beliefs about humans whose bodies produce more melanin so that we can hold the power over them. On the plantation, in the field, in the career path, in the classroom, on the road, in the justice system, we hold the power because of our socially constructed whiteness.
And the most disturbing part of this idea of whiteness is that we have been told it does not exist.
We are told that the black race exists and the hispanic race and the asian race and the middle eastern race, but not the white race.
That is privilege in its finest. The privilege of never having to be labeled. Of always being the unmarked category.
The more we ignore the existence of whiteness as a social construct in which we invest in our daily decisions, the more we can ignore the disadvantages faced by those of the marked categories, the "races."
We must begin the process leveraging our whiteness for justice, and this begins with a recognition that whiteness is real (albeit constructed, but what isn't), whiteness exists, whiteness is powerful.
Only then can we dismantle the power whiteness holds in our own lives and use that power for justice.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Hold Yourself to a Higher Standard
I don't think business is innately bad but I do think that business is naturally not humanitarian. It's business. Nor do I think that government is innately good, but I do think that we can hold ourselves to a higher standard through our government.
For instance, in South Africa they have a massive squatters problem; ending apartheid meant abandoning basically holding cells for black persons who were violating apartheid laws by being with white persons. So they now have these massive buildings that are filled with homeless persons, many employed, who just cannot afford to live in the housing that is available, so they're squatters.
But when Nelson Mandela and the post-apartheid congress in South Africa were building this new form of government, one not based on racism and oppression, they were writing laws that held them to a higher standard. And so they included laws that gave squatters rights. Their laws state that a squatter cannot be removed from the property, even thought it does not belong to said squatter by definition, unless the government can provide for the person a humane living situation.
So the SA government is scrambling to build housing, human housing, for these homeless persons, because their laws say they have to. Because it's the right thing to do.
They even offered these homeless people trailers, but they knew their rights and refused to move without full running water and sanitation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
At the time, they certainly didn't live up to that statement, nor do we now, however, we build these standards, these laws, so we can hold ourselves to them. So we can BE the people that we want to be.
So yes, I think government should do more good than business. Yes, business can do good, for sure. But that's the anomaly, not the archetype.
The Nonexistent Dream
So I think there's an ideological disconnect here.
We believe we're the land of opportunity; that if you just work hard, anyone can make it. We tell our kids this in school which builds them up for a massive mind-shift when they realize that is just isn't true for everyone.
Yes, for a large segment of the population, the dream is alive and well. You work hard, you'll get far.
However, the facts prove that if you have anything stacked against you, anything at all, really, you probably won't make it as far as you want to.
The dream does not exist for many folks in the US.
If you're disabled,
have children at a young age,
have an incarcerated parent,
are in foster care,
are born into a poor family who cannot support you,
are black,
are brown,
are an immigrant,
are trans,
are a woman,
and heaven forbid you're MORE than one of these, the odds are stacked against you.
YES, some people make it past these odds. But these people are the anomalies. They are not the archetype.
And so we tell ourselves that if we just let things be, if we just let business grow the way it's meant to grow, if we just give people the choices that they deserve, then society will improve. As businesses can thrive, people will then thrive. And this can totally be true for many people who do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories.
However, no matter what you believe about the goodness of mankind, business will always first make money.
And once in a while a big business exec turns into a philanthropist and we all praise them for their goodness, but just as Oprah is an anomaly for black people, Bill Gates is an anomaly for big business owners.
If we give businesses the right to do whatever the hell they want to do, they will hurt the poor and the oppressed. Archetypically, they will do what they need to do to make money and what they need to do is hurt the poor and the oppressed.
We have this dream that laissez faire means everyone wins. But historically that's false.
Look at how many lives were lost in the fight for workers rights. And SO many people lambasted those fighting for workers rights because removing child labor laws would be bad for business. OF COURSE it would be bad for business. But if it's the RIGHT thing to do, if it's the JUST thing to do, who cares if it's bad for business.
Our laws hold us to a higher standard. Just look at how much progress we've made regarding disability laws. And YES, disability laws have HURT business. We have to build ramps, what? We have to make everything accessible? What?
And yet, we pass these laws because it is the right thing to do.
Our minimum wage laws tell the world that we do not care about the poor and we justify this indifference with the American dream ethos - that if you just work hard enough, you'll climb the ladder.
But that last ten rungs of the ladder are missing for the oppressed people of this country. And unless you learn how to fly, or unless we rebuild those rungs, we're ignoring the needs of the oppressed and justifying it with the old pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality.
We believe we're the land of opportunity; that if you just work hard, anyone can make it. We tell our kids this in school which builds them up for a massive mind-shift when they realize that is just isn't true for everyone.
Yes, for a large segment of the population, the dream is alive and well. You work hard, you'll get far.
However, the facts prove that if you have anything stacked against you, anything at all, really, you probably won't make it as far as you want to.
The dream does not exist for many folks in the US.
If you're disabled,
have children at a young age,
have an incarcerated parent,
are in foster care,
are born into a poor family who cannot support you,
are black,
are brown,
are an immigrant,
are trans,
are a woman,
and heaven forbid you're MORE than one of these, the odds are stacked against you.
