I am a white woman, but I don’t always look it. My hair is dark brown, very curly, and very big. My eyes are dark brown too. Find me in summer in my California hometown and my olive complexion, caramelized by the scorching heat of the Sacramento Valley, presents itself as a deep shade of golden-tan.
I’ve been asked my entire life what I am, racially/ethnically speaking. I’ve had many a hair stylist pose the “What’s your heritage?” question as they piece apart the mass of spirals atop my head. In the tenth grade a black classmate said to me, sitting across the table in Spanish class, “What are you? Cause you gotta be something with hair like that.” My freshman year of college I made a comment about my race to my Asian roommates and our friend, a white guy, looked over at me in shock. “Wait,” he said. “You’re white?” When I studied abroad my junior year, one of my new roommates asked, as I stood in front of the mirror putting on makeup, “What are you?” Used to the question by this point, I filled in the blank. What are you racially, because you don’t fit my paradigms. First off, it is pretty much always best to let a person of color volunteer information about their ethnicity, as asking the question is, in most contexts, othering -- making them feel as though they inherently do not belong. Beyond this, however, it is interesting to note how often people, and in my experience, particularly white people, ask this question, seemingly uncomfortable with a person until they can fit them into one of their racial boxes. The assumption of a white norm, that is, treating white skin and white culture as though it is the default or inherently non-racial/non-ethnic, allows white power and its wielders (i.e. white people with white privilege) to cast people of color as The Other and has, historically, allowed them to create what we today call race. With parameters of race (a socially constructed concept) currently centered around certain genetic presentations (i.e. skin color, hair texture, nose shape, eye shape, etc.), a diverse society is more difficult to categorize. Many people, regardless of biological background, don’t fit into neat racial boxes based solely on physical appearance -- myself included. This defiance of categorization makes most people who have internalized the troublingly categorical rhetoric of race uncomfortable. White people, who have historically held the power to determine socially operational racial categories (i.e. what we call people who look/act/live a certain way, and what that means about how they are thought about and treated) and place people into them, seem to struggle more than others with this defiance of categorization. Now, I want to be clear that I have experienced what I consider the full swath of white privilege (save, perhaps, the microaggression of being asked about my race). I have never, to my knowledge, been discriminated against because of my perceived race. I have generations of white wealth behind me. I attended good schools and lived in well-off white suburbs. I am not followed in stores. I do not worry about my race keeping me from any opportunity. I operate with native comfort in white spaces and do not feel pushed out of or unwelcome in any organizations or institutions because of my race, ethnicity, or culture. I am privileged, and incredibly so. It is interesting to think about what role my sometimes-ambiguous racial appearance plays in my daily life. This last October I was taking a flight out of Oakland airport, headed to Minneapolis to visit friends. That morning it seemed like everyone I interacted with was on my team. The young woman at the parking lot kiosk went out of her way to help me sort out my ticket. The shuttle driver waited for me to grab a cup of coffee even though all of the other passengers were already on board (and fairly impatient). The TSA agent chatted with me about my morning and directed me to an empty line that I had not realized was open. The on-break airport janitor smiled and sat down next to me in the waiting area, pulling out her breakfast sandwich and digging in, comfortable in my presence. A few hours later, thinking about my experience while squished between two strangers in economy class seating, I realized that all of the people I had interacted with that morning had been people of color. In our interactions, our gestures, our smiles, there had been a comfort of relationship. They had shown me kindness that went above and beyond normal levels. There was something between us that felt like a rhythm of recognition. I have heard friends and media personalities, authors and journalists, talk about the “black nod,” an acknowledgement between two black people in a predominantly white space that both of them are there, that they see each other. It is a recognition of visibility, an acknowledgement of identity in a climate in which black people, or at least their blackness, is ignored for the comfort and power of a white majority. I suspect that the exceptional kindness I regularly receive from people of color is an iteration of this public acknowledgement. I have exchanged nods and smiles with people of color that I do not know in many public spaces. If I am in a predominantly white group and a person of color needs to address us, I am usually the person that they come to. I am safe, I think, because of my coloring. The person approaching likely assumes that a darker individual will be apt to understand different cultural rhythms of communication, because cultural identity is something that darker people have had to think about. People who look like each other, who are identified as members of the same group, even if that group be as wide as the generic and often statistically inaccurate “minority”, regularly have shared experiences. The experience of being a person in the United States, and the world at large, is not uniform. Unlike people of color, I do not have the experience of being teased for a particular aspect-of-self associated with my race or culture -- an accent or dialect, a facial feature, a food. I do not have the experience of being called a “credit to my race” or a touted as a member of a “model minority” when I experience success. I have not experienced negative stereotyping about my academic abilities or thought of as an “at risk” student (in fact, I have been challenged and placed in higher level courses). I have not been unjustly stopped by the police, pulled over for “appearing suspicious”, or pulled over at all, despite my mediocre-at-best driving. I do, though, again, unlike people of color, have the experience of seeing actors, actresses, newscasters, and comedians of my self-perceived/biologically inherited race every time I turn on a television. I also have the privilege to enter into every situation where I am meeting new white people without fear that my race will cause me to be seen unfavorably. Discrimination based on my perceived race is, for me, rare enough to be surprising, and is always easily mitigated by some sort of clarification, such as a picture of my white parents or an emphasis on aspects of white culture I hold native familiarity with. I am glad that I seem to appear as a safe person, a known member, to many people of color. There