Continuing the series of examining whiteness while working through Waking Up White, by Debbie Irving.
I’m utterly intrigued by the opening of this chapter:
Moving from not knowing what it was to feeling it in every recess of my being.
We all don’t start at the same places in our journeys; we don’t take the same paths; and we do not go at the same speed. But as far as I can tell, those of us who are working to investigate whiteness and ourselves in that whiteness have similar milestones and markers.
Ms. Irving’s words here resonate with me—perhaps not in the same way, because I of course can’t get into her head, and I haven’t yet read the chapter. But I do see that as we as white people attempt to see Blackness, we also start to see whiteness. If we stick at it, sometimes we see our own whiteness. If we’re very lucky (like winning-lottery-ticket lucky), we see our whiteness and how that whiteness affects those around us, white and Black and all the people of color and indigenous. (There’s no getting around this fact of our American culture: there is white, and then there is everyone else on a continuum of “not-white,” where Black and indigenous are dead last. Hence the abbreviation commonly used BIPOC, or “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.” Even though race is a hypothetical construct, much like money, both race and money control behavior and assign value without the consent or knowledge of those and those things that are affected by the evaluations, for good or for bad.)
But I can say that while my comfort level when being with my friends and acquaintances and even those who are unknown to me is relaxed, I’m hyper-aware of who I am and what I represent. It’s inescapable, whether it is in the acknowledgement of the divide that I cannot cross, whether I want to or not, or the worlds of experience and choices that I cannot also entertain. One thing (maybe the only thing for right now) is being aware that multiple topics and conversations must not have my participation except to listen and feel and wait; at best, I can offer my empathy and understanding, but I cannot be in the conversation in the same way. It is just—no, not what I can do. (A friend mentioned the phrase W.A.I.T., meaning “Why Am I Talking?”, and I’ve taken it to heart.)
For example, I was asked to respond to a topic online that concern Black people talking to Black people. Now, maybe at some point that will be a possibility. But not right now, and maybe never. It is not my conversation to enter in to, and I do not have a place. If I get invited in by the participants, I’ll ask for clarifications and restatements, but I do my very best to avoid giving my opinion, because I can guarantee you that my opinion will be uninformed. It is enough to listen and experience and be present. And that is okay, and that is how whiteness is made known in me. I don’t need to give my opinion on everything. I can simply W.A.I.T.
My cultural imprint bears all the hallmarks of the dominant white culture, a term I at first rejected. Much of the language used to discuss racism initially pushed my buttons so ferociously that I couldn’t grasp the important ideas within them.
Ms. Irving uses the example of gourds forced by constriction to grow into weird designs that fit the shape of their environment. Left to themselves, the gourds would grow to look like every other gourd within their environment. The analogy is that we as white people get singled out for “treatment” at the earliest ages to become the shape of whiteness. (Ex: white people are treated as if they have lower pain thresholds than Black people, leading to disparities of treatment from even before the moment of birth.) The molding of us as proto-white people into white people in both character and behavior is a lifelong process; from birth through early adulthood it is fierce and demanding and unyielding; once we are shaped as white adults, it remains a matter of boundary checking.
Imagining myself part of a “white culture” made me want to scream, “Don’t lump me in with them!”
“Not all white people!” Amirite? We all want to not be that white person who is insufferably white. We’re the white people who are good and kind, fair and careful, color-blind and equality minded.
But.
I have words for you that are going to hurt you as deep as you are as a person: you and I are white, all the way down to the bones and sinew and nerves. Your Black friends who treat you as a friend. Your Black co-workers with whom you get along so well. Your Black congregants who smile and greet you every Sunday. They can look at us and hear us, and in an instant identify two dozen peculiarities that are common to us as white people. Really.
It is okay to realize this. It doesn’t make us bad. What would be bad is if we can’t admit it because—for some reason—we think whiteness disqualifies us from full faith and credit.
What I’ve learned is that I need not embrace extremist white supremacist beliefs to be susceptible to internalizing a host of what are considered white traits, ones that serve to hold racism in place.
Dr. Kendi in his book How to Be Antiracist makes the point that we are not simply a group: we are all individuals who can choose to act as individuals in ways that are anti-racist. As individuals, then, we can learn to identify acts and words that are racist, and learn to choose to behave and speak in ways that are anti-racist. But there are simply a lot of behaviors that are inculcated in us that identify us distinctly as “white.” And because of how whiteness works, we are strongly inclined to behave and speak in ways that are distinctly white—and racist.
