Category: racism

Privilege and Guilt– One Activist’s Perspective

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January 21st, 2014

There have been several articles in the local media in the Madison area lately that have caused quite a stir among some of the White activists in the area.  Writers, both Black and White, have had the audacity to bring up the subject of racism in our liberal bastion and its making some people uncomfortable.

In that discomfort I see hope.  There’s no reason to fix a problem until we see a problem exists.  Right now some of my activist friends are looking into a glaring light and their eyes are hurting.  They want to turn away.  Instead I hope they will give their eyes the chance to adjust and that they will do the work that needs to be done on this issue just as they do on so many related concerns.

There is a particular term that has been thrown about lately and seems to be being inappropriately defined.  I’d like to offer my fellow activists some more accurate definitions.  The term that is generating heat and misconceptions is White privilege.   White privilege simply means that by the nature of our skin color White people, as a group, have access to resources at a different level than do People of Color.  As a group we are more likely to have access to jobs, education, and other positives. We’re also, as a group, less likely to experience the negative impacts of these systems like jail, homelessness, poverty, etc.  That doesn’t mean that White people don’t go to jail or aren’t homeless, or aren’t struggling economically.  Most certainly many are.  However the research is clear White folks have a better chance in life just because we were born White.  That’s reality.

Now, that’s something different than what I’ve been hearing some of my fellow White activists turning to.  They are quickly pulling out White guilt and claiming they are being made to feel White guilt.  White guilt is about feeling bad about yourself because you were born with White skin and frankly, it’s a waste of time and energy.  No matter how badly you feel or how many tears you cry your guilt isn’t helping anybody.

So why talk about privilege if it isn’t to make someone feel guilty?  Here’s why;  when people with privilege are willing to act in their every day to assure that everyone gets their needs met and privilege is no longer a reality we all win.  If you believe in social, economic, environmental justice and in peace, it can’t just be for some people.  If it is, well, then it’s really not for anyone.

I know, we’re all working hard on the issues we’ve chosen and can’t take on one more thing.  Well, don’t take on something new.  Instead, ask yourself what am I doing in my current action that makes this work for everyone?  How am I acting in my everyday?

A few months ago I had the good opportunity to travel to Tennessee with a group of students of Color from the UW.  Along the way I got into a conversation with a few of them and one young man was speaking to how racism affected his every day.  He told us of how White people would rather stand on the bus than sit next to him, a young Black man.  It made me think.  How do I respond in those moments?  I encourage my fellow White activists to ask yourself over and over again in those little moments in which you are engaging with people of Color what are you thinking?  What prejudices are defining your actions?  How are you overcoming those prejudices?  I encourage all to do the same exercises in those moments in our groups and activities to learn about ourselves and how we unintentionally welcome or turn away those who do not look like us.

Let go of the guilt.  It’s doing none of us any good.  Instead start asking questions of yourself and the world you live in and start acting.

Peace,
amy

The Community Table

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August 29th, 2013

I get to work often with groups who want to bring others to the table, wherever that table might be and whatever the people around that table might be doing. Usually the folks they want at the table are different from them in some notable way. They’re often younger. Maybe they have a smaller income. Many times the people with the table have pale skin and the people they’d like at the table have some shade of brown skin.

Increasingly, I’m challenged by that idea of bringing people to the table. I see a couple problems with it. First, it presumes that the people being invited don’t already have their own table that is just as good that you’ve just never seen. Secondly, it keeps the host in the host role. There’s no marriage of equals here. One person/group owns the table. The other is a guest.

We live in a world filled with unhealthy power dynamics around class, race and ethnicity, age, gender, and the list goes on. If we want our organizations and our organizing to not be a reflection of the sickness of the world, we have to do something different.

Step away from the table. Meet the people that you want to work with on shared turf. What are your shared needs and concerns? Know that you may be turned away for a myriad of reasons. Some of those reasons will have to do with your personal actions and some with all the stories of histories of oppression. Show respect. Show a willingness to learn. Show a willingness to fall and get back up again. Know that it will take a long time, maybe forever to build a trust.

