Dear white people: I’m white too. Let’s have a chat.
Are you a white person? If so, did you feel slightly uneasy while reading the title? Be honest with yourself. How many times has the phrase dear white people triggered something in you that can best be described as an unpleasant cocktail of incomprehension, shame and fear? Do not worry, I feel the same, because we are chatting about race. Specifically, why do most white people come across as oblivious, condescending, dismissive or defensive when someone pulls the ‘race-card’ on them?
That strange unsettling feeling a white person gets in these incongruous moments has a name: it is called white fragility. Did the feeling just kick in again? Good. That defines white fragility. It occurs when our whiteness is played against us. For example, whiteness protects us from being stopped by the police for an extensive body-search. It is a positive thing in our lives. But it is also a racist situation. So, when someone says our whiteness makes us guilty of white privilege, we gasp, dodge the remark and bring back the subject of the conversation to a lighter topic.
But the truth is, our whiteness does bring good things to our lives. Leaving aside the ‘free from racial profiling stop-and-frisk’ card, our whiteness makes it easier to sign a lease on a flat, get access to credit, and find a good job. Search Google for racist letting agents if you are in doubt. It also gives us a friendly environment, where the role models are primarily white and a culture that celebrates whiteness through its artists, thinkers, and leaders. Have a look at who’s starring in the next movie, or who’s in executive positions at work or in your university. In our minds, white = good. And rightly so, because whiteness brings with it a set of advantages. But it is important that we realize we enjoy these advantages solely due to the color of our skin. In other words, we enjoy white privilege.
With that in mind, we can return to white fragility. Why do we feel uneasy when confronted with the fact that we enjoy white privilege? Well, hopefully, because we feel that being advantaged in life just because we are born white is not right. And we do not want to have anything to do with something that is so blatantly wrong.
Here is the good news: we are decent human beings! We are not racists, because we do not like the idea of racial discrimination. Now here is the bad news: we might not be racist, but we still enjoy white privilege. You and I, dear white people, will continue to wake up every day free from the fear of being searched and shot by the police because we ‘look suspicious’. As much as we might despise the concept of racism, we live within a system that has institutionalized it.
This is where the power of white fragility lies. We do not want to be accused of something we ourselves define as unjust. We are just passengers on a train, and will you please tell us why it is our fault if the tracks follow a particular (racist) way? So, we dismiss the comment as unfair because we did not personally build the racist institutions that benefit us. We did not lay down the train tracks, we are only riding the train, therefore we cannot be guilty. But now ask yourselves this: if white people benefit from the train-line, and if we believe that the route is unjust, then should we not be obliged to do something about it? It seems to me that we have a moral obligation to actively dismantle the tracks that keep our train on a racist ride. The question of course, is how.
The first step is to acknowledge that from the day we were born we enjoyed and continue to enjoy white privilege. We cannot dismantle and rebuild if we do not understand what is wrong with the current layout.
The second step is to stop talking as if we know best, accept that we are ignorant, listen and learn how to fight racism. The best way to do so is by learning from persons of color. Here are a few ways to start. We need to read up on black history. We need to diversify our news sources to have the point of view of racialized persons. We need to study the workings of institutional racism and its effects. We can also swap our regular Netflix show for Dear White People, a provocative series on racism in universities.
The third step is to engage. Some people call this being a white ally, meaning that we, as white people, understand and accept our privilege. We have learned enough to know what the new destination is and how to rebuild the tracks to get there. Personally, I am still at step two so I have no advice to give. Here, however, are some thoughts from others. Char Adams writes in Teen Vogue about what white people can do to support racialized peoples. Paul Kivel synthesized his book Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Social Justice. Johnny Silvercloud, founder of AfroSapiophile, urges us to become white assets.
Dear white people, I hope I have convinced you that there is no harm in recognizing white privilege. Quite the contrary, for those of us who truly believe racism is wrong, recognizing our white privilege and white fragility is the first step towards enacting meaningful change through insightful education. And while the road ahead will most definitely be hard and exhausting, we must never forget that our sisters and brothers of color have been suffering much worst for much longer. We have no right to remain silent, much less complain. We have a duty to fight for them, with them, for all of us.
Edited by Maryam Elahi
