Dec

7

Shakesville Comment on Whiteness and Racial Awareness

Filed Under Race and Racism by Rachel  

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2007/11/trying-to-get-white-people-to-talk.html

Thank you for this post!I teach American history, so race is something that inevitably comes up, and it’s one of those topics that makes me hyper-aware of everything coming out of my mouth when we discuss it in class.Similarly, when I find myself walking past a black person in the street, I feel very aware of how I’m looking at him or her, and how I want to come across as friendly and not bigoted.Or I’ll be describing some person to another, and find myself being very deliberate in not using racial categories as a shorthand for “blond person with pale skin” or “dark, curly-haired person with dark skin and wide face.”The very fact that I’m self-conscious of my thoughts in such moments is, for me, a reminder that, decent though I may wish to be, I do live in a racist society, my thoughts are indeed influenced by a weight of racist patterns and presumptions, that being neutral and genuinely color-blind is not possible in such a society – and that even my best efforts to use my privilege to challenge the system that supports it are small and nothing I should be unduly proud of.I think the fear of seeming stupid or being offensive is a real one, but if you don’t face it, how can anything get better? What is my fear of embarassment compared to the generations of bigotry faced by the people whose judgement frightens me?The hardest days in class are ones where I find myself balancing the need to not put my minority students on the spot while being respectful of their position relative to the issue, the need to challenge my white students to recognize their structural privileges while not blaming them for everything ever done by white people in the past, and the need to be as balanced as possible myself, while recognizing that I carry my own racist baggage and that balance and neutrality are frequently at odds.I’m not surprised that people avoid the issue – and isn’t that the very essence of privilege, that white people can avoid it, if they want?Rana

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