I never felt white; I just felt like Debby. The only group associations I thought I had were as a Kittredge or a Pierce, a New Englander, a female, or an American. It’s not that I had never felt a part of a group; I’d just never felt part of a racial group.
Great insight here. We are okay identifying with certain groups, sometimes in pride, sometimes in innocence. I’m in the group of employed people. I’m in the group of older people. (I got called an “historical resource” last night because I lived through the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and 1960s. Ouch. I just lived through it. A 10-year-old boy didn’t have much influence in the marches at Selma. Just sayin’.) I’m the group of people who are collected in the Protestant religion. And so on. But what we resist with all our being is being identified as in the white race. “We’re not like that! We’re not racist! We’re…something else.” #NotAllWhitePeople again.
Furthermore, though I could readily and proudly tell you what it meant to be each of those things, I could not have told you what it meant to be white.
This is key. Even though our most distinctive grouping is to be white—a grouping that lasts all our lives, a grouping that is instantly identifiable by all who see us, walk with us, hear us, live with us, work with us, argue with us, marry us, and bury us—we can’t even see in ourselves that we are white. Our most distinctive attribute is blind to us, and we’re nearly blind to it in others.
From coast to coast, at conference after conference, ministers, social workers, educators, and psychologists working on the front lines of social issues described the same handful of mindsets and behaviors that hampered diversity initiatives.
It’s amazing how thoroughly whiteness dominates us—that the behaviors are nearly identical across the 3000 miles and 270 million white people in America. If “whiteness” doesn’t exist, then how is it that white people act in ways that are easily identifiable no matter the region or state?
I have discovered in myself each and every one of the beliefs and behaviors listed below:
Conflict avoidance
Valuing formal education over life experience
Right to comfort/entitlement
Sense of urgency
Competitiveness
Emotional restraint
Judgmentalness
Either /or thinking
Belief in one right way
Defensiveness
Being status oriented
Does every white person display this in every way, to the same intensity and same consistency? No. Not at all. But these are common markers. I can see one way on this list that is crippling to us—to me, especially. That is “emotional restraint.” To be white is to be in control of one’s emotions, and the less intimacy and connection, the better is the success. I admire and I am jealous of my friends who are just out there in their emotions and tastes and declaration. I think sometimes I can just will myself to be like that. But no, I can’t. I’ve learned to carefully guard everything lest I appear weak or unqualified, and be excluded.
That’s just one of the items in the list. There are more, and as white people we can go through this and, if we’re going to do the work, find where we do this.
Does this mean that these are entirely unknown in other people and groups? Of course not. What Ms. Irving identifies here are the consistent expressions of whiteness in white people.
Time as linear, faster as better, a need to adhere to strict timelines, and a pervasive sense of urgency epitomize my embodiment of time. It’s a construction that supports a society built around industry, capitalism, and wealth accumulation, and though it’s one way to relate to time, it’s not the only way, and not necessarily the best way for every situation.
This is important: we don’t want to think that whiteness has anything to do with us other than the unfortunate expression of virulent racism. But as Ms. Irving points out, whiteness affects our culture and values. American Slavery, American Freedom describes the transformation of the American culture from that of the indigenous and early colonizers—season-based, effort only when needed, time for human pursuits—into that of wealth and acquisition through the appropriated and stolen labor of others, leading to the establishing of Black chattel slavery in order to get the lowest possible price for the highest output of work through enslaved human beings. Whiteness made this happen. Whiteness that demands time and schedule and profit and increasing prosperity. Before the colonizers and the “whitening” of America, the indigenous could hunt and fish and harvest enough to survive and form vibrant, colorful communities with very little work each day. There was plenty of time to talk and dream and plan and speculate. The colonizers crushed that and replaced “idleness” with a strict work ethic that was enforced upon the colonizers and indigenous alike. When the indigenous refused to participate and melted away—or died through neglect, disease, and attacks by colonizers—Black chattel slaves were introduced and turned into the nearly free labor required for maximum profits.
If I’m at a meeting at which staff are exploring racial tensions that have been creating organizational conflict, I can hurt the process by pushing people to go faster or forcing a predetermined agenda on the process. I can be impatient during extended silences, times I now understand can be critical learning pauses as people process complex and fraught ideas. Unlike a factory, human development—the heart and soul of racial healing—moves at a more organic pace.
