Privilege and Interracial Adoption by Anne Sibley O'Brien

Our daughter Yunhee was adopted from Korea as an infant, joining a white American mother, father and older brother, who was born into our family. (One of our oft repeated family jokes is the story of her middle school classmate who asked me, "Does Yunhee know she's adopted?")

Race was an often daily topic in our family. I'd had fifteen years of anti-racism education by the time Yunhee came home, not to mention growing up in Korea as a highly visible person of racial difference, so I was certainly comfortable addressing the topic. But I remember on so many occasions, when Yunhee expressed intense emotion about the subject (often as the result of a comment by a classmate), and even as I might be giving her my full, sympathetic attention, I was aware of a little voice in my head asking, "Can it really be that bad?"

Of course, as Yunhee's mother, I had many tangled emotions and longings as I witnessed her distress. I didn't want my child to hurt - ever, for any reason. I wanted her to learn appropriate social customs, which include containing and channeling the expression of emotion in consideration of others. But that little voice was a result of my own conditioning as a white American: racially, I have had it easy.

Without my having done anything but be born with this color of skin, I have automatically (and usually unconsciously) been granted a measure of status, advantage and influence. I have grown up surrounded by social structures, media, interactions and institutions which reinforce the centrality of my racial identity, so much so that I don't even notice them. I have never endured a steady barrage of negation about my race. In general, the experience of being white in the U.S. is comfortable, unchallenged, affirmed and taken for granted. It's no wonder that I don't notice it, and no wonder if I can't imagine what it would be like to be a person of color in this society.

Privilege plays out in many concrete ways, some explored here, but it's also pervasive as a state of mind. This diminishing of the experiences of people of color, as expressed by them, is one of its more insidious aspects. There are so many versions of this avoidance:

"Why are you playing the race card?"

"I understand your concerns, but I have a hard time hearing you when you're so angry."

"I know there are some problems, but we elected Barack Obama!"

In other words, "Please reframe that so that I can stay comfortable."

***

Because it can be really tricky trying to see my own invisible patterns, I find it useful to borrow some awareness from other aspects of my life. I can get a clue about privilege in thinking of my experience as a self-employed artist.

I'm often made aware of the fact that people with salaried positions, benefits and health insurance don't seem to be able to imagine what it's like to live without these. (I'm fortunate to currently have health insurance through my husband's job, but have gone for years without it when we were both self-employed.) I notice that salaried people frequently make requests for unremunerated services or time that show that they're completely unaware of what it's like not to have a steady income. For instance, teachers' conferences expect presenters to pay for the privilege of attending, assuming, I guess, the support of a school district to cover registration and travel. Most writers and illustrators don't have the extra resources for this, unless they have other jobs as well. The feeling I often have is that salaried people can't even imagine what the questions are that those of us who are self-employed have to ask all the time.

(This is not to suggest that self-employed people are the targets of anything, but merely to point out an example of privilege in the oblivion of people who are salaried about the lives of people who are not.)

***

Once I've identified that part of my avoidance around race, particularly my discomfort in listening to people of color express their feelings about being mistreated, is a privilege I no longer want to participate in, I've made a start.

The next part is a human one. Open my heart, and let it break.

And keep listening.

Anne Sibley O'Brien is a writer and illustrator who writes about race, culture and children's books at "Coloring Between the Lines." Contact her at asob45@aol.com

10 Ways to be an Ally

As I have gotten deeper into anti-oppression work I find that I discover more and more subtleties and complexities than I ever considered. Learning to be a good ally is not a linear education with some sort of graduation or certification at the end. It is a process full of experimentation, humility, confusion, challenge, and clarity. This list is by no means complete. It’s really just a few suggestions on how to turn your mind towards solidarity.

