Books about race.

[pauraque_bk]

I've just finished reading White Like Me by Tim Wise, which came highly recommended, and did not disappoint. I couldn't put it down.

The basic premise of the book is that even when individual white Americans do not do anything personally to harm people of less privileged races, we are still accountable for collaborating with the racist structure of our society by accepting the privileges that have been extended to us because of our color.

This, of course, is the answer to the frequent protest that "my ancestors didn't own any slaves" or "I don't hate anyone because of their race". What Wise is saying is that this may be perfectly true, and no one is obliged to feel guilty for things they didn't do, but what we do have to realize is that we are nonetheless experiencing racial privilege, even though we didn't personally ask for it, and may not be consciously aware of it because it's all we've ever known. He uses one of my favorite analogies, that of a fish denying the existence of water.

Curiously, I have heard this same thought expressed several times in the past few weeks, first by some people online, and then from Dave Chappelle in an interview I was watching. It's like that phenomenon when you learn a new word and then suddenly hear it everywhere. Of course, I doubt that I'd actually never heard this theory of racism before recently -- it's just that now, for whatever reason, I'm at a point where I'm able to absorb it.

I'll be honest with you guys, some of this book was not easy to read. There were many points where I was nodding along and thinking how sensible it all was, but then was suddenly brought to a halt by something that was hard to hear, that my mind wanted to resist for some reason.

Good example: Wise tells a story about how, at school, he and a black student were both caught breaking the rules. The black student was spanked, and he was not; his parents had signed the form excusing him from corporal punishment, which the parents of the black student also could have done, but hadn't, nor had almost any of the other black families associated with the school. Wise says he asks a seminar audience why they thought that was.

The guesses the white audience members provide were the same ones I would have thought of: Maybe black families are more religious and thus more likely to approve of physical punishment. Maybe black families are less educated on average; physical punishment tends to be reduced by education.

Then a black audience member explained what she saw as the reason: Black American parents feel like they must discipline their children more severely, because any kind of trouble with authority could result in a young black person being beaten or killed by the cops.

I would never have thought of that, and I just felt this resistance to believing that it was true, even though I know from my own experience in another kind of unprivileged group (queer people) that it is the people who are actually experiencing the discrimination that know what it is like, and that the people in the privileged group are in no position to say what they go through in their lives.

The part that hit me the hardest was where he discusses, basically, why white Americans should want to change the situation, since they benefit from it. What he says is that you can't be doing it for the group that is oppressed; he sees that as condescending. You do it for yourself, because racism is an evil, and accepting it on any level, even subconscious, makes white Americans less than what we could be, less than what we should be. The privileged benefit in many appreciable ways, yes, but are also brutally diminished in ways we may not even realize.

He goes on to provide some very painful evidence of the ingrained racism that exists even in the most consciously anti-racist white people he knows: his parents and grandmother, and himself. He shows how the messages of racism we've absorbed can be unleashed when we're angry, upset, drunk, mentally ill -- any moment where instinct has a chance to override reason. Where he talks about his grandmother, a lifelong advocate for racial equality, cruelly lashing out against her black nurses in the fear and agony of Alzheimer's, calling them things she would never have uttered if she'd had anything left of her mind to hold onto but the dregs of her subconscious -- that hit me really hard.

I think the book is probably of the most value to white Americans, but I'll bet it would be interesting to others too. And even if you don't agree with his take on things, it should be food for thought.

Wise mentions the irony that he has been able to open a lot of white people up to thinking about these things simply because he himself is white. He and a person of color may be saying the exact same thing, but it sounds more plausible and is harder to dismiss when he says it, because he is privileged. I actually identified with him quite a bit while I was reading, since his family and school background were similar to mine in a lot of ways, and he seemed like someone I would get along with. So he has an advantage in trying to tell me his thoughts; he starts out with a leg up on someone who is less -- well -- like me.

Well, irony or no, he mentions that he likes to get email, so I think I'll send him one. His book really made an impression on me. I see he's also written one on affirmative action, which I'm very eager to read since I've always had a hard time wrapping my mind around that issue.

*

Another really good book, which is not about racism per se but does shed a lot of light on it, is Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I read this quite some time ago, and it made a very big impression on me too.

One of the questions that I think hasn't been asked seriously enough about racism is... why? If people of different races are not inherently different, then why are they, in fact, in different positions? And why are Eurasians the ones who are more dominant, rather than the people of another continent? I'd wondered this for years, but I don't think I'd ever voiced it, for fear of being thought offensive. It's a legitimate question, though, and deserves an answer.

