(this is a very long diary with no real point. I just felt the need to add my voice about race)
I am white. As a good friend here on DailyKos says, the "whitest man in America'. I have pale peach-colored skin (and i'm talking white peaches), blond hair and blue eyes. I am male. My blond, blue-eyed, peachy self announces my maternal ancestry.
Here is my experience of race for what it is worth:
short update in extended
Of Anglo-Scottish descent, my ancestors came from England to the Virginia Tidewater in the 1620's to 1640's . The Scottish ancestors coming later in that century and settled the Virginia Piedmont. My direct ancestry includes the first governor of Virginia (William Berkeley), two signers of the Declaration of Independence (Middleton and Harrison) and two presidents (both Harrisons). That list doesn't include several governors of Virginia and South Carolina and a few other dignitaries. My great-grandfather was the last US commodore of the Navy in WWII. My ancestry is an 'immediate' experience. Stories and history was a huge part of my upbringing. I took my partner on a tour of the Southern coast a few years ago, visiting the plantations (
Middleton in S. Carolina and
Berkeley in Virginia) that my great-grandmothers had grown up on.
So, why am I telling you all this? To set my credentials as one of the 'whitest men in America' (if not the whitest) and to set you up for my experiences of race, which both fit and don't the 'whiteness' one sees.
My first experience of race and the pathology of racism was my own heritage. Though my maternal heritage is the epitomy of anglo whiteness and privilege, my paternal heritage is not. My grandmother is Native American, more specifically
Mattaponi, some of the original inhabitants of what is now Virginia and the decendents of those first native Americans who met those first Anglo settlers (you know, my mother's ancestors).
Though I was thoroughly indoctrinated in the glories of my mother's Anglo heritage, it was my paternal grandmother to whom I was very close, who in many ways helped raise me. I grew up identifying more with my Native heritage and stories than with my Anglo one. I learned the stories, I learned the history, I was fascinated by what customs were still left by word of mouth, even tried to become a 'man' by ingesting jimson weed in a make-shift ritual, wanted to shave the left side of my head and even took a 'totem animal'. Yet the world around me saw me as Anglo and my grandmother, the person I was closest to in this world (along w/ my mother), as Native American. I resented it. I still do in some ways. I am as much "Native" as "Anglo", but I can't claim it, the world won't let me.
It was later that I started to realize that the fact that the world saw me as Anglo that I understood the privilege it afforded me, a privilege my grandmother and her ancestors were never given.
There was a more internal and long lasting struggle. That struggle began the day that I learned that my maternal ancestor William Berkeley and my paternal ancestor Openchancanough fought each other in the 1640's, the latter was killed and the former subjegating my maternal ancestors for good. I was(am) proud of my maternal ancestory, loving their history and contributions to our nation... but I was also intensely proud of my maternal ancestry, their stories, their struggles and their beauty. It was, and still is, difficult to reconcile that one branch of my heritage nearly killed off the other. How to be proud of both of who I am?
My second experience of race was the desegregation of my second grade class (and school) in Arlington Virginia. It was the 60's, the court ordered it. My brother was bused to another school, I remained at Walter Reed Elementary. I remember the day clearly.
My second grade teacher spoke to us the day before, and in her well-meaning, but condescending way, tried to teach us how to 'accept' our new classmates. She explained that they talked different, ate different foods, looked different, and even smelled different, but in spite of that we should treat them nicely.
"What?" I thought, "were they from another country". I hadn't had much experience with black people before that except on the street in town, i lived in a very segregated world.
The next day the new classmates arrived. In the very strange adult logic, they decided to sit us 'white, black, white, black' in the lunch room. I remember, clearly, talking to the girl next to me. She had a similar drawl, she was eating the same meal, she didn't smell any different, she was pretty much like me. Well, she was dark skinned, that was a difference. Still, I thought to myself how stupid my teacher was.