YES, some people make it past these odds. But these people are the anomalies. They are not the archetype.
And so we tell ourselves that if we just let things be, if we just let business grow the way it's meant to grow, if we just give people the choices that they deserve, then society will improve. As businesses can thrive, people will then thrive. And this can totally be true for many people who do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories.
However, no matter what you believe about the goodness of mankind, business will always first make money.
And once in a while a big business exec turns into a philanthropist and we all praise them for their goodness, but just as Oprah is an anomaly for black people, Bill Gates is an anomaly for big business owners.
If we give businesses the right to do whatever the hell they want to do, they will hurt the poor and the oppressed. Archetypically, they will do what they need to do to make money and what they need to do is hurt the poor and the oppressed.
We have this dream that laissez faire means everyone wins. But historically that's false.
Look at how many lives were lost in the fight for workers rights. And SO many people lambasted those fighting for workers rights because removing child labor laws would be bad for business. OF COURSE it would be bad for business. But if it's the RIGHT thing to do, if it's the JUST thing to do, who cares if it's bad for business.
Our laws hold us to a higher standard. Just look at how much progress we've made regarding disability laws. And YES, disability laws have HURT business. We have to build ramps, what? We have to make everything accessible? What?
And yet, we pass these laws because it is the right thing to do.
Our minimum wage laws tell the world that we do not care about the poor and we justify this indifference with the American dream ethos - that if you just work hard enough, you'll climb the ladder.
But that last ten rungs of the ladder are missing for the oppressed people of this country. And unless you learn how to fly, or unless we rebuild those rungs, we're ignoring the needs of the oppressed and justifying it with the old pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality.
And school choice does not help the poor.
I taught in DC, the district that has some of the countries best and worst schools and implements choice throughout. Poor kids will not travel miles via public transportation to get to a better school. They'll go to their neighborhood school. My school is in NE DC, one of the blackest parts of the country (yes, DC is insanely segregated) and no matter how hard you push families to put their names in the lottery, to apply to these better schools, they didn't have the time. They were working multiple jobs, often taking care of multiple families. School choice does not work for the archeypical poor family. If you want to fix our problems in education, pump the money into the poor public schools. Improve teacher training. Don't allow programs like TFA convince you that good teachers have no training. Get rid of 90% of the mandated testing (standardized tests are important, but should not occupy the majority of a poor kid's school year), Stop requiring teachers to follow curriculum that does not connect whatsoever to their kids.
Lastly I will say this in response to a recent comment. And this is me being an interrupter, calling out my fellow white folks to open their eyes to the suffering they're ignoring.
I taught in DC, the district that has some of the countries best and worst schools and implements choice throughout. Poor kids will not travel miles via public transportation to get to a better school. They'll go to their neighborhood school. My school is in NE DC, one of the blackest parts of the country (yes, DC is insanely segregated) and no matter how hard you push families to put their names in the lottery, to apply to these better schools, they didn't have the time. They were working multiple jobs, often taking care of multiple families. School choice does not work for the archeypical poor family. If you want to fix our problems in education, pump the money into the poor public schools. Improve teacher training. Don't allow programs like TFA convince you that good teachers have no training. Get rid of 90% of the mandated testing (standardized tests are important, but should not occupy the majority of a poor kid's school year), Stop requiring teachers to follow curriculum that does not connect whatsoever to their kids.
Lastly I will say this in response to a recent comment. And this is me being an interrupter, calling out my fellow white folks to open their eyes to the suffering they're ignoring.
This is what the commenter wrote:
"The answer is that wealth disparity in the non-white communities is not due to low wages. It’s a function of people not working at all. According to the bureau of labor statistics 51% of all black Americans are employed vs. 58% of Americans describing themselves as white. That means you have something like 2.9 million African Americans that should be working but do not. In my opinion this is scandalous and should offend the sensibilities of anyone who cares deeply about the financial wellbeing of the non-white community."
"The answer is that wealth disparity in the non-white communities is not due to low wages. It’s a function of people not working at all. According to the bureau of labor statistics 51% of all black Americans are employed vs. 58% of Americans describing themselves as white. That means you have something like 2.9 million African Americans that should be working but do not. In my opinion this is scandalous and should offend the sensibilities of anyone who cares deeply about the financial wellbeing of the non-white community."
They're not working.
They're not working because they're unemployed.
They're unemployed for a BILLION different individual reasons.
Please don't assume that they're unemployed because they' don't want to work.
Please don't do that.
Please.
Because assuming that a black person is unemployed because they don't want to work is racism.
It's deep deep racism that says that this entire group of persons is lazy and continues to affirm that same racism that justified everything from separate bathrooms to slavery.
They're not working because they're unemployed.
They're unemployed for a BILLION different individual reasons.
Please don't assume that they're unemployed because they' don't want to work.
Please don't do that.
Please.
Because assuming that a black person is unemployed because they don't want to work is racism.
It's deep deep racism that says that this entire group of persons is lazy and continues to affirm that same racism that justified everything from separate bathrooms to slavery.
Please read more books about life as a black person and never assume you fully understand and therefore have the right to judge anyone's motives ever.
Ever.
Please.
Ever.
Please.
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