White Defensiveness

In my last entry, I talked a little bit about how many people who belong to the privileged class (in this case white people) can get defensive or even outright aggressive when the subject turns to racism and privilege. What I'd like to do is look at and refute some of these reactions that I've encountered. These are all based on my experiences; if you've got any experiences you'd like to share, please do! And with that, here we go.


"How can you say all white people are privileged? Aren't there poor white people? Aren't there rich minorities?"
This is one I've heard a good few times, and really underlines the difficulties with using the term privilege. For a lot of people, when they hear privilege, they immediately think of it in terms of class, and in that case it's difficult to accept the suggestion that white people are privileged when there's no shortage of white people who are lower class or impoverished. However, comparing a wealthy person of color to a working class white person isn't really a fair comparison when looking at the issue of racial privilege. An easy way to think of it is like this: imagine a working class white person and a working class person of color. They both will have issues that they need to deal with that arise from their class. However, the person of color must deal with other issues that arise from their race, such as reduced job opportunities or differential treatment by law enforcement as some examples. Racial privilege refers to the fact that the white person does not have to deal with these, or that if they do they can be reasonably sure that their race was not a factor.


"Why are we paying so much attention to race? If we just let all this be, it would resolve itself. We're only making it worse by bringing race up all the time."


It should be pretty obvious what's wrong with this viewpoint. Ignoring problems, especially racism, does not make them go away. At best things stay the same, but what's more likely is that things manage to get even worse because this attitude breeds a sense of complacency and "it can't happen here!" regarding all but the most blatant examples of racism.


This kind of viewpoint really demonstrates privileged thinking; a white person can say "oh let's just ignore all this talk about race and be colorblind" because if they do, they are not harmed by it. In North American society, there is no ingrained instiutional racism towards white people that needs to be addressed. They can suggest that race should not ever be brought into the discussion because they are not the ones who directly suffer from institutional racism's continuation.


Anything that uses the phrase "white guilt" or anything along the lines of "Sorry for being white!"
Now here's one I'm sure we've all heard before, and around this point we're getting out of the territory of uninformed and into the territory of casually racist jerkwad. Here the implication is that the goal of anti-racism is to make white people feel bad for no other reason than being born white, and so this gem gets whipped out as a shaming technique. When used against a white anti-racist, it implies that they are somehow ashamed of their own background or a race traitor of sorts who wants to score brownie points with people of color by feeling bad. When used against a person of color, it's an effect similar to the one I talked about with the attempt to make the term "racist" into a slur. It attempts to paint the person of color as an aggressor, and as the true racist.
Here's the thing though. I couldn't care less if white people felt guilty or not. If they do, that's their perogative, but it doesn't accomplish anything. What I want is not to have my experiences with racism denied or written off as oversensitivity. What I want is an acknowledgment of the effects of institutional racism, and for people to speak out against it. What I want is to not be expected to bite my tongue when people start spouting out casual racist bullshit about how my race are a bunch of lazy alcoholics who have the government as their personal genie, and not to be told "I'm one of the good ones" as if I should feel so fucking honored that a white person considers me acceptable and as if it makes the rest of what they said not racist. If you view that as me just wanting to make you feel bad as a white person, then that says a lot more about you than me. As anti-racists, we're not telling you this stuff to be jerks, but because it's a serious issue that should matter to you; don't take it personally.

"But I have a (insert race here) friend who's okay with me saying stuff like that!"
Let me clarify this one for a moment. I'm not referring to the case where someone tries to act like they have a free pass to say racist things because they know people of color (and I'm willing to bet that half the time it's not even true.) We all know that's a load of crap, and why it's a load of crap. What I'm referring to are the people who get caught saying racially insensitive things or making racist jokes and try to explain it away by saying that they have a friend of that race who they can say that around without them getting offended. Listen, everyone has their own boundaries regarding that sort of thing. Yes, some people of color have friends where they will exchange barbs about race as just part of the whole friends ripping on each other deal.

However, just because it's cool within your circle of friends, where you know each other well and have a certain level of comfort around each other, that doesn't mean it's cool outside your circle of friends. For example, just because your black friend is cool with you, his white best buddy making the occasional racist joke, that doesn't mean that another black person who isn't your friend will be or that your black friend will be cool if a white person who isn't your friend says those kinds of things. Even then, don't write off the possibility that they're tolerating it for the sake of keeping the peace; I've been there before, and it's a shitty situation. But even assuming that's the case, think of it this way: You wouldn't think it's okay to talk to a stranger the same way you would when you're playfully trash talking your friends when it comes to non-racialized insults, so you sure as hell shouldn't think it's okay when it comes to racialized trash talk.
"You just can't handle different opinions!"
There's few ways of handwaving racism that piss me off as much as this one. "Being racist is just an opinion! What kind of uptight jerkwad do you have to be to have a problem with differing opinions?"

I'm gonna spell this out real clear. Having a racist opinion is not on the same level as "oh you like chocolate ice cream but I like vanilla, oh well, live and let live" regardless of whatever attempt to trivialize it as such and it takes a lot of privilege to even try it. Having a racist opinion means thinking less of someone and doing harm to them because they aren't the right color. It is not an opinion worthy of respect, and people who hold those opinions are not worthy of respect either. Which leads into...
"So much for tolerance - you're intolerant of my bigotry!"
When you're dealing with someone who pulls this gem out, there's no more doubt that maybe you're just dealing with someone who's ignorant; they're a full blown racist regardless of whatever denials they try to put forth. This is an attempt to paint themselves, the bigot, as the victim in all this. Why, for all your talk of tolerance, you're being prejudiced towards them! The poor little racist who never did any harm to anybody!

My response to this? Guilty as charged. I am intolerant of intolerance, and I think to not be is an act of cowardice. When you willfully throw yourself in to bigotry and racial hatred, you are supporting the harm and dehumanization of people of color. The proper response to people like this is to call them out and oppose them whenever they want to spew their crap. Expose them for what they are to mutual friends, employers, and social groups, and to ostracize them. If we don't want racism to be acceptable, we all need to treat it as unacceptable.