On White Male Privilege
My 70 years of it
I have to admit that when you get to be my age (seventy), there is a temptation to make pronouncements that ring of wisdom. After all, with decades of life experience behind me, and not so many in front of me, there is an urgency to gather the young at my feet to unveil certain universal truths. I resist. First off, no one can claim to be an “expert” without reservations; the world is too much in flux to claim absolute knowledge of anything (wait! That sounds wise, doesn’t it?). Secondly, how can anyone with the narrow perspective of one life, no matter how well lived, presume to have such a firm grasp on the stream of all life as it flows by? Not me. This all said, given my aforementioned life experiences, I will still claim the right to speak with some authority on the cultural phenomenon some call “white male privilege.”
I am both blessed and cursed to have been raised firmly ensconced in white American suburbia throughout the 1950’s and early 1960’s. One of four sons raised in the Rochester, New York home of a Kodak executive and his devoted housewife, I knew little to nothing of sacrifice and want. By the way, not to be too harsh on my parents, they were both raised in working class families in Toronto during the Great Depression. They worked hard so that their children would not be as deprived as they were. Unfortunately, their dedication to buffering us from the “real world” created an invisible shield around us lacking in genuine empathy. My brothers and I were not mean or vindictive or pitiless actors in our daily lives; it’s just that since we didn’t encounter any real pushback to our world view, we just didn’t know how to walk in another’s shoes. It was easy for us to be racist, homophobic, and sexist and still claim to be “good guys.”
The self-imposed invisibility of our character flaw and its consequent influence on our abilities to really see other human beings as individuals, as opposed to generalizations, is one of the most insidious aspects of this social malady. It seriously hampers genuine self-reflection. And it allows for knee-jerk defensiveness whenever we sense our privilege being threatened. If left unchecked, it could turn us into real assholes.
And, looking around me today, I have to say that there are plenty of those walking around today as my so-called “brothers-in-arms.” They are lashing out. Like the proverbial fish unaware of the water surrounding it, these guys are oblivious to the fact that they are in the belly of an imperial beast swiftly imploding. Not because of the encroachment of “the other” (people of color, women, queers, etc.) but because of the very rot inherent in a structure built on exclusive privilege.
Incapable of self-correction, not to mention compassion and remorse for the world built around their every need at the sacrifice of others, they are becoming increasingly dangerous. And armed. Add to that mix the very embodiment of white, male privilege in our infantile president acting as a malevolent “role model” for public display of grievances, we can all see that a conflagration is in our near future. So what can we do about that? Denial doesn’t work. Guilt tripping over our ancestors’ self-serving discrimination doesn’t either.
But don’t ask me. Back to that earlier point about foisting faux-wisdom on young ears, I resist issuing platitudes and purportedly universal solutions. I can only speak to my individual path, as rock-strewn as it is. I was wrenched out of my slumber not by working in soup kitchens or by joining my brave brothers and sisters in the civil rights movement. Nope. I was drafted into the army. There I was literally forced to share my personal space with young black men from Newark, New Jersey who were becoming increasingly enamored with the Black Panthers movement. And Native Americans from the Southwest who were raised in institutions that thwarted their very individuality. And young punks who were offered the choice between military service or jail because they knocked off a liquor store or were caught with a few joints in their cars. Note that this is 1968, and I was a twenty-one year old college graduate, set down amongst those who knew nothing of my privileged lifestyle.
So I was really in the minority for the first time of my life. I had to learn how to be furtive, careful without being paranoid, invisible to those who wanted to do me harm because I was, well, white. And privileged. I became a kind of icon to be studied in one sense and tested in another. I was objectified. To say it was weird is an understatement. To say that I now knew how my new-found brothers lived their lives would be an insult to them. I knew, deep down in my heart, that this would be a fleeting moment in my life if I were to survive. I would be able to avoid most of the racist forces seething in American cities once I got out of the army. Or so I thought.