Diamond's book answered this question to my total satisfaction. A couple of key points:

- Eurasia is the largest land mass running east-west, home to many cultures of similar latitude/climate. This promoted trade and faster development of technology and agriculture, because there were no severely dissimilar and forbidding climate zones to cross to get to your neighbors, as there were in the Americas.

- Eurasia has the most native plants and animals that are amenable to domestication by humans. Africa has lots of large animals, but even today, most of them just can't be domesticated. This had a huge impact on how much and how quickly non-Eurasians were able to develop agriculture, not to mention military strength (cavalry).

These facts are important for people to know. I don't think it works to browbeat people into believing that all human beings are equal just because I say so, and how dare you suggest otherwise. Provide the real, tangible reasons that the playing field has never been level, and you might just get people to think.

Comments

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

I haven't read White Like Me, but I think I'll pick up a copy today; it looks interesting. I can't say I think I'm likely to agree with everything he's saying since the example you cited here appears to ignore the issue of social class (*none* of the Black parents in my junior high district - predominantly middle class and upper middle class - would have allowed their children to be hit by teachers for any reason, but many of the the Black parents in my inner city high schoool would have), but the basic premise is absolutely true.

My family (most of whom were civil rights activists) has only been in America for two full generations and before that we were an oppressed underclass (in Russia); however, I was raised to be conscious of how many privileges I have just because I'm white - starting with not being trailed around stores under suspicion of shoplifting and extending to preferential treatment in terms of getting apartments and jobs.

[pauraque]

He doesn't actually ignore the issue of class privilege; I just didn't mention it in this post. :)

That's the other thing that I most frequently hear said that derails discussion of racism: There are many kinds of privilege, such as class privilege, gender privilege, straight privilege, and so on. There is indeed a discussion of that in the book, and his take is that these privileges are all real, and none of them trumps the others in every situation, but the fact that they interact with great complexity shouldn't become an excuse to let us pretend that racism is not real and severe. Which I don't think you're saying at all, but I do feel like that's what people sometimes mean when they respond "but what about privilege X" in a racism discussion.

[zenzicube.livejournal.com]

While I haven't read White Like Me, the arguments you present are similar to many that I've been hearing in my Race, Ethnicity, and Cities class this quarter. I've had a similar reaction as you to some of the examples in the class textbook--American Apartheid by Massey and Denton. (It's a good book, if heavy on the statistics and modeling. It explains the rise and perpetuation of the black urban ghetto and the underclass due to racial segregation.) I think part of my initial resistance to the ideas presented have to do with institutional racism: racial covenants in housing deeds, FHA mortgage loans being withheld from "changing" neighborhoods, stripping HUD of its enforcement power, etc. It's difficult to see that, even as late as the 1970's, the federal government was still endorsing these. One would like to think the government, at least, is above such things.

My mother's family is from the South (Cajun Louisiana), and my mother taught elementary school in Texas for a few years. As the youngest member of the Austin school district, they sent her to an all-black school where corporal punishment was still in effect (the only school in the district where it was still practiced). My mother was taught that if she didn't hit the children hard enough with the paddle, they wouldn't respect her--almost the reverse of the story you presented from White Like Me. That's the most blatant example of my experience with white privilege and the one that's stuck with me.

[zenzicube.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to say: Hi! I usually lurk on your journal, but I really like your analyses, HP and otherwise. :)

[pauraque]

Hello! Do feel free to lurk, but thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good book--but yeah, I'm reading what you're writing and thinking that there are probably many things in it I don't want to hear. I'm always kind of vaguely aware of the kind of thing that can be under the surface--the story of his grandmother is a perfect example.

I really like the part about not doing something for the other race, because I think that with any kind of discrimination that just doesn't work. I remember years ago seeing a thing on sexism, for instance, and a guy was asking what he, as a man, could do against sexism and the person said that one thing that really didn't help was to think about how you would feel if you were the other group, because you weren't. You could only look at your own behavior and what you were doing and how that hurt you. It applies to anything like this, I think, because you just can't really put yourself into the place of someone you've never been. (That's one of many reasons "Tootsie" is one of my favorite movies--I love the way Dustin Hoffman goes through this arrogant self-deluded phase of thinking he's totally a woman when really what he learns is what a man he is.)

Which is not to say they can do that to you either--a minority group may misidentify what's really going on with the majority as well. But they can explain their own experience.

[pauraque]

Yup, I think you're right. Empathy is a good thing, a really good thing, but it only goes so far. We're accustomed to thinking in terms of empathy; everyone's mom told them "Now how would you feel if he hit you?" And that may work for kids (or hey, maybe it doesn't), but adults should be sophisticated enough to realize that you don't hit somebody because you don't want to be a violent person.

