White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son (34 page)
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Authors: Tim Wise
Tags: #History, #Politics, #Sociology, #Memoir, #Race
BOOK: White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son
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“Make
no
mistake,” she insisted, “We
do
hate you and we
don’t
trust you, not for one minute!”
no
mistake,” she insisted, “We
do
hate you and we
don’t
trust you, not for one minute!”
I thought the white woman in the front row was going to come unglued, as if her classmate’s comment had only confirmed her worst fears.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said to the black woman who had made the statement, “since after all, you don’t know me. But that’s fine, because I’m sure you haven’t got much reason to trust me, and anyway, ultimately I’m not doing this for you.”
The room was deathly silent at that point, no one knowing quite what to make of a proclamation such as that.
“I mean no disrespect,” I explained. “It’s just that I’m not fighting racism so as to save you from it. That would be paternalistic. It would be like saying that black folks aren’t capable of liberating yourselves from white supremacy. I think you are, though it might be easier with some internal resistance from whites. But regardless, I fight racism because racism is a sickness in
my
community, and it damages me.”
my
community, and it damages me.”
I explained to the young white woman that if she wanted to do this work for black people, then of course they wouldn’t trust her. White missionaries have rarely brought things of lasting value to peoples of color. If, on the other hand, she wanted to do it because it was the right thing to do, and because she no longer wanted to collaborate by way of her silence, then what the woman in the back thought of her sincerity shouldn’t matter. And if she really did the work and proved herself, black and brown folks—including the woman who had made her so nervous that day—would likely recognize her seriousness and work with her. Or not. Either way, why should it matter?
People of color don’t owe us gratitude when we speak out against racism. They don’t owe us a pat on the back. And if all they do is respond to our efforts with a terse “about time,” that’s fine. Challenging racism and white supremacy is what we
should
be doing. Resistance is what we need to do for
us
. Although people of color have often thanked me for the work I do, it’s a thanks that I am not owed, and whenever it’s offered I make sure to repay the compliment. Accountability demands it.
should
be doing. Resistance is what we need to do for
us
. Although people of color have often thanked me for the work I do, it’s a thanks that I am not owed, and whenever it’s offered I make sure to repay the compliment. Accountability demands it.
While much discussion had recently been about whether or not America should apologize for slavery—and I happen to think apologies are pretty empty absent substantive reparations and recompense—perhaps before we focus on apologies, we could simply say thank you to people of color for pointing the way when it comes to resistance. People of color owe us nothing, but we owe them at least that much, and a lot more. Being able to teach that to another white person, and on my first day out, suggested that perhaps there was something to this traveling educator thing after all. Perhaps the potential impact of such work was far greater than I’d imagined.
BY LATE 1995,
I was really starting to grow fond of the road. Though there was part of me that intuitively recognized the dangers of going down that path—it was eerily similar to what my father had done for all those years as a comic and actor—there was another part of me that thrived on it. And it wasn’t because I was speaking to overflowing auditoriums or reaping the standing ovations of adoring crowds, because in neither case was that true. Fact is, almost nobody knew who I was. I was only twenty-seven by the fall of that year, and hardly a common name within the antiracism community. Far from receiving rock star treatment, that first few months of the circuit had been more like some struggling band riding around in a grimy van than anything else, but I still loved it. Maybe it was because as an only child (and the child of an alcoholic), I had grown up having to be self-directed and find ways to engage my brain with no one else around. It was one of the reasons I never really proved to be very good working in organizational settings, no matter how much I loved the organizations for which I was working. My wiring, going all the way back to childhood, was set to solo mode. I liked being alone with my thoughts, having to represent no one’s views but my own; not to mention, I also loved getting to meet activists, especially young activists, all over the United States.
I was really starting to grow fond of the road. Though there was part of me that intuitively recognized the dangers of going down that path—it was eerily similar to what my father had done for all those years as a comic and actor—there was another part of me that thrived on it. And it wasn’t because I was speaking to overflowing auditoriums or reaping the standing ovations of adoring crowds, because in neither case was that true. Fact is, almost nobody knew who I was. I was only twenty-seven by the fall of that year, and hardly a common name within the antiracism community. Far from receiving rock star treatment, that first few months of the circuit had been more like some struggling band riding around in a grimy van than anything else, but I still loved it. Maybe it was because as an only child (and the child of an alcoholic), I had grown up having to be self-directed and find ways to engage my brain with no one else around. It was one of the reasons I never really proved to be very good working in organizational settings, no matter how much I loved the organizations for which I was working. My wiring, going all the way back to childhood, was set to solo mode. I liked being alone with my thoughts, having to represent no one’s views but my own; not to mention, I also loved getting to meet activists, especially young activists, all over the United States.