Over the year though, I saw and learned how those differences, real and precieved, affected her life. She was immediately put into the remedial reading class, even though she read better than I did. Did they just assume because she was black she needed reading help? It seemed in so many ways they treated her differently (and worse) because she had darker skin. One day we were talking in the library, a bit too loudly, but I am sure I was the loudest. The librarian came over and berated her and took her out of the library and sent her to the principal. She left me at the table to read. Even as an 8 year old, I understood what happened.
I enjoyed my white privilege (though I of course would not have called it that) that day, and many since.
The third experience of race is a strange one. I became a Mormon when I was 17. At the time (1977), the Mormon Church did not allow blacks to hold the priesthood. Now, this isn't like other churches. In the Mormon church all males are supposed to hold the priesthood. If you don't, you can't go on the required mission, you can't go to the temple, you can't get married in the temple, you can't hold leadership positions in church (it's a lay church, no pastors, all volunteer), you can't even participate in the religious life of the faith (baptisms, temple ceremonies, blessings, etc). The issue of the fact that blacks couldn't hold the priesthood came up before my baptism into the church. I was curious when a friend tried to defend it as saying it wasn't the color of the skin, but the descent. When I told him that my grandmother's (paternal) grandfather was most likely mixed-race (Native American-African) from our family stories, he asked the bishop (a lay pastor of a congregation) who then informed me i would not be able to hold the priesthood because of my distant ancestry (if I had kept my damn mouth shut, I would have been able to participate in that white privilege!). I soon learned what it felt to live as a second-class citizen. I could not go to the temple. I could not go on a mission. Girls wouldn't date me because I couldn't 'take them to the temple', I sat by while my male friends taught classes, prepared the sacrament, held positions, and more. I was left out (even more than the women, but not much more). Luckily for my religious life, the church changed that policy just over a year later. But it left an indelible mark on me.
The fourth experience of race was moving to and living in Korea. I lived with a Korean family, went to a Korean University, spoke fluent Korean, had only Korean friends. I was immersed in Korean life. Yet, I was always 'other'. On the phone the person on the other end of the line could not tell i was not Korean. Once a woman called and asked for my 'mother,', since I called her 'Mom', i answered she was out shopping. The woman proceeded to talk to me and ask me how the family was doing, etc. general small talk. Then she asked me when I was moving to Japan. It was then I realized she thought I was their older son (a college student leaving for grad school in Japan). I explained to her i was their American son. And even though I had just spent 15 minutes speaking to her in fluent Korean, she immediately started to speak in near 'baby talk' and loud so i could understand. That was a minor incident. Nearly every day I learned that being different and a minority came with a very restrictive set of assumptions and expectations. Even the 'good' ones were restrictive and annoying. It was expected that because I was American I represented 'all' Americans (as if i could speak for 300 million people). Most Koreans didn't even know how to talk to me in the very 'hierarchal' language because I didn't 'fit' the system. It was at times suffocating. Don't get me wrong, I love Korea and Koreans, but l learned in those years what it meant to be different and out of the society's system of privilege and even what it meant to be discriminated against not because of an individuals 'racism' but because of the very way the society is structured.
My fifth experience of race is less mine than my sister-in-law's and her and my brother's kids. She is Palestinian and a devout Muslim, so are the two children. Before 9-11 it was not good, after 9-11 it's been hell. She wears a head covering, she has an accent and she's darker skinned. She has been spat on, yelled at and refused service. I've BEEN there when the latter happened, my brother has been at her side for most the other experiences because they happen even when my brother, the fourth most white man in the world (my other two brothers are whiter :), is by her side. His whiteness is no protection.
But also, because of my whiteness, people seem to feel comfortable to express to me their bigotry. They will tell me how hateful Muslims are, they will tell me how evil Islam is ("Yes, all of Islam.. it's evil to the core"), they me that Muslims believe this and do that when I KNOW it's bullshit (well, thats nothing new, i got/get that about Mormons all the time).
The sixth experience of race.. well not race per se, but discrimination and the feeling of second class citizenship, has been since coming out as a gay man, having a partner and raising a child together and feeling the weight of the legal inequality our family is subjected to daily.