1. Consider your position and how it benefits you to be in that position As a white person, a heterosexual person, a person with money, a man, etc. one has certain privileges that are not afforded to others. Many of these privileges are unearned, meaning they are afforded to the person, simply because they are white, a man, a heterosexual. The idea of privilege is also bigger than just making a list of these unearned benefits. It is important to understand how these benefits affect your daily life, your career, your education, and your relationships with authority (landlords, police, bosses, teachers, etc.) among other things. The idea is not necessarily to make a hierarchy of oppression but rather consider how all our identities intersect. For example, if someone is poor but is also white they may not have class privilege, but as a white person, it is likely that they’ll have an easier time being poor than a person of color with the same income level. For more on white privilege specifically check out Peggy McIntosh’s article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf)

2. Do a personal inventory It is helpful to understand how particular issues like racism, sexism, etc. have played out in your own life. One way to do this is to write about all the times that you can remember when some form of oppression affected your life. This could mean that you were the recipient or the perpetrator of oppressive behaviors. It could also be things that you observed or events with which you were personally involved. It could be painful memories from school, work, family, etc. A personal inventory may also include a very honest evaluation of your feelings, thoughts, experiences with, and beliefs about people who are different than you. As a heterosexual, you may discover feelings of discomfort about gay or transgendered people. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It does mean that you have thoughts or feelings that could lead to perpetuating oppression.

3. Do your homework Sometimes people from a dominant culture have a very sincere interest in understanding people from other cultures, races, genders, or sexual orientations. One way to do so is to be in conversation with those other cultures. However, there is a big difference between a natural or intentional conversation about oppression and simply asking someone who has experienced oppression to teach you about it. Asking one person of another culture to be your teacher is disrespectful for a couple of reasons. First, experiences of oppression are utterly personal and often painful. When a white person asks a person of color to share their experiences it could trigger some painful memories.

Second, this creates a false understanding of entire cultures and people. When we ask one person to speak for an entire people, this is what is known as tokenism. Humans are so wonderfully diverse, even within subcultures. Latinos are not just Mexicans and what one African-American person thinks about an issue may be different than what another thinks. When we tokenize someone, we run the risk of reductionist essentialism, reducing a whole group of people into one fixed idea about who they are. Curiously, white people are rarely, if ever asked to represent the ideas and beliefs of their entire race.

Third, there are so many other ways to get a multicultural perspective. Many, many books, articles, and videos are out there to give someone an understanding of other cultures. In seeking these things out one should consider looking into the history of a culture and understanding what role your own culture played in their history. For example, how did policy decisions by able-bodied people affect alter-abled people? Consider the books your read and the movies you watch. Are the others, actors, producers usually from a dominant culture? When one is in conversation with someone who is talking about their experiences in oppression, the best, most supportive thing they can do is to just listen and learn. While some things may sound difficult to believe it is important to remember that this person knows their experience better than we do and that our privilege may have made such experiences unthinkable in our own lives. Receptive listening also ensures that the experiences of people who have been oppressed, as well as the people themselves do not become invisible. Listening can be an act of solidarity.

4. Consider the difference between guilt and action

Discovering that one has benefits that others do not simply because of circumstance can sometimes lead to feelings of guilt or shame. While it is certainly useful to have a sense of regret for conscious or unconscious ways that we have personally or communally perpetuated oppression, it doesn’t necessarily serve us to dwell in that regret. Oppressed people may not care if people in a dominant culture feel bad or guilty. However, they might very well care about how you act upon that guilt. If you want to make a difference, don’t be guilty, be active. Being active means interrupting oppressive comments or conversations but it also means active participation in the struggle.

5. Be clear on why you are involved in the struggle (against racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc)

If you do take action it is important to consider why. Sometimes people from the dominant culture get involved in a struggle in order to “help” or to take up a cause for other people, or to assuage their own feelings of guilt. Part of privilege is that one can choose to engage in the struggle or not. However, for oppressed peoples the choice is not as simple as being a part of a cause or not, it can be a matter of survival. Do we believe that oppression is a problem for the society as a whole or just a problem for it’s victims? While racism affects people of color in very detrimental ways, racism is a problem for white people because it is white people who need to act to change it. As well, it is good to consider how oppression benefits you and what you may get out of ending oppression, and what you may lose. If you’re involved simply to help, get a good internship, or take up a cause, you might be doing yourself and your community a disservice.

6. Consider the difference between charity and solidarity As you do get involved in ending oppression consider not only your intent, but also the effectiveness of your action. Charity is a form of help. Examples of charity include volunteerism (short-term, limited participation in a cause) and philanthropy (donating money to a cause). Consider Martin Luther Kings Jr.’s admonishment: “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

Solidarity is a different sense of involvement. It is a long-term participation in the struggle, understanding the part you play and how the issues affect you personally. As well, solidarity may very well mean not being the center of the solution, but just a small part. It may mean deferring your sense of authority and leadership. It can also mean dropping your own agenda for how change should be achieved. It can be very problematic when the leadership in an organization is people from the dominant culture. When people from the dominant culture define the issues or strategies for oppressed people it can be condescending and ineffective. So, an example of solidarity is being part of community organizing efforts led by people of color, womyn, etc in an active, but non-leadership role. Being in solidarity means seeing how you will benefit from the liberation of others.

