Racism, White Privilege, and White guilt.
This article is about my own experience with racism along with the controversy behind YouTuber Tana Mongeau’s video regarding white privilege and white guilt.
The other day I was walking with my friend in the parking lot at the mall, laughing and talking about what we were planning on doing after graduation. This man drove past us and yelled “ching chong ching chong” out of the window and my face instantly dropped. I did not know how to react. I looked into the car window and saw a white man who looked to be in his late twenties. He was laughing and driving slowly while my friend and I kept walking forward. A similar situation happened to me when I was in high school. I grew up in a white neighborhood, went to a school with basically all white teachers, and had a lot of white friends. My “friends” in high school did not think it was a big deal to squint their eyes and ask me if I ate dogs with chopsticks. I was hurt, but I kept my mouth shut. I dated a boy my junior year of high school who did not understand how he was privileged despite the fact that his parents bought him two cars and he did not have to have a job because his father would give him 300 dollars to spend every week. I grew up with white privilege all around me and with white people saying racist jokes. White privilege exists but a lot of white people do not realize their privilege. Being white comes with perks that a lot of minority people of color do not receive. One of my problems regarding white privilege is that it often comes with white guilt which can result in unnecessary “pain” that white people like to think that they feel because they feel bad for people of color. Acknowledging racism is good, but turning that racism around and making it about yourself, if you are white, is not good.
I watched a YouTube video the other day of someone that I am subscribed to and usually love to watch. Tana Mongeau, a white teenage girl, made a video titled The N Word where she talks about how appalled she was because one of her fans screamed the “N word” in front of her. She described how scared she felt for life as she began to tear up in the video. I had very conflicted feelings while watching this video. I did not understand why Tana, who is a white teenage girl, was “scared for her life” because another person yelled the “N word” in front of her. It is very different being an African American women and hearing someone scream that at you, versus being a white women and hearing that word. The “N word” is now so normalized in music, media, and culture that it is no longer a surprise to hear the word being used colloquially. Nevertheless, the “N word” has historical connotations of hatred and dehumanization, but being “scared for your life” as a white teenage girl hearing that word is dramatic and it hints at having white guilt.
I do think that Tana had good intentions making this video. She described how she could not imagine how African American people feel hearing racists comments, how she believes that white privilege is such a major issue, and how we should all preach for equality. However, Tana herself is rich and white and reacted as though the “N word” was meant to offend her and her race. Tana, because she is white, has never experienced the true hatred and racism behind the “N word” and has actually been protected by her skin color from such racism and hostility.
Yet, she is filled with such emotion by this word. Watching this video, I could not help but think about how much she was milking the victim card. Why is she so offended and scared by this word being said to her? She even mentions in the video how this situation reminded her of Christina Grimmie’s situation, which is an incredible exaggeration on Tana’s behalf because Christina Grimmie was shot and died. Although Tana claims that she recognizes that white privilege is such a huge problem, the even bigger problem is that she does not recognize her own white privilege. Tana is comparing her very mediocre situation, to a life and death situation that happened to Christina. Tana had the privilege of having her manager escort this fan off of her meet and greet. If it were an African American women on the street and someone screamed this word at her, would that women have had the same privilege of having someone escort that person away? Tana’s own white guilt results in her being so “effected” by this word that is not meant to offend her. After I watched this video, I was scrolling through the comments and read this comment that I felt described my feelings about this video exactly.
