Another white person recently said this to me, a white lady. And by “nobody,” I think what they meant was white folk
The person who said this could be wrong, but I agree with them. I’m sharing from my own limited knowledge and am happy to hear if someone has another perspective to offer. But, so far, experience tells me that whiteness — or related concepts like white skin, white privilege, white dominance, white fragility — are not topics white people generally want to address. If you are among those who don’t want to hear about whiteness, I don’t fault you and I’m with you.
You could say, for someone who doesn’t want to hear about whiteness, this white lady sure brings it up a lot. And that’s true. I talk, write, and think about whiteness all the time. But, I don’t want to, rather I need to.
Maybe no one wants to hear about whiteness, because when someone talks about it, we’re reminded that whiteness has always been there. It brings to light the invisibility of whiteness. Sometimes when something’s been there all along, and we never noticed, it can be unsettling when someone else points it out. We might regret learning about the thing because we were accustomed to being unaware, the knowing might’ve brought up unwanted feelings, or maybe it felt easier to not know. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t feel great to be told you’ve been missing something that was right in front of you.
I think that it’s OK to not want whiteness around. It makes a lot of sense to me why people wouldn’t want to hear or talk about whiteness. Unfortunately, ignoring whiteness is not going to rid us of it.
And I didn’t get it. For most of my life, I didn’t grasp why this might be — why we couldn’t or wouldn’t face whiteness. I didn’t understand, because I didn’t recognize whiteness, the hold it has on me, and what it means to league with it.
And what it might do to others — the harm of choosing whiteness — didn’t hit home, until I experienced my white loved ones choosing whiteness over the safety and well-being of my black spouse and biracial kids. When given the choice to look out for the welfare and worth of the people of color that we love, or allow violent whiteness to win, some of my white loved ones chose whiteness. It broke my heart the first time. I’m pretty sure it’ll happen again, and it’ll break my heart every time. And, if what’s happened previously happens again, my white loved ones won’t want to hear about it when I bring up whiteness, the influence it seems to have on us as white people, and how their choosing whiteness impacts my family.
Here’s the thing, as much as I need to talk and write about whiteness, I think we all need whiteness to be less obscure. When whiteness goes unnoticed and unchecked, our racial hierarchy can’t change. And when we white people keep quiet about whiteness, we’re choosing whiteness over change.
I hate that I’ve observed this of us, but when it comes to race, we white folk overwhelmingly choose whiteness above all else. When it comes to preserving black and brown lives, taking care of ourselves and each other, and undoing the system of racialization that hurts and kills, we white people tend to choose the system and our part in it — whiteness.
It’s one of the things I know to be most true of us. I’ve done it and I’ve witnessed the other white people in my life do it too. It’s normal for us because it’s part of what we learn to do — it’s part of white socialization. As white folk, we learn and reinforce with one another, to default to sticking with whiteness.
What does it look like when I choose whiteness? It’s everyday little things and it’s big things too. It’s who I choose to vote for and why. It’s looking for comfort when something with race makes me uncomfortable. It’s listening to respond, rather than understand, when someone tells me about their experiences of race that differs from my own. It’s knowing the disparities in wealth and health by race and assuming or explaining the problem as something other than racism. It’s “not all white people” — feeling defensive or feeling like I need to defend white people when the topic of racial inequity comes up.
And sticking with whiteness, it’s harmful. In whiteness, the legacy of oppression, disconnection, and racial separation and imbalance continues. It makes sense that some of us don’t want to talk about it, look at it, or acknowledge association with it. I’ve seen us put our allegiance to whiteness over relationship with humanity. I’ve seen us hold tightly to whiteness even when it means we lose ourselves and fail our values. Sometimes, we white folk stand with whiteness, even when it means we go against our own well-being and best interest.
But if we want to disrupt oppression and racial injustice, then we need to talk and hear about whiteness. The consequences of not doing so are far too costly. When we choose to keep with whiteness, we remain personally, deeply, and tangibly entangled with racism, because we continue to be its agents, just as we’re taught. And this racial hierarchy we’re stuck in, it hurts everyone, including us, my white friends. Part of white people transforming and being free of this system, involves us examining and deconstructing whiteness.
I’m often unsure of what the best, kind, and most loving way to be is. And, I feel that the ideas and growth I’m experiencing with whiteness and racism, is best shared. Even though I often have negative outcomes — people lashing out at me, loss of relationships — the benefit of helping to make this place better for all of us, far outweighs the negativity. Sometimes, we just have to communicate what’s in us and hope it ends up in deeper connection, greater understanding, and more love.
And I say this a lot, I write this a lot, I’m not trying to upset, insult, or even call people out. My goal isn’t to make people feel shame or prove that I’m right. I want to invite us all back to our own humanness. I wish for us to work together and end the way social categorizations come between us. I want healing for all of us.
How about this? How about we get rid of whiteness? If it was something that humans built, we humans can take it apart. Since whiteness is so unwanted that we can’t bear to hear or talk about it, why don’t we tear it down. I think we’ll all be better for it.
Commentaires