Laying Down the Privilege of Denial

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”  --Martin Luther King, Jr.  All I can say is, “Dear God, may it be so.”  Lately, I doubt that this is true.  After the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, my doubts overcame my hope.  People say that systemic racism will never change until white people become angry.  My friends, I was angry--angry, frustrated, and impotent to make any positive change.

In my frustration, I wrote these words, “How can I help?  I am stricken by these events.  I am listening and begging for answers, because I don’t understand how to help the problem.  I grew up in a predominantly white area, I live in a predominantly white neighborhood, worship in a predominantly white church, and work in a school with a predominantly white staff.  Of course, I believe I'm not a racist, but I benefit from my pale skin and blue eyes, from my middle-class upbringing, from a society built upon the backs of slaves and oppressed minorities.  I bear the guilt by virtue of my lucky birth.  When I interact with the police and other law enforcement, I meet respect and helpfulness, not suspicion and fear.  My children will not be called “thug” or “ho” based on the color of their skin.  My male children will not have to learn how to submit to the police in order to stay alive.  As a white person in a white-dominated culture, I cannot truly understand the struggle of minorities.  I cannot get out of my own skin to experience it.  How does a privileged white person address the racism that is pervasive and corrosive in our culture?  How am I complicit?  How can I help?” l http://lindaloumiz.blogspot.com/2015/06/love-thy-enemies-reaction-to-charleston.html

Last November my church, St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, hosted a 2.5 day training in analyzing systemic racism through Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training. http://crossroadsantiracism.org/  The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago hosts these trainings twice a year for clergy and laypersons.  I attended the training to try to gain some knowledge, and through the knowledge, to gain some power to help.  I knew it would be difficult, disappointing, and heart-wrenching to contemplate my white privilege in the face of hundreds of years of oppression of my fellow human beings.  I knew it would bring up my own biases.  I didn’t know it would be so healing and empowering.  

One of the phrases our trainers used to set the tone for the workshop was “We are called and carried here”.  Called and Carried--I love that phrase.  I was called into this work through injustice and hatred, through my ignorance, frustration, and impotence.  I was called by the lessons in social justice learned from my family, my teachers, my ministers and priests, and my friends.  I was called by the long arc of resistance to oppression, by seekers of justice, and by those who face hatred with love.  Something called to me that there must be a better way, there must be someone else fighting this fight, there must be hope.  So, I answered the call.  I began reading and talking with people, and I found out about some trainings and programs.  I met some people who honestly believe they can dismantle systemic racism--what an amazing idea!  I reached out to friends who might want to join the fight.

Called and Carried:  called into the fight by those before me and carried forward by those with me.  During the process of organizing this training, we ran into some major obstacles.   I spoke with one of the trainers, Derrick.  As I explained the roadblocks and my inability to overcome them, I vented my frustration and anger.  “This is something that should happen. This is something that I need to MAKE happen.  Why isn’t it working the way it SHOULD?”  I am used to accomplishing my goals and I expected this event to fall into lines with my plans.   Derrick’s answer was, “Linda, we are talking about dismantling racism here.  It’s not going to happen in the next three months.  These things take time.”

These things take time, years, decades, generations, but there is no time to waste.  Before the training, I thought I had a concept of white privilege, but now the scales have truly fallen from my eyes.  My husband says I see everything as a matter of race now--he’s right.  That’s because so many people do NOT see things as a matter of race.  White America has the unique distinction of oppressing classes of people with almost complete deniability.  There is always another explanation for racial discrimination, “It’s really a matter of income disparity.”  “The problem here is lack of respect for authority.”  There is always a defense, “I don’t ‘see color’.”  “I have many black friends.”  There is always a way for white people to remain blameless while we are complicit in a system of oppression that has spanned 400 years of slavery, genocide, abuse, and marginalization of people of color.  The greatest white privilege is the privilege to deny it all.  That is the privilege I freely shed now.

I cannot wake up tomorrow and become a person of color in order to understand the struggle of existing in a racially biased world.  I am not going to move my family to an impoverished neighborhood to experience the lack of safety people live with there.  I am a product of a flawed system, who has benefitted from pale skin and blue eyes, a nuclear family that valued education, an excellent public education system, fair student loan rates, and accessible employment.  Yes, I have worked hard to get where I am today; I have sacrificed, made responsible choices, and lived within my means.  So have millions of other people, and not many of them have the advantages in life that I have, as a regular middle-class school teacher and married mother.  Many, many people work hard, my friends; it is time to admit that hard work does not always pay off.  It is time to admit that the deck is stacked, the dice are loaded, the game is rigged.  It is time to put down the rose-colored glasses of denial and pick up the lens of clarity.

Today, I am ready to join the fight, and the first battle is within my own perception.  I am ready to see racism and the pain it causes.  I am ready to see white privilege and the disparity it causes.  I am ready to stop denying and begin changing it.