The last experience of race is a new and ongoing one. My partner and I adopted a baby girl four years ago. She is of African descent. The experiences of a white man raising a black child are deep and broad. It started from day one when we realized the politics and economics of adoption (black children are cheaper to adopt, it made me cringe to say the least) and continues to today. It wasn't long before I realized in a very deep and abiding way, that the little sweet, extremely joy-filled little girl who loves dancing, art and animals and who we see as nothing more than our sweet daughter and individual will step out the door and been seen not as an individual but as a 'black girl' with all the baggage that this entails in our society. (just one example, she is tall and black... everyone will mention, invariably, that she'll be a great basketball player. Not a dancer (she loves dance), not a scientist (she's fascinated by bugs and animals and has a biologist as a father), not an artist (she far and away ahead of her age in artistic endevours). No, even when they get to know her a bit, its basketball (or tennis like 'those sisters'). Damn it people... give her some ROOM to be something she WANTS to be.
I write least about this experience because this is the one that I have most to write about. A lot of it is on my blog, but not near enough. The rest is in my private journals, perhaps someday I'll write more.
This is all to say that even given all this, I HATE TO TALK ABOUT RACE.
It's a pathological subject in this country. I can't speak to some 'people of color' (how I HATE that term) because certain assumptions or resentments about my whiteness invariably get expressed, assumptions that are so wrong and unfair. Anger ensues if I don't be careful about the eggshells I'm about to trod on. I am condescendly told how I can and can not speak about race. I can't speak to some 'white' people (another term that pisses me off) because they will get angry if I call them on a racist attitude or even barely express that yes.. we do enjoy white privilege. I will invariably get the 'guilty liberal' label from my more conservative 'white' friends (and some 'non-white' friends) or will be chastized for my 'revisionist' history (you are damn right it's revision, the falseness that is our history now NEEDS revision).
I'm am not, by any means, perfect. I still hold racist attitudes, I don't speak up enough.
but it all angers me. I want to live in a world that 'race' is no more an issue than 'oh, that's were my ancestors are from' interest. I want my daughter to grow up in a world where she won't be labeled and treated differently because of the color of her skin. I want want her to be able to be who she is because of who she is. I want her to grow up in the bubble that is our life now... her class has no racial or ethnic majority. In fact, of the 36 kids, 5 are mixed race (parents of two different groups), 4 are from transracial families (parents different group backgrounds than children, 6 are adopted, and 7 are from GLBT families. There children of African, Asian, South Asian, Native American, European and South American descent, some of several. They speak Spanish, Chinese, German, Swedish, Japanese, Turkish and English at home. My daughter's family includes people of Palestinian descent (her aunt), African descent (her uncle, her three cousins) and Swedish descent (her soon-to-be Aunt), they are Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, Catholic and Lutheran (and that's just the uncles and aunts).
I want her to grow up in that bubble, where race is an interesting and beloved side note, but nothing more. Heck, its the bubble I want to live in.
I want to tell the outside world, with all its pathological problems with race and ethnicity to go 'f%^% off' and leave me alone. Heck, I want to tell you all that here on DailyKos as I read the pathology even here.
But I know that will do nothing for me or for our daughter. The bubble can only last so long as it is ephemeral as bubbles always are. We need to learn to understand the pathology, to deal with the racism, to learn the language to communicate with honesty, to set aside our baggage, to engage.
That is where I lack. Because I only feel anger, resentment and depression when talking about race with the outside world and I get the impression that most of us do. How to get past that?
Armando and others are right, we need to learn to talk about it. We all need to get past the anger, we all need to get past the assumptions, we all need to get past the resentment. Frankly, I don't know how this is to be accomplished. We need a therapist (or a thousand).
And there needs to be a change, I just am still not sure how that change is going to come about when talking about it is so difficult.
update Wow, thanks for recommending :). Perhaps this is a good place to start writing your own experiences? what are they? Good, bad, indifferent. Experiences that shaped your views. Lets try not to judge too quickly or harshly. Maybe listen for now. If they are long, post them in a diary and link to it in the comments.
i don't know.. maybe i'll (we'll learn something). :)