This is like super alien to me—that we would leave room for silence! Even at church we move from thing to thing, to be sure that there are no “dead” moments. But as Ms. Irving points out, humans do not operate like factories. And to process information and make changes to behavior simply requires the luxury of unbounded time.
I embody all the attitudes and behaviors considered its hallmarks, each an asset in one context, a liability in another.
Good point here—we are not so flawed by whiteness as to be catastrophically useless. In some contexts, what we’ve picked up are useful—in some contexts. But none of them are more than “neutral”—they can become oppressive or they can become liberating.
It helped me to know that no one was saying all white people act this way all the time. Nor was anyone saying that only white people act this way. In fact, I learned that many of the qualities characterized as “white” have been internalized by people of all colors living in America’s white-dominated society. Adjusting to cultural norms is a part of being human.
Really key point that was raised earlier: these behaviors are not displayed at the same level by all people in the same ways all the time. They are simply markers of white culture. And what’s super critical here to understand is that by examining them and identifying them in our lives as white people, we can learn to unwind from the absolute demand that we behave and speak in these ways all the time. There are times when urgency and time-based behaviors are needed—we would not want indolence in the emergency room, for example. But in that same emergency room, our loved ones do not need schedules and rules and demands. Likely they need space and time and compassion and wisdom—all things that are hard for white people to give unless there’s a payoff.
When I’ve listened to mixed-race panels discuss the white culture without shame or blame but with insight and humor, I’ve felt the “we’re all in this together” spirit and understood the ways in which my own journey is not just entwined with racial justice advocates alive today, but built on the shoulders of those who’ve come before me.
Loved this insight. We are, indeed, all in this together. We’ve been given a lot of terrible things to deal with, but the very good news is that we can choose to be better.
Question
Take a look at the continuums below. The qualities on the left are often associated with the dominant white culture. Folks working to break patterns that maintain racism notice that thinking and acting in ways closer to the right side of the continuum can be useful in addressing racial healing. Take a minute to place yourself along each line. You may notice that you move more to the left or right depending on your environment.
Note: in this exercise I am using a scale of 1 to 5, where “1” is “very much this” and “5” is “very much that.”
| Don’t rock the boat. | Give and get feedback. | I’d say 3-4. I’m reluctant to give honest feedback because I’ve seen so much hurt arise from honest feedback. Typically it’s not honest. It’s just cruel. I avoid that. But I’m used to getting honest feedback from my co-workers, managers, and some of my closest friends. For my friends, I see and hear so much from them that is abuse directed at them, and my feelings are “Do I want to add to this load of toxic feedback?” So—I avoid it and look for what’s good. I don’t think it’s healthy for either of us, but I’m not able to let go of it. |
| Data & facts. | Emotion & senses. | Solid 3. I value ideas differently than I value emotions. Emotions are critical to help me understand what and how I am. Emotions lead me to act far more than mere data does. |
| Comfort for stability. | Discomfort for growth. | 2 moving to 3. All the changes in my life have arisen because I’ve been pushed to get out of my habits and my easy paths. |
| Urgency. | Wait and see. | 3. I avoid taking action right away unless the need is clearly urgent. (I’m trained in CPR, for example, and can and have performed first aid in the moment of the greatest need. But I’m generally happy to be around friends and share ideas over a beer.) |
| Thick skinned & competitive. | Vulnerable & cooperative. | 2. To survive in life I’ve had to be both thick skinned and competitive. I cannot imagine living elsewise. |
| Judge differences. | Curious about perspectives. | 4 going on 5. I love the quiddities of people, and I enjoy their differences. I enjoy learning more about people and how they tick—and what ticks them off. |
| Absolutes. | Ambiguities. | 3 going on 4. I have few absolutes in my life, and I live in the world of ambiguous edges and answers. |
| Product. | Process. | I value finding the best ways to do things that include people and their inputs, so I think I’m right at 3. |
| Tension is others. | Tension is me. | Solid 4, close to 5. Tension is what is when you’re with people. I look for ways that I’m unnecessarily adding to tension. |
| Individual status. | Group functionality. | 3, only because I don’t see myself at either extreme. |
What is it that causes you to move one way or the other?
Sensing the need of people around me. (Boy howdy do I lack boundaries!) This means that I can be oblivious, but I’m trying to listen and watch and learn, and then adjust my behaviors accordingly.
For context on this series, see my kick-off post here:
Once again, I’m reading & simultaneously commenting on Debbie Irving’s book Waking Up White.
This chapter is fire.
