I am not a stranger to my privilege. For the longest time, I struggled with white guilt. I hated myself because I did not look like my friends, my parents were not like my friends’ parents, my family did not have to struggle like my friends and their families. I hated myself because the people who looked like me hated my friends. The majority of my extended family talked down about the people who were just like my friends, my step-siblings, my adopted siblings, etc... The overwhelming majority of the people who look like me openly support a man who threatens every single piece of my life. When we discussed liberal ideologies in class, I really identified with the excerpt that said that the liberal cannot be content with what they have when what they have means that someone else isn’t getting it as well.
In the $2.00 A Day book, the authors said that a white person could send out three applications for a call back, but a black person has to send out six or more resumes in order to receive a call back. We read that part of the book a few weeks ago, but it is still echoing in my mind. One time, I applied for three jobs and was interviewed for two of them, and then I had to decide which one to accept and which one to turn down, and that was just in high school. More recently, I went for an interview to be a tutor at a school, and walked out with an additional position as an Activities Specialist for a Boys and Girls Club after-school program. In class, we discussed that affirmative action in university admissions existed for only a short time, and as soon as one white dude sued because he didn’t get admitted, affirmative action ended (in 1978’s Regents of the University of California v. Bakke 438 U.S. 265 and 1996’s Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932). As soon as Affirmative Action ended, there was a decrease in the rate of black college attendance and a decline in the growth of African-Americans entering higher-paying professions. Affirmative Action evened the playing field (Cross & Slater, 1999). If the difference between a black student having a teacher who looks like me is affirmative action, then so be it. Similarly, the book $2 a Day also drew attention to the different scale of problems for white and black men with a felony on their record. White men with a felony are more likely to receive a job than black men without a felony. Black Americans make 12-13% of the U.S. population, yet there are slightly more black people in prison and jails than their white counterparts. The school to prison pipeline is brought up many times in class because the education system is not equal, and unfortunately, diverse schools tend to be poorer.
A comment that I made one day in class after watching the movie “I, Daniel Blake” is “What do people get out of being assholes?” It is because of the illusion of power that someone might have. It makes me think of the book Why Are They Angry At Us? from last semester when Larry E. Davis said that white people continue to treat blacks horribly because they are afraid that the blacks will get into power and treat them how they treated the blacks for so long. The idea that people have to rationalize and justify their racism to keep a socially constructed pedestal is just sickening to me.
It is scientifically proven that racism and discrimination exist, but people dismiss it so easily because they don’t want to acknowledge it. In addition to the study mentioned before, there have been other studies where actors of different races go to buy a car or house; every time, the people of color were given a higher price than their white counterparts, and in some of the older studies, the people of color were even turned away. Going back even further to the Clark Doll Experiments (run by Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s), which I talk about a lot, this study showed the negative effects of segregation and pervasive racism. This phenomenon, empirically recorded in the 1940s, is still happening today. My seven-year-old sister has said many times that she wishes to be white and prefers to play with light skinned dolls. I try to combat this by saying things like “I want you to braid my hair like yours” when she plays with my hair and “Where’s your barbie with pink hair? I want to play with her” referring to a black barbie with a pink afro. We are now in 2020.
If reparations were successfully implemented during the Reconstruction Era instead of the creation of Jim Crow laws and the likes of that, then I really believe that this country would not be in the state that it is. We would’ve had a better infrastructure to work with. My AP US History high school teacher said that many people who fall into the category of racist and conservative argue that people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but black Americans never had any bootstraps to do so, and I would say that many still don’t. If true equality was given during the Reconstruction Era, then maybe white people wouldn’t be so set on enforcing policies that don’t give parents enough time off of work when their child are born, don’t help parents pay for high quality daycare while they go to work, don’t give schools the same resources to work with, etc... I don’t know why people talk about the American dream because as long as the country has been founded, it has worked to drive people apart.
I don’t struggle with my identity as much as I used to. I like to say that “I am nothing, and I am everything.” I have grown up around so many different types of people, who aren’t just “black” or aren’t just “gay” or aren’t just “latino.” So I am more than just “white.” I try to help people realize their privilege, starting with my family. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I know that at the end of the day, I will be an ally, not an asshole.
Reference:
Cross, T., & Slater, R. (1999). Only the Onset of Affirmative Action Explains the Explosive Growth in Black Enrollments in Higher Education. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, (23), 110-115. doi:10.2307/2999332
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