“At first I was afraid, I was petrified.” Much appreciation to Gloria Gaynor for this line and her enduring song “I Will Survive.” It’s true of me too: once I was buried by fear. It recently hit me how the lyrics of “I Will Survive” are a fitting description for the relationship I had with race.
Here’s a rundown of my story.
Once upon a time, I was singularly afraid of what it might be like to live without the lie of white dominance. The mere mention of race, even in factual conversation, would bring me near panic. I couldn’t talk about or contemplate my own skin color or that of others, nor could I consider what race means in the US or how it impacts our lives. I worried about the consequences of speaking up when I witnessed the white people around me remain silent. I feared losing the safety and belonging that came with emulating the norms of whiteness.
And whenever someone mentioned racism, I couldn’t acknowledge its current existence. I’d invent other explanations and craft stories to convince myself that something, which was clearly racist, was actually not. I believed that racism was a thing of the past and I wasn’t alone in this. The white people around me and my racial socialization didn’t counter it. Together, my white community and I championed this way of thinking and being.
My fright grew larger still, whenever I heard about racial equity, which felt like the most threatening idea. During my white childhood and adolescence, I adopted the narrative that achieving racial equity in the US meant that white people, like me, would lose something. I embraced the zero-sum story of race in America that Heather McGhee calls out in her book The Sum Of Us. I believed that there were two sides — white and not white — and that a victory for one side would mean a loss for the other. I thought there was no mutual gain, and that someone always had to lose.
I was afraid because I imagined there wasn’t enough to go around. Enough of what exactly? Well… everything. My white family didn’t have much and if we lost the little that we had, I feared it could ruin us. And most everyone around me — all the other white people — seemed to believe and fear the same.
Though I would’ve never spoken it aloud, I lived with the guiding notion that only those at the top were worthy of goodness in life — things like ease, rest, trust, and unique personhood. Whiteness was my ticket to the top and there was only so much room up there. It didn’t register that my sense of self and human worth was tied to skin color. Because I didn’t see human dignity as intrinsic and instead viewed it as socially and racially determined, I couldn’t conceive of a world without whiteness.
My early story of racial equity, the one my white community gave to me and the one I hear many white people tell today, is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of what equity is. It relies too, on a paltry grasp of how impactful race is today, for all of us, in the US. The white segregated life and communities I’ve known, help establish, grow, and narrate a story of white fear. This same tale is ever present and, like in Gloria’s song, though I push it away and try to be something new, it comes “back to bother me.” Whiteness lurks everywhere, calling me back to fear.
And it’s tempting to return, because white fear is so familiar. I spent much of my life growing skills in explaining and finding evidence to support the story that equity gained for people of color, necessitates loss for white people. Material to prop up this plot, was easy to come by. My bringing attention to race, and especially to whiteness, effects my sense of connection. I notice distance take the place closeness once held in my relationships with other white people. I’m pressed to keep quiet because I fear the white folk in my life will see me as outlier and agitator. I don’t want to be rejected.
But what I know of fear is, when I’m overwhelmed by it, I’m not at my best. When gripped by baseless fear, I find myself living, being, and relating in ways, not because I believe they’re best for me or others, but solely because I’m afraid. Fear makes it difficult to appraise what might be best or better and remaining in worry makes me cling to what I know and fear the worst if I let that go.
I’ve come to realize that the benefits of being white are only skin-deep and do nothing to mitigate my deep-seated white fear. In order to keep my place in the racial hierarchy, I must perpetuate lies about human worth. The truth is, everyone deserves goodness, there’s no need for me to hoard it as if I were saving it up or something. By ignoring race and racism — when they’re so profoundly a part of American society — I uphold an elite place for white folk, at the expense of people of color. And all of this works against what I believe is best for me and better for the whole of us.
Before, fear made it so I couldn’t face anything which remotely brought white privilege into question. My white racial identity was built on apprehension and worry. And the prevailing American myths about self-reliance, hard work, and personal responsibility for success and failure, with no mind to systemic or social influence, fed my fear and my need to keep whiteness around. I now see how much anxiety drove the way I understood myself, how I perceived others, the stories I listened to, and the stories I told.
So, I choose to no longer be consumed with fervently and fearfully clinging to ill-gotten white advantage. Instead, I’m seeking justice, reimagining human worth, and imperfectly being about the work of eradicating racism. And, I’m discovering how to write a new story for who and how we can be together. Because, we humans, we’re at our best when we’re caring for one another. We’re at our best too, when we stick together. White fear is divisive, based on fiction, and is violent to our humanity.
For me, and for today, the undoing of white fear is about listening when I feel an urge to react and attending to my perceived need to defend. It’s releasing the belief that I must have all the answers, adopting an attitude of curiosity, and growing a more holistic and truer picture of race and togetherness. It’s recognizing and rejecting the messaging of white superiority and escaping the narrow perspective of race whiteness promotes. It’s pushing through discomfort so that I’m able to take in what others have seen and experienced, incorporate disparate stories, knowledge, and truths and put together something new and more comprehensive.
All of this helps me break free of what whiteness demands of me. It helps me stop feeling so afraid. I’ll survive without whiteness. In fact, in embracing life and love outside of it, I believe I’ll thrive.
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