Creating a racially just world demands a reconsideration of the assimilation (“melting pot”) model long enforced in America… Though its intention may have been to create a united country, its impact has been to create social and economic divisions far from the ideals of most Americans.
I see this in my friends’ lives because (a) they don’t fit into the mainstream of whiteness (which is largely invisible to us who make the rules); (b) they are “encouraged” to fit in; but (c) they can never fit in because at any moment they’ll be ejected for not being white.
It might seem like just a truth to be universally acknowledged—and then we move on—but the reality is that our system of whiteness and white supremacy is an agony to our friends, who are forever excluded from our society. They may be granted a day pass, but when we’re done hosting them, they must return.
Cross-cultural collaboration done well expands everyone’s ability to innovate and solve problems. But there’s a major catch: it’s much harder than one might imagine because it starts with personal change.
This is so, so true. Starting from the idea that we can fix this because we can describe this is a non-starter. I believe that one of the first steps to solving a problem is to accurately state the problem. But behind the belief that all man-made solutions are fixable (true enough if not always true: Nagasaki and Hiroshima, for example, weren’t “fixable” after America obliterated them as a Warning to Others) is the reality that not everyone is capable of fixing everything (we can’t just go into “their” culture and presence and tell them how to fix things), and often when we want to fix things the absolute wisest thing to do is to simply support those who are in the community already & who are already fixing things (Dr. Drew G. I. Hart’s “yellow shirt brigade”).
I don’t say “don’t do anything.” I do say “be willing to go into the situation with the understanding that you, too, will be affected by what you do.” Accepting cultures is not simply a sign of goodness and niceness and maturity, like you can get the gold star for just doing it. You and I, as we work on loving our brothers and sisters, are going to have to do the work of loving them, which involves listening and empathy and involvement and seeing and carrying the burdens of friendship. If you go into the work of change because you want to be well-thought-of—then I’m afraid that I have some very bad news for you.
In my experience, I could not begin to develop a multicultural sensibility until I first looked deep within myself to understand the ways in which the culture I’d lived in ended up living in me.
This is the core, right here. If you get this you get everything, and you can stop reading right now: whiteness lives in us; it shapes us, makes us, and moves us. It may require a lifetime of work to unwind ourselves from the rapture that whiteness gives, but it must be done if we want to see our brothers and sisters, to hear them, to embrace them, and to be involved with them.
Let me be blunt: the people that we presume to “help” by our kindness see all of this for what it is: projections of our own beliefs that people who do nice things are deserving of respect and love and admiration. They see our show, and while they are an unwilling audience, they will leave at the first intermission they can.
I do not know what the change looks like. But I’m going to work on it, as best as I can, not because I want to be “nice.”
I want to be real.
The writer [of the New York Times article about words and culture] explored the way words such as “left,” “right,” “above,” and “behind” are “egocentric directions,” putting the speaker at the center. In contrast, he pointed out, some languages use “geographical directions,” using terms like “north” to describe where something is.
Literally blinked at this. This puts it succinctly: we are the star of our movie, always. White man/woman helps unfortunate & helpless people is the headline of our story, every day.
Our way feels so right and easy to us that we can’t imagine the other culture’s approach holds any value for us.
This digs into the core of my being. My work to become not what I am is work to acquire insight and relationships. But it is still work, damned hard work, every day, because what’s in me—what is me—isn’t this way. It is by will that I continue the long struggle to leave behind selfishness. Like anyone in recovery, I choose each day when I wake up to control my choices. But every single day I have to do this. I’m still not doing it naturally. On my own, I would just do what I’ve always done.
There’s no rule that says I have to reject my culture. But if I become aware of its beliefs, values, and practices, I can try to see it as one culture of many and expand my beliefs, values, and practices beyond it in the name of becoming a better global citizen.
Another key point: the culture I live within, right now, is not entirely toxic and wrong. I can hold on to some of my own culture. I do suspect that anything that has to do with usurpation and colonization and expropriation and exploitation will have to go, of course. But some elements stem from good desires—we want stability and safety and home and family, and although those desires have become corrupted, we can still return to them and clear out the weeds that choke out the goodness.
One of the great ironies in my quest to understand racism is that the very populations I once sought to help and fix are the ones from whom I’m discovering I have so much to learn.
Man, this just strikes home. The attitude of “helping.” The attitude of “fixing.” The attitude of “here I am to bless you.”
