You Are Not Who You Think You Are: Understanding the Social Conditioning of White Men
The following is adapted from Grappling by Andrew Horning.
Frustrating a group of White men can be easy. All you have to do is observe out loud that who they think they are is really just the sum of training.
Granted, it’s a training they didn’t know they were involved in, but it’s training nonetheless. Though each man in the group may have different names, they are all more or less a variation of a generic White person dictated by White socialization. (I say this as a White man myself.)
Most would respond with indignation, but that’s because they don’t understand how pervasive and invasive socialization can be. If they understood just how much they’d been unconsciously programmed, they’d be truly upset, and they’d want to do something about it.
An Invisible Looking-Glass
Sociologist Charles Cooley developed an early understanding of socialization with his concept of the looking-glass self. He theorized that individuals form their identity not in solitude but in social settings and that how we are perceived plays a huge influence on our self-concept.
He writes, “I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” This is the process of socialization.
It’s hard for Whites to see our socialization because we are the dominant group. Everywhere we look, we see ourselves mirrored back so that we can’t see the contrast between us and others. This gives us a sense that White is the norm and everything else is the deviance. We’re like the Greenwich Mean Time of race, we think.
And for White men there’s even more of a world created in our own image — not by God, by other White men. We see ourselves as presidents, as pictures on currency, as movie heroes defeating the bad guy who is often easily distinguishable because he’s other than a White man. We are swimming in White socialization like fish who do not know they’re breathing water.
Part of what keeps it in place is its invisibility to us. And we don’t want to get out. And why would we when society flatters us everywhere and enables our belief in our own exceptionality? And besides, what else is there but this “normal”?
Well, reality.
Uncovering Your Real Self
Beyond your social conditioning is the real you, stifling underneath all those layers of conditioning. A great you, a larger you, a deeper you, a richer you. You can live that way, more authentically and more happily, but first you have to accept that you have been socialized and given a constructed identity. Like Jason Bourne, you are living out an agenda you did not choose.
It can be hard to accept because it’s so hard to see, but it’s the first piece of grappling you must do. If you feel defensive about how much of you is actually socialization disguised as you, that’s a good place to start.
That defensiveness is a symptom of the fragility most White people develop as a result of being part of the dominant group. It rears up because our culture preaches rugged individualism and self-determination and lets us tell ourselves we are independent of socialization.
Imagine you are Black or brown in this country and most of the images of power, wealth, and beauty you see are White. Because you’re not White, you know this message is mostly for Whites: “Here’s how to look, here’s your future job, here’s your future house.”
To us it looks “normal” — it’s us being mirrored back to us. We don’t question it. But everyone else sees the contrast to themselves and recognizes this as White socialization in progress, training Whites to expect certain things and behave in certain ways. Training Whites to expect privilege.
The truth is you have been deeply shaped by socialization. To acknowledge it is to begin to start to separate your real self from your socialized identity.
Two Americas
After the attacks by a largely White crowd on the Capitol building, LeBron James wrote, “We live in two Americas.” The White America is the one where horses and rubber bullets and tear gas don’t greet them — even when they get violent — as they do crowds protesting on behalf of Black rights.
While Blacks have had to endure and grapple with what W. E. B. DuBois called a “double consciousness” — that of being Black in a White world — Whites have never had that struggle. Whites’ single consciousness has left us weaker, fragile. It’s flattened our ability to see things as they are, to see multidimensionally.
“Weak” and “fragile” are appropriate words to use here, because being able to see the full, multidimensional reality is a strength. And it’s a strength you, too, can have, if you’re willing to do the work of understanding and unlearning your social conditioning.
For more advice on how to become the best man you can be, by grappling with the tough issues and conversations, you can find Grappling on Amazon.
Andrew Horning is a coach and teacher at the Hoffman Institute, an organization dedicated to transformative education, spiritual growth, and dimensional leadership for those seeking clarity in their personal and professional lives. As the creator and host of the podcast Elephant Talk, Andrew encourages couples to have courageous conversations for the sake of a deeper connection. He’s the co-host of The Hoffman Podcast, a keynote speaker, and a volunteer and former board chair for Intercambio Uniting Communities. Andrew earned his master’s degree in clinical social work from the University of Michigan and is a former licensed private-practice psychotherapist. He lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife of nearly two decades and their two children.