Get a new table, one that isn’t yours or theirs, but instead that you fashioned together out of shared dreams. Know that this table will look different than your old one. Maybe it will be stronger and maybe it will be a little off balance. Who knows? It will be larger and have many carvings of great stories hard and beautiful.

How do you step away from your table? Here’s just a couple quick pointers that I’ve found helpful over the years:
1. Diversity of whatever sort isn’t a side issue. It is THE ISSUE. Being welcoming, supportive, and representative of all people that you want to be together at the table has to be central to everything you do.
2. Look at whatever you are working on from many angles. Why might others care about this same thing? Why do you care about it? What do you share with others?
3. Keep looking at yourself and your own actions. We are all products of history. We all need to hold ourselves accountable to act in ways the future can be proud of
4. We are all learners, teachers, and leaders. Allow yourself to be each of these with everyone.
5. Be there. When you are called to be supportive to those you want to work with and who are struggling in whatever way do so in whatever way you are able.

That’s a short clip, no where near the whole story. But, maybe there’s something there to consider. Mull it over and share. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What Is Strong? Holding Together

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July 14, 2013

There’s some trouble going on in Northern Wisconsin. I’d say it all started when Gogebic Taconite showed up and tried to start mining, but it didn’t. It started generations ago when we forgot that we all come from around the same fire.

This latest round involved some direct action advocates who took action against the Gogebic crew and did some minor damage. They were apprehended and charged. Now folks are left to figure out how to move ahead. Some people supported the action and some didn’t and trust has been lost. Now, how is trust rebuilt? Wish I knew. If I knew I just tell folks what to do. They might try it. It might work. It might not work. They might be thankful. They might tell me what I’m full of.

Here’s what I do remember though. I remember a day many years ago standing out in the cold in a cemetery in Northern Wisconsin. My friend Walt’s body was being laid in ground. He was a veteran so the men were out there with the guns to do the salute. I had already committed to a life as a pacifist and to a belief in the use of direct action. I knew war was wrong. I knew violence was wrong. I knew direct action was right. I knew I would always stand for what was right no matter what.

There was a man there that day who without a word made me question all I knew about violence and nonviolence and direct action. He was standing to my left. When the gun salute went off I looked in his direction. He had the sadness in his eyes and that far away look that seems to see into another world. He was both a million miles away and right there with his cousin who was being laid in the ground at the same time. There was a power there that I did not know until that moment.

It was in that moment that I really understood something that only knew in my mind before. Now, I knew it deeper. That man who was standing next to me was Andy Gokee. He, like Walt and many of the other folks standing there that day had stood many times to protect treaty rights, the right to live as Native peoples according to the beliefs handed down to them for generations. One of the ways that they did that was through the spearfishing struggle of the 1980’s. When I heard those gunshots in that cemetery that day I understood in a different way that the folks I stood there with had their lives threatened. They’d been followed. They’d been shot at. They knew that their families could be killed because they were Indians or because they stood with Native people.

Today I had another of those experiences. I got a message from a Black woman that I know. She had gotten stopped by the cops in the Madison area because she looked “suspicious.” She was interrogated for half an hour for nothing, nothing other than driving while Black.

I don’t claim to know much. I know the stories go much deeper than I will ever know. What I understand is that sometimes there is a power much stronger than words that speaks to us all. There are powerful spirits among us and there are those who walk in fear as well.

It is alright to be afraid. In fact sometimes it may be the wisest thing to be. Fear can increase your consciousness of what is around you, give you the tools with which to act. To deny that fear is generally nothing more than lying and cockiness. Be afraid and keep walking through that fear. Learn the stories, listen deeply, and walk through the fear wisely. Acting for the sake of acting brings nothing. Acting with heart and spirit and mind in tune, brings justice and healing and change.