Yuck. So much of this is what I do, perhaps who I am. This is a warning to myself to keep on digging and keep on pushing, as well as a warning to not do it for attention or payoff or admiration.
Unlike me, who grew up in a monocultural world with a household that looked a lot like my school that looked a lot like my workplace, Americans of color, by necessity, have operated across at least two cultures—the dominant culture and their own subculture—sometimes using different languages. Americans of color are already more likely to be multicultural as well as better equipped with strategies to cope with adversity. This is a 180-degree turnaround from the way I’ve thought about white people and people of color my entire life.
This is another key idea (two ideas, actually). One is that we white people need to see that our friends have to work twice as hard, and have to continually context-switch when around us, because we are unsafe and untrustworthy. Even though some of us white people might be safe and trustworthy—how do our friends know, when we behave so abominably, and when the white people they don’t know are unkind and ruthless and destructive?
That’s one side of this.
The other side is that it is we who are the weak and dysfunctional and confused. White people skate by in their disfunction because it’s expected that we’ll get a pass. Our friends cannot—and do not. Our friends have the “talk” with their children. We don’t, and don’t need to. We expect to be the recipients of the government’s attention and largess, and boy do we complain when we don’t get a piece of the pie & when we see others getting our share. Our friends expect almost nothing, and when they receive a benefit—almost always a pale imitation of the ones that we get as white people—it is seen as a fluke and a temporary gift, to be taken back at will.
Questions
Think of a major change you’ve made in your life—a marriage, a divorce, a move, a new job, a lost job. List the strengths and skills you lost as a result of the change. List the strengths and skills you gained.
New job / lost job
I’ve had a fairly stable work/career for the last 30 years (!), all in one industry, doing what I do because it’s what I want to do & enjoy doing (technical writing/editing). I’ve been able to move from one employer to the next, twice, in that time, and have had no interruption in pay or in gaps between employment. There has been stress over finding a new job, but that stress included the the confidence that of course I can find one. That confidence might not last, but it’s been lasting for 30 years. I’ve switched responsibilities/teams a few times as well, and I’ve had the luxury of deciding that the work that I was doing wasn’t something I liked doing, so I found another group to work with.
Many of my friends don’t have this luxury of long-time employment or even doing what they really want to do. They are doing what they can do or need to do in order to pay the bills and support their families through very difficult situations. So I sometimes appreciate that I have a life that has been both easy and fulfilling, but mostly I don’t even think about it because “it just happened.” (And yes, I know it didn’t just happen. White supremacy has been very, very good to me, mostly when I was most ignorant of its benefits and the cocoon it provides.)
As far as what I lost—I can’t think of a particular strength or skill that I lost. Ever since I left the dreams of being a pastor (because of the entirely reasonable observation that I was drinking Milk of Magnesia like it was soda as I tried to handle the demands of people), I’ve been in some form of technical writing/editing/lecturing/training. I’ve built up my skills and strengths, and I’ve been able to apply them in other contexts. For example, I help out at non-profits, not with my technical writing skills, but with my organizational skills. What I’m weak at—being a leader—I avoid as I know I am not a leader. I will function in that capacity when needed, but I typically just avoid the stage.
Marriage / children
Marriage has been a challenge to my own self, and like everything else in life, it has its benefits and its drawbacks. Bringing children into the world has been a true gift, one that I have not a moment’s regret over—even as I realize that having children meant that I would leave certain activities and pursuits.
Move
I’ve moved in a significant way only once. Back in my late 30s I was offered a chance to move 1200 miles away to take up a new job. We packed up the kids and our stuff and moved. It was extremely challenging, as we’d moved to a place with no family and friends. Gotta say that was the hardest part. For us, church was a major part of our lives, as it was the one time each week we were guaranteed to see people who wanted to see us. It took a while to settle down in our new home, and we eventually did find a church that embraced us. We stayed there for about ten years. But because the move was for a new job yet in the same field, I can’t say I lost or gained any new skills directly.
Career change
I haven’t really changed careers since my initial departure from my then-desire to pastor. I’ve stayed in the same path, and have been both fortunate and privileged that my education, experience, curiosity, and natural passions all were able to find fulfillment in the career path I’ve been in.
For context on this series, see my kick-off post here:
Di Brown ‘Nixie’ at https://dianabrown.net/blog-challenge-waking-up-white/
This chapter (from 26-45): https://dianabrown.net/waking-up-white-the-final-chapters/
Dawn Claflin at https://dawnclaflin.wordpress.com/