7. Don’t be afraid to mess up or be to be uncomfortable

This is difficult work and it requires a lot of humility and vulnerability. It is important to realize that we are asking ourselves to challenge things we’ve believed since we were children. We were brought up with a frame of reference that has inevitable blind spots. We are trying to change behaviors that are well ingrained. We will mess up. Sometimes people will be kind in their response to our follies and sometimes they won’t. However, we can be kind to ourselves by getting support from other people and by attending kindly to whatever emotions arise. We can be kind to others by not letting these mess ups lead to give ups. Anyone who has been involved in anti-oppression work probably has one or many stories of being called out on some unskillful behavior. It is part of the process and something we can ultimately be grateful for, even if it is painful as hell in the moment.

8. Make Amends

If you do mess up, or if you recall some instance in which you feel you acted unskillfully, try to make amends. Apologize to your community or to the person/people directly. Realize that in doing so you may or may not get a positive response from the persons you hurt. Apologizing is not in and of itself the end of the situation. Either way, the best way to make amends might be to continue to be internally introspective and externally active.

9. Don’t expect a pat on the back

It is exciting to engage in social justice work. As we begin to change our internal landscape we may feel our self-esteem rise with our integrity. Sometimes our head may get a little big. Some people have experienced a feeling of being one of “the good white people”, for example. Don’t let this hinder your own self-evaluation and openness to being challenged on your stuff. And don’t expect oppressed peoples to acknowledge your internal or external achievements. If you do find yourself wondering why you aren’t getting more positive feedback for the work you are doing, it may be a good time to check your intentions. Are you doing the work for yourself and your community or because you are trying to be a good helper, feel less guilty, and/or get the respect of others?

10. Do the work within yourself, your own cultures and your own communities

For people who are in the dominant group it may be very difficult to experience the anger or frustration of oppressed people. The level of emotion may trigger very deep wounds of our own and it can get really uncomfortable, really fast. It is important for us to do our own emotional processing work. It is helpful to be clear about our own relationship to anger and other strong emotions so that we are not defensive or shut down when we experience these emotions with people who have been oppressed.

Part of solidarity is creating active change within the privileged communities. This also creates allies for allies, meaning as an ally, it is important to have support from others who are trying to do the same. This helps keep you in check and gives you a place to explore some of the pain and challenges of this work. For example, as you do a personal inventory it can be good to have another person from your same culture to talk with about these memories. It can be transformative when men get together and talk about ways they have mistreated womyn or when white people get together and talk about ways that they could have handled racially insensitive remarks differently. Work within your own culture or community may manifest as a monthly support group or discussion group, a caucus or sub-committee within an organization, or a blog devoted to discussing such matters.

For more on being an ally: www.paulkivel.com/articles/guidelinesforbeingstrongwhiteallies.pdf

Christopher Bowers is a social worker, student and writer. He hosts a social blog about white privilege at www.whitepriv.blogspot.com. He can be contacted at cjbalive@hotmail.com

HOUSING and PRIVILEGE by Will Fagle

Housing, White Privilege, and Wealth Inequality

By Will Flagle

As a social justice issue, housing seems simple and relatively bland: people need shelter, what else is there to talk about?

A lot, actually.

Housing issues are related to a complex web of social justice concerns. Two related concerns that are particularly relevant to housing are white privilege and wealth inequality. In fact, understanding the history of discrimination in America—particularly housing discrimination—is indispensable to understanding contemporary economic inequality. What’s the connection between housing, white privilege, and wealth inequality? Here’s a statistic that might surprise you:

The Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration financed more than $120 billion worth of new housing between 1934 and 1962, but less than 2% of this real estate was available to nonwhite families—and most of that small amount was located in segregated communities.[1]

In other words, for almost three decades the U.S. government backed $120 billion worth of home loans and 98% (!) of those loans went to whites.

How did this institutionalized racism become possible?

