White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son (48 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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But, I noted, one of the things that might help in the future would be to teach about King and the issue of racism and discrimination through a lens of resistance and allyship, rather than a lens of oppression and victimization. Imagine, I explained, how different it might sound to a student of color to hear about the oppression meted out to members of his or her group, but beginning with a narrative of rebellion and resistance: in other words, discussing slave rebellion at the outset of a discussion on slavery, discussing the sit-in movement and freedom rides well before discussing the murder of King or other civil rights martyrs. Likewise, imagine how different it would feel to a white student in the class if the lesson spent time on white allies who stood in solidarity with people of color and opposed racism, rather than merely mentioning the white folks who clubbed protesters, shot civil rights leaders, or blocked schoolhouse doors.
By beginning with resistance and allyship, both the students of color and the white students get a message that they have choices to make. The students of color do not have to be passive recipients of other people’s mistreatment; they are not inevitable victims to whom things are simply done and who have no agency to exercise in the matter. And the white students are more likely to see that they needn’t be either active oppressors of others or passive observers, standing on the sidelines while people of color have to go it alone; they too have agency to exercise, and they can exercise it in an anti-oppressive way. By focusing on resistance and allyship, both the fear and the guilt that comes with the victimization and oppression lens can be largely avoided. So too with discussions about sexism, heterosexism, classism, or any other form of oppression.
I knew as I described this method to the teacher that it could work. I’d seen it in children as young as five, in fact. Back when Ashton had been in pre-school, her teachers had asked me to come in and discuss racism with the class. Honestly, I was petrified. The night before the event I had been speaking at the University of North Carolina, and as with all of my presentations to “big” people, I had no hesitation, no fears, no trepidation whatsoever. With my own kids, I didn’t worry too much either, because I knew that even if I screwed up, or tried to teach a lesson that flopped, I’d have plenty more chances to get it right. But with other folks’ kids—especially kids in my own daughter’s class—I was utterly terrified. I stayed up all night, caught the early flight home, and went to the pre-school bright and early.
As it turned out, there had been no reason to worry. Although Ashton didn’t say much—she was so excited and proud that I had come to speak to her class that she just sorta sat there smiling—the other kids were amazingly engaged. I spent just a few minutes talking about why it’s so important to speak out against discrimination and racism, and then asked them, point blank, what they would do if they saw someone being mistreated because of the color of their skin. Hands shot up in the air immediately, as the children all but fell over one another to get a chance to answer. Their answers, though basic of course (they were only five, after all), nonetheless betrayed a seriousness of commitment. I had no idea if they would likely maintain that commitment over time, but it was clear to me in that moment that if the spirit of resistance is nurtured and cultivated, children can become teens who become adults who become and remain allies in the struggle against injustice. Their sense of fair play at that age and their almost instinctive resistance to unjust treatment of anyone makes allyship and solidarity natural and normative behaviors. But unless we are encouraging them to think about injustice, and empowering them to speak out and do something about it, that natural tendency for resistance can become muted over time, to the detriment of us all.
REDEMPTION
 
“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.”
—JAMES BALDWIN, THE FIRE NEXT TIME, 1963
 
 
 