I was further shocked out of my complacent life by being sent to the central highlands of Vietnam for 411 days and long, long nights. There I witnessed first-hand the brutal racism of a colonial war. I had enough humanity inside of me to resist becoming a direct instrument of that brutality, but not the moral fiber to stop it. I saw and felt the utterly stupefying weight of institutionalized racism. It wears you down. It turns you inward, counting your own survival as the only barometer of success worth pursuing. To literally turn your eyes away from another soldier physically abusing another human being takes its toll. I am still paying that fare.
So I emerged from that life-changing experience a somewhat chastened soul. I caught more than a glimpse of how this sense of privilege can manifest itself in the most grotesque fashion. I wanted nothing to do with the business world I had been grooming myself for throughout college, for I saw that as yet another institution bent on sacrificing others for the betterment of a few. I became a teacher. That’s not to say that I was able to totally rid myself of the racism, homophobia, and sexism ingrained in my being. But I have been conscious of its past hold on me and its allure for the future. After all, who doesn’t want to be comfortable and secure? But I will try not to gain that comfort at the expense of others. And I will for the rest of my days resist the urge to objectify others and then to rationalize such behavior behind the mask of privilege. And I will pledge to confront that hapless “band of brothers” (i.e., enraged white males) who think I share their views because I too am a white male.
Finally, I share with you two poems I wrote a few years ago when I was called out for racist remarks by a much-respected colleague of mine. We were on the national board of Veterans For Peace and were discussing the painful process of having to dismiss a person on embezzlement charges. Both men are African-American. I was holding forth with what I thought were sensitive, appropriate remarks when my colleague said, “There you go again. You white guys have your own agenda.” I was appalled. “You calling me a racist?” I heatedly asked. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. I knew the answer to that question before I asked it. Back to the drawing boards to reflect once again on my white privilege. I knew then and know now that this is a life-long process.
Talking Man White Privileged Blues
For Michael McPhearson
So this white guy walks into a bar….
No, wait, let’s say this black guy walks into a bar
Just to make it interesting, you see
There is a difference, isn’t there?
At least here in the land of the free.
Me, I’m the white guy — privileged since birth
Member of the most materially blessed subspecies ever to exist:
White, male, middle class dude raised in mid-twentieth century USA
Recipient of non-stares, delicious anonymity, invisible by choice
Until I want something. Which I usually get. Seriously.
But this black guy, what about him?
Can’t teach his daughter to ride a bike
It’s too dangerous out in the streets for either one of them
Can’t run in public places shit can’t drive through most of them
The guy behind the cash register breaks into a cold sweat
when he pushes open the door.
All true. But here’s the catch — this system you built just for me.
You can shove it up your ass.
Don’t want it. Don’t need it.
It’s doing me more harm than good
I don’t want my purchases laced with some poor kid’s blood
But what’s a privileged white guy to do?
Sign up for sensitivity classes? Boycott America? Write letters?
Step off the sidewalk into the streets? Bleed?
These are not rhetorical questions.
My soul is in great need.
Talking White Man Privileged Blues Part II
Some soft late August night
star lit and moonless
a young man kisses his wife
tucks in his kids
and sets out to kill me
Understand that this is no paranoid fantasy
This is 1969
This is LZ Uplift
This is the Central Highlands, Vietnam
This is me coming down from my first mortar attack
Taking a toke on this fact — I now know how it feels
to know someone wants me dead
Not because of who I am
but because of the color
of my uniform
I am shoveling out my driveway almost five decades later
I look to the sky thankful I survived to live this life
follow snowflakes down to settle softly on my boots
I am white, they are white, I am safe once more
under this carefully crafted privileged sky
Huddled in my bunker back then
I knew my time was short
could measure out the days back
to my well feathered nest
No black man was I
coming home to another war zone
knowing there are no black short-timers*
in America
- A “short” service-member or “short-timer” is one who is approaching the end of his tour of duty in Vietnam, usually 13 months for Marines and 12 months for other armed services. Vietnam veteran medic Mike Hastie writes: “There is so much to understand about the short timer period, so much psychology. You don’t want to get blown away with your clearing papers in your back pocket.”