Spurred on by massive mortgage foreclosures during the Great Depression, the federal government […] began underwriting mortgages in an effort to enable citizens to become homeowners. But the mortgage program was selectively administered by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and urban neighborhoods considered poor risks were redlined—an action that excluded virtually all the black neighborhoods and many neighborhoods with a considerable number of European immigrants. [2]

More important than this shocking history, however, is the relationship between home ownership, wealth, and opportunity—a relationship that links past discrimination to economic inequality today. To begin with, a home is one of the most important assets that a family can own. As Dalton Conley—associate professor in the Department of Sociology at New York University—explains in the PBS documentary Race—the Power of an Illusion, “The majority of Americans hold most of their wealth in the form of home equity.”[3]Therefore, because of the significance of housing as an asset, discrimination in housing directly contributed to inequality in wealth accumulation.

Wealth, in turn, is an important determinate of the opportunities that a family can provide for their children. As Larry Adelman has written, “a family’s net worth is not simply the finish line, it’s also the starting line for the next generation.”[4] A family can take out a second mortgage on their home, for instance, to finance their child’s college education or job search. Indeed, because of the way that wealth creates opportunity, “Economists have shown that about 50-80% of our lifetime wealth accumulation is really attributable, in one way or another, to past generations,” writes Conley. It is this intergenerational link between wealth and opportunity that explains why the effects of long past institutionalized racism—such as FHA housing discrimination—are still felt today. Wealth, in other words, provides a mechanism that transfers opportunity (or its absence) from one generation to the next. [*]

How are the effects of historic discrimination still felt? Take the “wealth gap,” for example. Thomas Shapiro, in The Hidden Cost of Being African American, writes that “The net worth of typical white families is $81,000 compared to $8,000 for black families.”[6] That’s a 10:1 difference! This present day racial inequality in wealth, however, must be understood in light of the history of institutionalized racism and privilege. And housing discrimination is a fundamental part of that history. As previously mentioned, a home is often a family’s most important asset or source of wealth. Housing discrimination, therefore, created inequality in the accumulation of wealth. Moreover, wealth has two distinct characteristics: 1) it creates opportunity and 2) is it inheritable. The combination of these characteristics produced a dynamic whereby inequality in wealth—initially caused by discriminatory practices—was often passed down and maintained from one generation to the next. So long past discrimination in housing affected the wealth and opportunities of later generations. In short, past housing discrimination is an important factor in explaining economic inequality today. Conley writes:

Today, the average Black family has only one-eighth the net worth or assets of the average white family. That difference has seemingly grown since the 1960s, since the Civil Rights triumphs, and is not explained by other factors like education, earnings rates or savings rates. It is really the legacy of racial inequality from generations past. No other measure captures the legacy – the cumulative disadvantage of race for minorities or cumulative advantage of race for whites – than net worth or wealth.[7]

Thus, the reverberations of long past institutionalized racism are still felt today. As a primary example, housing discrimination creates inequality in wealth and opportunity that is often inherited by succeeding generations. Tracing back the linkages between present day inequalities in wealth and past housing discrimination demonstrates that—as a social justice issue—housing isn’t simple. Yet these linkages also show that, in spite of their complexity, contemporary housing issues remain as important as ever.

---

[1] George Lipsitz. 1998. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Philadelphia:Temple University Press.

[2] William Julius Wilson. (2005 [1996]) “When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor,” in Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology. ed. by Susan Ferguson. New York: McGraw Hill.

[3] Dalton Conley. 2003. Interviewed in Race the Power of an Illusion. PBS Transcript available athttp://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-03-03.htm.

[4] Larry Adelman. 2003. A Long History of Racial Preferences – For Whites .http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-03-02.htm.

[*] Note that wealth, not income, has been the touchstone for economic status throughout this discussion. This is no accident. For wealth, not income, is a much better indicator of opportunity: “Even when families of the same income are compared,” explains Adelman, “white families have more than twice the wealth of Black families. Much of that wealth difference can be attributed to the value of one’s home, and how much one inherited from parents.”

[6] Thomas M. Shapiro. 2004. The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press.

[7] Dalton Conley. 2003. Interviewed in Race the Power of an Illusion. PBS Transcript available athttp://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-03-03.htm.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege by Tim Wise

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you liketo "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible,all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college),and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement,whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan,makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God"in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being atypical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W.Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people,you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light"burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W.. Bush 90percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

The Basics: Defining White Privilege

Sometimes racism can manifest in ways that seem almost invisible. Like fish born in dirty water, it is difficult to see our privilege. We may take it for granted and feel that the way we are received and perceived in the world is just "normal" or "how it is".