AS I WAS
writing this book the first time, I stopped to read a few of the stories to Kristy, some of which she had heard me speak of before, but several of which she had not. Once I finished reading a few of the more disturbing vignettes to her, it was apparent that she was upset. “Sometimes it seems so big, so awful,” she lamented. “It makes me wonder if things are ever going to really change.”
Though I’m sure some might be alarmed by such a thought—the notion that perhaps racism isn’t ever going to be finally vanquished—I must say that as horrible as such a truth may be, if indeed it’s true, it doesn’t make me feel the least bit defeated. The fact is, I would have liked to be able to tell her not to worry, to remind her that good people have done great things and have changed the world before, that committed movements of committed people can shift mountains, and that the evidence for this kind of transformation was all around us. But I didn’t say that, not because it wasn’t true, but because it wasn’t the point.
Several years back, when legal scholar Derrick Bell wrote
Faces at the Bottom of the Well
, in which he suggested that racism may be a permanent feature of American life, never to be fully and finally undone, I remember the uproar it caused in many a white liberal circle, and among white liberal students who were often assigned to read it in class. White liberals, and radicals for that matter, place a huge amount of faith in the inevitability of justice being done, of right winning in the end, of the triumph of all that is good and true. And they take even the smallest victories—which are sometimes what we have to settle for—as evidence that in just a few more years, and with a little more work, we’ll arrive at that place of peace and goodwill. Bell was challenging that faith, at least as it applied to race, and white folks didn’t like what they were hearing.
When you’re a member of the privileged group, you don’t take kindly to someone telling you that you can’t do something, whether that something is making a lot of money or ending racism. What do you mean racism is permanent? What do you mean we’ll never have justice? How dare anyone imply that there might be some problems too large for the determined will, or perhaps I should say the determined
white
will, since clearly the determined wills of black and brown folks haven’t been sufficient.
But Bell’s assessment, at least for me, was a liberating tract—no cause for pessimism but rather cause for recommitment to the purpose and mission at hand. This may seem counterintuitive, since for some, committing to fighting a battle you may never win seems futile. But fighting that battle is what people of color have always done and will continue to do, no matter the outcome. Is it appropriate then for me to say that if the fight wouldn’t end in victory there was no purpose? What would that kind of attitude say to black and brown folks who have always fought injustice as if ending it were possible, but who always knew they might well never see change come about?
What whites have rarely had to think about—because as the dominant group we are so used to having our will be done, with a little effort at least—is that maybe the point is not victory, however much we all wish to see justice attained and injustice routed. Maybe our redemption comes from the struggle itself. Maybe it is in the effort, the striving for equality and freedom, that we become human.
Kristy’s pessimism—which was nothing if not understandable, given the magnitude of the challenge—took me back to a letter I had received many years ago from Archbishop Tutu, during the divestment battle at Tulane. It was almost as if he were reading our minds, or at least mine, knowing that I was doubting the relevance of our efforts. After all, it wasn’t looking as though we were going to be able to force the board to capitulate to our ultimate demand, and even if we (and every other college) did obtain divestment, would things really change in South Africa as a result?
His letter was brief, but in its brevity offered an obvious yet profound rationale for the work of any freedom fighter: “You do not do the things you do because others will necessarily join you in the doing of them,” he explained, “nor because they will ultimately prove successful. You do the things you do because the things you are doing are right.”
There’s much to be said for such simplicity, as it’s usually a lack of complication that allows people to feel, to remain in touch with their humanity—a humanity that can sometimes be distorted by too many layers of analysis and theory. There is redemption in struggle.
If you ask those who believe in God—any God, any creative force from which we come and to whom (or to which) they think we are accountable—whether they can prove the existence of that God, they will likely say no. Most will tell you that such matters are matters of faith, and that they live their lives, or try to, on the basis of that faith. Believers do this, even though they could be wrong. Although I’m agnostic on matters of God, I’ve always found that aspect of faith somewhat beautiful. And frankly, we all take something on faith: whether the existence of a higher power or the possibility of justice, because none of us have seen either of those things before. All I am suggesting here is that we should live our lives as if justice were possible too, but whether or not it is, treat it no differently than one treats one’s perceived obligations before God. Indeed, if there were such a being, such a force, surely struggling to do justice would be one of those obligations, would it not? And surely one wouldn’t be relieved from this obligation merely because justice was not finally obtainable.
Let’s be honest: there is no such place called “justice,” if by that we envision a finish line, or a point at which the battle is won and the need to continue the struggle is over. After all, even when you succeed in obtaining a measure of justice, you’re always forced to mobilize to defend that which you’ve won. There is no looming vacation. But there is redemption in struggle.
Of course, that there is redemption in struggle, and that victory is only one reason for fighting, only seems to come as a surprise, or rather, as a source of discomfort to white folks. Invariably, it seems it is we in the white community who obsess over our own efficacy and fail to recognize the value of commitment, irrespective of outcome. People of color, on the other hand, never having been burdened with the illusion that anything they touched would turn to gold, usually take a more reserved, and I would say healthier view of the world and the prospects for change. They know (as they must) that the thing being fought for, at least if it’s worth having, will require more than a part-time effort, and will not likely come in the lifetimes of those presently fighting for it. And it is that knowledge that allows a strength and a resolve that few members of the dominant majority will ever know.
This is not to sentimentalize suffering or the strength often born from it. In fact, this last statement should be taken less as a comment about the strength of persons of color than as an observation about the weakness of those without it. For it is true, at least in my experience, that whites, having been largely convinced of our ability, indeed entitlement, to affect the world around us and mold it to our liking, are very much like children when we discover that at least for some things—like fundamentally altering the system of privilege and domination that first vested us with such optimism—it will take more than good intentions, determined will, and that old stand-by to which we euphemistically refer as “elbow grease.”
Regardless, there is something to be said for confronting the inevitable choice one must make in this life between collaborating with or resisting injustice, and choosing the latter. Indeed, it is among the most important choices we will ever be asked to make as humans, and it is a burden uniquely ours.
I have no idea when (or if) racism will be eradicated. I have no idea whether anything I say, do, or write will make the least bit of difference in the world. But I say it, do it, and write it anyway, because as uncertain as the outcome of our resistance may be, the outcome of our silence and inaction is anything but. We know exactly what will happen if we don’t do the work: nothing. And given that choice, between certainty and promise, in which territory one finds the measure of our resolve and humanity, I will opt for hope. Letting go of the obsession with outcome, even while one fervently fights for victory, can in the end only make us more effective and stronger in our resistance—healthier even. After all, if one is constantly looking for the payoff, but the payoff is slow in coming (as is pretty much always the case), burnout is never too far around the corner. But if we are committed to the struggle because we know that our very humanity depends on it, that the fight for human liberation is among the things that give life meaning, then burnout is far less of a threat. We do the work to save our lives morally and ethically, if not physically.
Many years ago, the first time I spoke at the University of Oregon, I gave a workshop in the Ben Linder room of the student center—a room named for a man who, in April 1987, in Nicaragua, was murdered by contra forces armed and trained by my government and his, killed for the crime of helping bring running water to rural villagers. And as I sat there, inspired by a painting of the village where Ben died, and the tribute to his work that greets visitors to this room, I reflected on how I’d felt as a college freshman upon hearing of his assassination. I remembered why both he and the revolution of which he was a part ultimately had to be crushed. They both posed, as we used to say, the threat of a good example. That’s when I realized that Ben Linder’s life and death sum up, as well as anything I could say, why I do what I do, and what I have come to believe is required of us. And what is required is that we be prepared to die for our principles if need be, but even more so, to be unafraid to live for them.

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