Confession of A Guy Who Thinks he is White (apologies to James Baldwin & Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Peter Schmitt
Jul 30, 2017 · 4 min read

I was born a white American male in 1955. I was dealt an ace. Not due to any merit on my part. So let’s begin with a confession: those of us dealt the ace of being white males in the early 21st century indeed enjoy unmerited privilege. This is not a confession of a personal sin, though all of us have plenty of them. I rather hope this confession is a new beginning…

People who look like me grew up believing in what is called a “meritocracy,” an important component of today’s American Dream. They posit that I somehow deserved my ace. They hold that most of what happens in life is earned, with only a small portion attributable to random events, luck, or circumstance. It is not color or class that determine the possibilities of one’s life, rather it is family values, hard work, the American way.

I do not buy it. I did nothing to earn that ace, it was dealt to me. What happens in life is complex, and in my view, the importance of circumstance and chance in life need to be re-calibrated. I’m a fan of Pareto, and propose the following hypothesis: 80% of what happens stems from events outside of our control (our family, race, class, etc.), 20% from our own efforts.

Often many of us who think we are white, who were dealt an ace or face card of some sort, like to talk about the problem of “entitlement” but seldom discuss the problem of “privilege.” The implication behind entitlement is that someone gains access to something without “earning” it — and the word is typically projected along racial and class lines. Privilege on the other hand is for “special” people — in our society so designated by social class, race, and gender. Indeed, over the course of human history, privilege refers to the elite, the aristocracy, the upper class. Somewhat ironically “entitlement” is seen as being given something without earning it, while “privilege” is ontological — it belongs to the essence of one’s self, as in the pigment in one’s skin, one’s gender, or the family of one’s birth. Or so we are led to believe…

People who look like me (and me as well) want to feel good about ourselves and the cards we were dealt. Responsibility for errors, guilt, etc., are not part of today’s happiness equation. It is convenient, then, for many to simply say, rather indignantly, that “I didn’t benefit from slavery,” not so much because of a careful study of the veracity of that statement, as a “gut” or emotional reaction to a threat to one’s self image. To one’s persona.

Persona comes from the Greek for mask. Our persona is the mask we project to the world. For over 300 years, a comfortable mask for white males is that it is the entrepreneurial spirit, culture, values, hard work, skill, etc., that explain one’s given social status, not privilege. But the mask at best is based on a small portion of the truth, and ignores or denies what is impossible to negate.

umair haque points out that not acknowledging this larger truth is consequential.

… there is a great — and deeply repressed — sense of guilt in the American soul. Guilt for what? Guilt for all its original sins. Slavery, segregation, ethnic cleansing, and so on. Guilt for all its current failures. While we might want to pretend these things didn’t really happen that badly, or didn’t really matter so much — as Americans are taught in high school — no working soul can escape the profound and terrible sense of guilt they create. My society, my forefathers, my people — they did this to one another? This is the hidden truth of us? Any and every soul that functions morally must ask.

Confession has multiple meanings. An individual can confess a personal sin; and many of the privileged loudly note that they have no such culpability. But a confession is also an acknowledgement or an avowal of a change of conviction or course of conduct. It is time for such a confession: that what we have and enjoy in America is not just merited, but the result of the sins of our ancestors and passed on through the fortune of birth disproportionately to we who think we are white. Such a confession can enrage and/or terrify many Americans. At the base of those emotions is fear: the fear of losing what one believes one has earned and what one owns. It is this fear that continues, at various levels of consciousness, to fuel this vicious dance. It is extraordinary difficult to learn a better way. Yet urgently required. And it begins with a simple confession…

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