One way to challenge the invisibility of white privilege is to ask yourself, in any given moment, how the situation might be different if you were not white. Of course, we cannot fully understand what it is like being non-white, we can assume that some things would be different.

What may seem invisible is actually quite obvious and has been qualified and documented in study after study. Whether it is searching for a house, dealing with police, looking for a job, going to school, shopping in a store or many other everyday actions, white people have a different, usually easier, experience. The disparity between these two experiences can be defined as white privilege.

I invite anyone else out there to email me their definitions of white privilege. I will post all sincere attempts at defining what White Privilege really means.

How I Became White by Maureen Purtill

Critical Planning and White Supremacy: A personal look at my political project


Maureen Gaddis Purtill
19 March 2007

Critical Theory
Prof. Peter McLaren


Critical Planning and White Supremacy: A personal look at my political project

I am dedicated to understanding, deconstructing and overthrowing systems of white supremacy and the new imperialism. For years I have engaged in various processes and with communities of resistance where I have begun to challenge notions of white patriarchal power in the world and in myself. However, it is only recently that I have begun to learn about the theory behind this transformative work. As a newcomer to critical race studies; anti-colonial education and critical theory; I want to take this opportunity to ground future work that I will do as an Urban Planner in my experience as an anti-racist white woman.
When I say ground myself in my experience, I mean to say that I hope to use this paper as a space where I can get personal; where I can challenge myself to think about how the readings and discussions we have worked with do and may inform my personal transformation and the evolution of my political projects against domination within the field of Urban Planning and ultimately in the world. This may not result in a traditionally “academic” paper, but it is my hope that it will lay the foundation for me to do meaningful work within academia and outside of it in the future.
I believe that engaging in anti-white-supremacist work, as a white woman, will be a lifelong task and struggle. Without beginning that journey from an honest look at my own privilege, I fear I will not get very far. With that said, my goal here is to engage deeply into a number of texts that name, undermine and challenge white supremacy and the new imperialism; ground my discussion in my lived realities, fears, and struggles as a white woman attempting to challenge power and privilege in myself and the world; and hopefully offer some insights into how conscious urban planners may benefit from this internal critique as we engage in community struggles for social justice.
I am specifically looking at two texts that we have discussed in our Critical Theories course, but will draw on a number of other important works in the field of critical pedagogy and critical planning to frame my discussion as well. The first book is What White Looks Like: African-American philosophers on the whiteness question, edited by George Yancy Jr. The second is entitled: Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance, edited by George J. Sefa Dei and Arlo Kempf. I have specifically chosen these two books because together they provide both a discussion and critique of whiteness and white supremacy; AND they provide the link between challenging white supremacy and transformative educational processes.
Urban Planning, in my view, is a field in which there exists great potential for community educational processes leading toward social change. It is the responsibility of the conscious planner to submit herself to the voices, power, and decisions of the community. Through dialogical educational processes planners and communities can learn and teach together in order to understand oppressive infrastructures in society, as well as the tools with which to deconstruct those forces. It is within this essential collaboration between planning and education that I situate myself with my community. As a critical planner-educator-community member, I hope to ground my work in the philosophies of revolutionary educators such as Paulo Freire and bell hooks – who argue for pedagogies of love, humanism, and transgression.
What White Looks Like helps me to see myself, my privilege, my fears, and my greatest challenges; where Anti-Colonialism and Education informs my work as a planner-educator-community member. I have heard again and again that change starts from within, that the personal is political, and that if white supremacy is to be defeated, then white folks need to step up and acknowledge our privilege to show the injustice and hypocrisy that it inherently perpetuates in our society. Here is my humble attempt to answer that call.
In his introduction, George Yancy claims that white folks who fail to locate our center of our power as whites perpetuate the “invisible center of whiteness (2004:4)” that continues to exert power over non-whites. Meaning, if we are able to declare ourselves as “good whites” instead of “bad whites” then we claim to disassociate ourselves from not only racism, but the inherent privileges associated with our whiteness. Ignoring this privilege ignores the historical processes which have served to include some as white, while excluding others depending on the power dynamics and given historical contexts. When the Irish first came to the United States, they were not considered white, but today one would be hard-pressed to find a descendent of Irish immigrants who did not benefit entirely from white privilege and white supremacy. As Yancy says, “whiteness is a form of inheritance and like any inheritance one need not accept it (2004:8).” Perhaps one way we can begin to not accept it is to understand how whiteness itself has been constructed. It is not naturally true that one group of people is superior to another, we have created that reality. For me to reject my inherited privilege, I feel it is important to look at the ways it was given to me in the first place. I do this first of all to call out the insanity and invalidity of whiteness, and second, to begin my discussion from the most personal and intimate place that I can: with the stories and histories of my ancestors.
How I Became White:
There are two major examples in my family history that I can draw from in explaining the roots of my whiteness. The first comes from my two grandfathers, maternal and fraternal, who were both children of Irish immigrants. The second is from what I consider to be the story of the women in my family, which dates back to the early 1800’s when California was México, and my great-great-great-great-grandmother was born in Baja California del Norte. My only hope is that my family forgives me for the unavoidable inaccuracies of my story. I write only from what I remember, and I am certain that dates and names will not be completely perfect. But what I consider to be most important, is the ways in which my ancestors were racialized, shamed, assimilated and privileged over time because of both how they were seen by others, and how they strategically chose to identify themselves as white when the context allowed.
In the early 1900’s my great-grandfathers on both sides of the family fled Ireland as a result of the violence raging there between the Protestants and Catholics. One came from the North, the other from the South. During this time, Irish immigrants in New York made up a significant portion of the working class, and were not yet considered white. Their subordinated class position, along with their racialization as non-white made it challenging for Irish immigrants upon arrival. My grandfather James Gaddis tells the story that when his father arrived in Ellis Island he was already aware of the discrimination that he would face because of his “race”. He chose strategically to change the family name that day from Geddes to Gaddis because he wanted to somehow shed the stigma associated with Irish surnames and Irish people and be considered fully human – or white.
María Ignacio López de Carrillo, mother of nine children, was born in the early 1800’s in Northern México. What I know about her I owe to mother, as well as to my maternal great-grandmother Eleanora Marguerite de Carrillo de Haney (grandma Ellie), who decided to write a book about her family’s history. As the story goes, María’s husband died when they were living in Baja so she traveled with her nine children north to settle and found what is known today as the city of Santa Rosa in the 1840’s. She was given massive land grants from her son-in-law, General Vallejo, and exploited the labor of about “a thousand Indians” in the construction of the Carrillo Adobe de Santa Rosa. California at that time was a state of México, and the Carrillo’s were some of the most powerful land owners in the north bay region. Grandma Ellie’s book tells stories of the elaborate parties they would have, and decorations with which they would adorn their horses. It then explains what it was like as the Americans came and eventually took their land, power, and stigmatized their culture and language.
This time in my family’s history is especially interesting considering the question of whiteness. Before the invasion of México, the Califórnios were the dominant group, exploiting indigenous peoples in massive proportions. They identified with their Spanish heritage and subsequent whiteness, as opposed to their Mexican national identity. They were white and powerful. When the Americans came and undermined that power they were racialized as non-white, subordinated, and powerless. It is told that in the building where María’s son once served as Mayor, he ended his life there as an alcoholic janitor. I am not sure if that is entirely accurate, but the sentiment shows the transformation and racialization that my family experienced with the shift in power dynamics. We lost our language in that process, and my grandmother today still identifies our family as descendent from Spain, even though we are at least eight generations removed from the first Spanish immigrant to México, and at least three generations of our family were born and lived their lives in México before it’s northern half was stolen by the United States.
Whiteness, and the privilege that is constructed and thus inherited because of it, is powerful and destructive. I do not wish to undermine the importance of the discussion of how whiteness hurts those who are considered to be non-white today, but I do want to acknowledge that the process of becoming white is not only a process of acquisition, but also one of loss. My name is Maureen Gaddis Purtill, not Maureen Geddes Purtill. I have been taught to identify as Spanish, not Mexican. Those differences do not make me experience racism on a day to day basis, but they are representative of shame, fear, and self-negation that my ancestors experienced. The privileges that it has afforded me have taken me farther and farther away from the realities of how painful that must have been for them – and thus how painful it is for people who are racialized today. It may then become more difficult for me to relate to someone who is not-white. It may also become easier for me to separate myself from my whiteness and what it means: settle into being a “good white”, and allow the invisible center of whiteness that I benefit from to continue un-checked.
As I mentioned, What White Looks Like is a good place of departure for me to look at my underlying challenges in dealing with my whiteness in my work as a critical planner today. After reading the book I came up with a list of questions that it provoked for me that I feel are helpful in trying to ground myself in the reality of this struggle:
• What can I do to deconstruct white privilege knowing that I have inherited it, visibly carry it, and may perpetuate it in many ways known and unknown to me?
• What insights into my whiteness do Black philosophers have that I may not be capable of seeing because of my positionality?
• At what moments in reading the book do I feel defensive? I ask this because I feel that those are the places where I need to look deeper at my investment and therefore my stake in the system of white privilege / white supremacy.
• Considering the first question, what are the authors’ suggestions for me? What are things that are out of my control? What are my limits in combating white supremacy?
• Looking at my experience as white: What has felt fake/ false about whiteness to me? Historically and through my personal story, how do I see these processes playing out in my family and the creation, perpetuation, and investment in our whiteness?
• What are white people lacking / overcompensating for in our humanity such that we mistakenly strive to deny that of others to make up for what we are missing within ourselves? Is that perhaps a place from which to start for me? Healing the parts of myself that have been hurt by white supremacy / denial of diverse cultural contributions and experiences of my ancestors in the socio-historical process of the creation of my whiteness?