In the case of systemic discrimination, it probably seems easier to take the 'paternalistic' (Wise's word) approach and imagine that you're 'saving' non-whites (or women, or whoever) from mistreatment that's coming from those bad evil people you're fighting. The problem with this is that it sidesteps introspection.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I can see a good deal of truth in the automatic assumption of privilege because I feel it in the US: I'm white = niot seen as a potential troublemaker. (I'm also a middle-aged white woman, so no threat at all.) However the idea that black kids are more severely chastised by their parents may turn out for the best in the end - you do kids no favours by being lenient with them (and I speak as someone who remembers the occasional spanking from my mother in the 70s as not especially traumatising; certainly less than the psychological punishment of being frozen out of family activities for a day. That rankled.)

[pauraque]

I'm white = not seen as a potential troublemaker

Yes, there's a pretty thorough discussion of this in "White Like Me". Racism blinds us to real dangers that may come from people whom we consider above suspicion because they are privileged. That's another way in which racism actually hurts the oppressor.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Er... the problem is that statistically, the majority of delinquents do fit such a profiling. (And not just in the US: a recent Renseignements Généraux report, mentioned today in Le Monde (http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-744752@51-736249,0.html), establishes that 67% of gang leaders are of North African origin, 17% African, while whites are only 9%. You can explain a lot through economics, sociological conditions, etc.; but in terms of sheer statistics, it's obvious who it makes more sense to be wary of.

Profiling is bad from an ethical point of view, because it ¨works on an assumption of guilt instead of innocence; but it's unfortunately not illogical.

[pauraque]

I can't talk about France because I don't know anything about it, but in the US, the majority of crime is committed by white people. The majority of illegal drug abusers are also white. Despite this, it is not white people who are stereotyped as criminal and prone to drug abuse. Hm.

But aside from that, focusing on particular ethnic groups does in fact make it less likely that particular criminals who don't fit the profile will be caught.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

That stuff about Eurasia is really good, and makes a lot of sense. It drives me nuts when people use the "if everyone is equal, how come white people have more advanced technology/better living conditions/ etc than anyone else?" and I've never had a good explanation beyond that Europe must somehow be more beneficial for quick advangement in theis sort of thing than other places. I'd never thought about it in terms of latitude.

[pauraque]

Yeah, the latitude thing seems really important. The same crops were able to be grown all across the continent, so people were able to move around and trade much more freely. The same can't be said of the Americas or Africa, which have so many different latitudes and climate zones. The rather advanced South American cultures could not trade with the farmers of southwestern North America, so neither was able to advance as quickly as the European cultures who eventually conquered both of them. Compound this over centuries, and you've got a very unbalanced situation.

I doubt this kind of explanation would be good enough for dyed-in-the-wool racists, whose beliefs aren't based on reason in the first place, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who not only privately wonder about racial differences, but privately believe that Europeans probably are superior, even though they don't actively support mistreatment of other races. I mean, if you have little-to-no personal experience with nonwhite people, and all the evidence you have is synchronic, you're bound to make assumptions.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. The latitude thing is something that seems so logical, obvious, and sensical me now that youv'e pointed it out, but I'm not sure I'd ever have puzzled it out on my own.

Eppur si muove

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I still think of it in terms of chosing objective thought over ideology (Galileo's final victory.)

[exbentley]

I'm going to see if my library has a copy of White Like Me - it sounds very thought-provoking, from your summary alone, and I'm always open to thought.

[pauraque]

Thinking is good. :)

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

So much of life boils down to economics and the details of subsistence, really.

Human beings are equal because there is very little biological difference between the so-called races; most of the differences are in very superficial things like skin colour and facial morphology. There is as much variation within 'racial' groups as there is between them.

[pauraque]

I am aware of that. However, that fact would appear to make the question of why world history has played out the way it has even more demanding of an answer.

Racism

[(Anonymous)]

I’m African American but I’m also Haitian (born there and spent the first five years of my life there) and because of my upbringing I sometime don’t think like other African Americans do. Like the example about the spanking, my first thought was with you b/c my family is very different from the typical black family. My grandparents were wealthy influential Haitians and my parents were also wealthy influential Haitians, and I was raised as such. I never got spanked as a child (though my parents kept threatening to) so for me this book was enlightening because it got me closer to learning about American racism. I personally know that racism is still here but never thought it ran that deep in the white American subconscious (it runs even deeper in the black subconscious).