There would be high points that first year, like being picketed by anti-gay bigot Fred Phelps and his family during an event at Kansas University, and also several low points. Among the latter, my two favorites were speaking at the University of West Alabama to five people in the basement of the student center, two of whom were playing pool; and then speaking in Rennselear, Indiana at St. Joseph’s, and staying in a hotel room infested with flies, from which the only relief would be a fly swatter, handed to me by the clerk when I asked if there was any way I could change rooms. Glamorous it wasn’t, but it was what I felt I needed to be doing.
Of course this posed a bit of a dilemma. I was still at Agenda, and dearly loved the people there. But by early 1996, I knew I would need to make a choice. Though I wasn’t traveling much, even the little bit I was doing was becoming a problem for my job. This would be especially obvious after I went to New York to appear on a television show only to get stuck in the city for three extra days by the worst blizzard New York had seen in a century. Returning finally to New Orleans, it was pretty apparent that my work was suffering for my other commitments.
Additionally, I was coming to realize that as much as I loved the organizing work, I wasn’t actually that good at it. I never had been, though I’d hoped that I might grow into it over time. But feeling that the work was too important to be done halfway, or halfway well, I decided to move on. In fact, not only did I leave Agenda for Children in February, I decided to leave New Orleans altogether by summer. As much as I loved the city, it was time for a change. Being untethered to any particular organizational structure, I was free to go wherever I might feel like living. Since I wasn’t sure where I might want to live next, I decided to start by moving home to Nashville. Although my mom had moved from our old apartment, she was still there, living with my grandmother for the previous two years at that point, and my best friend Albert and his wife Dana were too. If one had to start anew, what better place than from home? As the middle of August rolled around—and as the life-deadening heat that came with it rolled in too—it was easy to walk away from New Orleans. So I did.
BEFORE GETTING HOME,
however, there would be one more lesson about white privilege to learn. But first, a little backstory.
however, there would be one more lesson about white privilege to learn. But first, a little backstory.
Each morning, until shortly after 9:00, it was common for those of us at Agenda for Children to have the office television on, just to stay up on the day’s early events. But on April 19, 1995, before we would have a chance to turn off the set, breaking news came over the networks, followed by some of the most shocking footage any of us had seen up to that point, or would ever see, at least until a little more than six years later.
As we stood slack-jawed before the small screen, video from Oklahoma City was coming in, where the Murrah Federal Building had just had its front end blown off by a five-thousand-pound bomb that had been planted in a truck outside. Speculation immediately focused on one or another “Muslim terrorist.” Perhaps it was Saddam Hussein, some said, or Hezbollah, said others. Within hours, mosques around Oklahoma City would be raided in hopes of finding evidence to implicate those whom most assumed were responsible.
Of course the perpetrators would be none of those. As we would learn within the next two days, the terrorists were white men named Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who had no compunction about killing innocent people (including children in the building’s day care center) just to make some twisted political point. Ultimately, 168 would die and hundreds more would be injured thanks to the fulfillment of Tim McVeigh’s bloodlust, fueled by right-wing anti-government hysteria and his admiration for racist fantasy novels like
The Turner Diaries
, parts of which were found in his car and the details of which he copied almost perfectly in the Oklahoma City bombing. That the Army had trained this lunatic to kill (and to view enemies as utterly expendable) only added pathetic and maddening context to a crime that was already bad enough.
The Turner Diaries
, parts of which were found in his car and the details of which he copied almost perfectly in the Oklahoma City bombing. That the Army had trained this lunatic to kill (and to view enemies as utterly expendable) only added pathetic and maddening context to a crime that was already bad enough.
Fast forward now to August 1996. McVeigh is awaiting trial, and I’m moving home to Nashville. To make that move, in spite of the fact that Nicol had virtually cleaned me out eighteen months earlier, I had by then accumulated enough stuff to require the renting of a truck to complete the task. The closest moving truck company to my home happened to be a Ryder Truck franchise (the same company that had been used by McVeigh), so when I was ready to load boxes and furniture, I headed down to the Ryder location and asked for a truck. It would be the same size and model as the one Tim McVeigh had used to bring down the Murrah building.
I walked in, put my license and credit card on the counter, and within fifteen minutes was headed to my house to load up. I am white. I am male. I have short hair. At the time I was clean shaven. My name is Tim. All of which is to say that I fit the profile of the nation’s deadliest terrorist five different ways. Yet no one at Ryder thought to ask for an additional security deposit, just in case I decided to fill their truck with explosives and take out a city block. No one looked at me funny, ran a background check, or said anything at all, other than, “Mr. Wise, will you be needing a map?” That was it. They could tell the difference, or thought they could, between
that
Timothy and
this
Timothy.
that
Timothy and
this
Timothy.