are not enough safe spaces and safe people in this world for people of color. Appearing as “something brown,” I am assumed to have a shared knowledge and therefore a shared ability to engender solidarity. This basis of trust allows me to be an advocate, to help people, to operate as a go-between for people of color and white people when need be. Looking brown makes me more approachable and accessible and allows me to connect with strangers in public places, and I am grateful. I am concerned, however, that this basis of relationship is undeserved. The last thing that I want to do is “play” at being a person of color -- I have not experienced the hardships of living in the United States as a non-white individual. This concern that my experience of being perceived as a person of color is undeserved highlights something in our society -- that people of color and white people do in fact experience the world differently. People of color share a common experience that white people do not, and that experience causes them to operate together in a particular manner -- a manner in which I am often included. I have not, however, paid the common cost of being a person of color that confers this familiarity. I have all of this privilege; a privilege that can more accurately be named as the white oppression from which it comes. If I gain the few things that are of specific benefit to people of color in our world – namely camaraderie and acknowledgement – it does not make the scale of privilege slightly less unbalanced, as it does for people of color, but tips a scale already strongly in my favor even steeper my direction. My ambiguous appearance allows me to regularly receive positive treatment from almost everyone -- the people who identify me as white treat me with the privileges of my dominant race, and the people of color who identify me as another person of color treat me with particular kindness and grace, looking out for me. In a messed-up sense, I get the best of both worlds, and that’s even more unfair than the already extremely unfair racial system in the United States. Some of the subtext of the “black nod” and its other iterations is a recognition of shared history, an “I know what you’re going through right now.” I exchange these nods with people of color, and I try always to be aware of my privileges and biases when interacting with people of color, but I do not have this shared history. Do I lie, then, in acknowledging it by the implicit context of these interactions? Or is what I acknowledge an understanding of history and culture, race and identity, on a larger scale? Because that, at least, is something that I have studied in classrooms and sought to understand in conversations. What I can truthfully be, and what I hope and want to be, is what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “The White Friend Who Gets It.” The person “who you don’t need to explain shit to… [who] can say stuff that you can’t.” What I am currently seeking to understand is how my appearance and the regular misconception of my race plays into this. I will continue to accept my undeserved social position as “sometimes perceived as a person of color” because if I reject this role, ignore the nods, and refuse to accept incredible kindness, the net result is snubbing people of color because they are people of color, and that’s a horrific thing which I am not ever going to do. Beyond this, it also results in denying a fellow human a point of connection in this world, and that’s wrong even if we did live in a magical world where racism did not exist. If I can create a sense of recognition and safety for another human being, a human being who is regularly looked down on and discriminated against, then it is my duty and my joy to provide that; to create that space in a silent and momentary relationship between us. That is my blessing, to give and to receive. That is my nod. ************ To my fellow white people, then, let me speak about your nod. People of color need more safe spaces in this world (if you don’t believe me, you’ve got some reading to do -- see links at the bottom of this post) and you can help create and foster them. Here are some practical steps to get you started: Be Aware You don’t know what it is like to be a person of color, but you can read books and articles that show you more of what it is like to be a person of color (again, see links at the bottom of this post). Do that.Then, take the knowledge you gain forward into your everyday interactions. Try to pay attention to your own implicit biases, anticipate them, and move to correct them. Don’t try to be color blind, because it actually perpetuates racism. Instead, be aware of your own race and culture, your racial assumptions, and those assumptions that may belong to the person with whom you are speaking. Act accordingly, and act in grace and love. Be Kind Due to implicit bias, people of color aren’t treated nearly as well as white people. They struggle to get a table at a restaurant, they can’t catch a cab, and generally receive poor customer service. So, go out of your way to be nice to people of color. If your actions toward people of color are above and beyond typical, they’re likely to be nearing the treatment white people generally receive. Recognize also that people of color are not accustomed to receiving positive treatment from white people. They may be defensive, and rightfully so. Go out of your way to reassure them: smile a lot, be gracious, make dumb puns -- whatever is well intentioned and effective for putting people at ease. Help diminish the imbalance. Call Out Racism and Xenophobia As a white person, people will listen to you. Use your platform, call people out, use your power and privilege to stand up to people who are acting unjustly towards people of color. Say something. Don’t be a passive bystander who goes home later and posts on Facebook about being appalled. That’s not helpful. Be the White Friend Who Gets It. Talk To Your Fellow White People You can say things to fellow white people that people of color can’t easily bring up due to -- you guessed it -- racism. Use your voice and cultural understanding of whiteness to bring about change. Challenge your friends when they make racial comments, talk to your family about why that thing they said isn’t okay. Speak up. Bottom Line: be aware, be kind, be active. Take an active role in your education. Do your own research, starting here: NPR’s Code Switch, a podcast and accompanying articles on race and identity. The Berkeley Student Cooperative rundown on safe spaces and how to create them. This OSU center, if you’re looking for more scholarly resources. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk. Carol Anderson’s White Rage. This post full of links to articles you should read. This list of reading recommendations for better understanding the Native American experience. This list of reading recommendations for better understanding race and racial experience. This list of things that white allies should read.
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Rebecca Rose“There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.” Archives
March 2017
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