Reading over my questions now is especially interesting after considering my family’s experience of becoming white. We may perpetuate our privilege because we didn’t always have it. Whether conscious or not, we know that we have something that others want, that others are denied, and that makes us feels superior and entitled to that superiority. In the United States, we are taught to be individualistic, to win, and to be “better” than the other. Along with that, the privilege afforded to me because of my skin has been re-framed as having been a result of “hard work” - not race. We have created ideological justifications for our comfort – which is manifest in our social and economic wealth.

Radical Planning:
As planners, and specifically as planners with white privilege, it is imperative that we challenge the ideological blinders that inform our acceptance of racial superiority. For those of us who work in multi-cultural settings, and are dedicated to racial and all forms of justice, it is hypocritical to our cause if we are not real about how we are in the positions we are in to begin with.
In her book Community Development: A Critical Approach, Margart Ledwith calls on radical planners to engage with communities in struggles for social justice. Drawing on theories of critical praxis, community empowerment, concientização, feminism, and other critical approaches, she bases her work on five major points:
• Radical community development is committed to collective action for social and environmental justice
• This begins in a process of empowerment through critical consciousness, and grows through participation in local issues
• A critical approach calls for analysis of power and discrimination in society
• The analysis needs to be understood in relation to dominant ideas and the wider political context
• Collective action, based on this analysis, focuses on the root causes of discrimination rather that the symptoms (2005)

Her call for a critical approach that includes an analysis of underlying power dynamics would not be complete without a personalized and politicized discussion of whiteness, white privilege, and white supremacy.

Challenging White Supremacy:
Looking critically at my privilege is only the beginning of a life-long process of challenging white supremacy and the new imperialism. Those of us who are dedicated to this work are often frustrated because we want a simple answer to the question: “But what can I do about it!?” The reality is that there are certain things we can not change. We can not erase what we have inherited from our families in terms of class and skin privilege. We can, however, begin to look at the underlying structures and historical contexts that have placed us where we are in history.
I do not claim that understanding my privilege alone will end it – nor that it would be easy to shed it if I could. My whiteness is something that I have not only inherited, but also something I have perpetuated. I have stake in my whiteness. My education, my health, my opportunities are all intricately connected to the way my “race” is privileged over others. I operate in a world that ideologically values whiteness. That structure needs to be dismantled. It is my hope that my personal work to name the absurdity of whiteness will contribute to its destruction as a concept of superiority – and that the communities in which I work will welcome me into a collaborative process of re-humanization to create a society that is more just for all of us.












…hasta la victoria siempre





References


Dei, George J. Sefa and Arlo Kempf eds. (2006) Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers

Freire, Paulo. (1998) Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.

Freire, Paulo. (1990) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum

Freire, Paulo. (1998) Politics and Education. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center

hooks, bell. (2003) Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Routledge

Ledwith, Margaret (2005) Community Development: A critical approach. UK: The Policy Press

Yancy, George (2004). ed. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. New York: Routledge Press.