That’s what it means to be white: the murderous actions of one white person do not cause every other white person to be viewed in the same light, just as the incompetence or criminality of a white person in a corporation (or on Wall Street, most recently) does not result in other whites being viewed with suspicion as probable incompetents or crooks. Whites can take it for granted that we’ll likely be viewed as individuals, representing nothing greater than our solitary selves. Would that persons of color could say the same, even before September 11, 2001, let alone after.
HOME AND AWAY
AS MUCH AS
I loved New Orleans, Nashville was a welcome sight that evening of August 15, 1996, when I pulled up to the home of my mom and grandmother, just outside the city. As we would learn later, it was an interesting night to have been getting into town. At roughly the same time as I had turned from Old Hickory Boulevard onto Hillsboro Road so as to head the final four miles or so to the house in Franklin, a local attorney by the name of Perry March had been disposing of the body of his wife, Janet, at a construction site only two miles from that same intersection. He had killed her earlier that evening, and although he would later dig up her bones and re-bury them with the help of his father in a culvert off the side of the interstate in Kentucky, no one could have known any of this at the time. Odd that I had left the murder capital of the nation only to enter a place where there might not be as many murders, numerically, but where the ones that happened were of a particularly salacious and high-profile nature.
I loved New Orleans, Nashville was a welcome sight that evening of August 15, 1996, when I pulled up to the home of my mom and grandmother, just outside the city. As we would learn later, it was an interesting night to have been getting into town. At roughly the same time as I had turned from Old Hickory Boulevard onto Hillsboro Road so as to head the final four miles or so to the house in Franklin, a local attorney by the name of Perry March had been disposing of the body of his wife, Janet, at a construction site only two miles from that same intersection. He had killed her earlier that evening, and although he would later dig up her bones and re-bury them with the help of his father in a culvert off the side of the interstate in Kentucky, no one could have known any of this at the time. Odd that I had left the murder capital of the nation only to enter a place where there might not be as many murders, numerically, but where the ones that happened were of a particularly salacious and high-profile nature.
The evening didn’t start out well. I backed the Ryder truck into the basketball goal on which I had played since I was a kid, and my grandmother wasn’t the least bit happy that I had Bijoux with me. As a matter of fact, the
day
hadn’t started out well. I had been meaning to leave town quite a bit earlier, even before the sun had come up, with the goal of getting to Nashville by mid-afternoon; however, upon packing up and placing the keys on the driver’s seat while I went to make sure the back door to the truck was closed tightly, I watched as Bijoux, already riding shotgun and ready to go, bounded over to the driver’s side window, jumped up to greet me as I approached the door, and managed, with a precision unheard of in the history of his breed, to bring his paws down upon the lock. I ran around to the passenger’s side door, hoping to get in that way, only to watch him follow me, excited and thinking that we were playing some kind of game, and do it again to the lock on
that
door. Though I could probably have gotten into the Ryder with a coat hanger (unlike the Tercel, which I was leaving in the street to be towed), the sad fact was that I didn’t have any coat hangers. As I cleaned out the house, I had thrown them all away and they had been hauled off the day before I left by the garbage collectors. It was too early to wake my neighbors to ask for one, and the Ryder facility wouldn’t be open for several more hours. I would have to wait, and so would Bijoux.
day
hadn’t started out well. I had been meaning to leave town quite a bit earlier, even before the sun had come up, with the goal of getting to Nashville by mid-afternoon; however, upon packing up and placing the keys on the driver’s seat while I went to make sure the back door to the truck was closed tightly, I watched as Bijoux, already riding shotgun and ready to go, bounded over to the driver’s side window, jumped up to greet me as I approached the door, and managed, with a precision unheard of in the history of his breed, to bring his paws down upon the lock. I ran around to the passenger’s side door, hoping to get in that way, only to watch him follow me, excited and thinking that we were playing some kind of game, and do it again to the lock on
that
door. Though I could probably have gotten into the Ryder with a coat hanger (unlike the Tercel, which I was leaving in the street to be towed), the sad fact was that I didn’t have any coat hangers. As I cleaned out the house, I had thrown them all away and they had been hauled off the day before I left by the garbage collectors. It was too early to wake my neighbors to ask for one, and the Ryder facility wouldn’t be open for several more hours. I would have to wait, and so would Bijoux.
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