At the Expense of Comfort

During last semester’s hunger strike, one of the strikers called one of his fellow students “white.” While to this student and some others this was a shocking expression of racism and insensitivity, I understood that the striker was trying to say that someone who is white might have different perspectives on the hunger strike and issues of race and racism due to white privilege. This seems like a reasonable point and an entrée into questions that could further the dialog between the striker and his white interlocutor. Instead, for the questioner and some who heard about this exchange, it shut down the debate. I find this dynamic repeated constantly and tragically on campus and in our society at large. Certainly there are unproductive ways to talk about race, especially as it is taken as an immutable biological or cultural phenomenon. But to call out whiteness as a social fact—dynamic, normative, and potent—is a necessary step in any process whereby all people can honestly confront the problems of racism and understand how it relates to our daily lives and campus events like the hunger strike.

Coming face-to-face with what it means to be racialized as white and its consequences for not only a white individual, but also for non-white people, can be a disturbing and uncomfortable affair. I might have plenty of European genes, some from slavery and some from loving relationships, but I don’t exactly know that feeling (Thanks one-drop rule!). I can relate, though. It might feel somewhat like when I think about being a man, or having class privilege, or benefiting from heterosexism. As much as I know I have to confront those identities and social forces, it’s not pleasant or easy to do so. Now, sometimes the weight of this coming to terms can cause despair or feelings of emptiness as well as self-absorbed guilt. Those feelings aren’t going to help anyone. I’m not going to be soft here; there may not be anything redeemable about whiteness. People racialized as white can certainly do a lot to own up to their identity, and ultimately betray it, as some antiracist activists and theorists would put it.

To do this, white people have to realize that race and racism matters to them—not just in the abstract sense of justice or righting the world’s wrongs, but in an intimate and personal way. Being racialized as white can bring a lot of privileges, but it is also a deforming and dehumanizing process. It’s not as bad in an absolute sense as the hell people of color catch all the time or their dehumanization, but nevertheless, white people suffer from racism too. Feelings of white guilt can be paralyzing and isolating, and furthermore, unexamined privilege can foreclose possibilities for understanding the world and developing relationships, confining and narrowing the social realities which white people can inhabit. One of my greatest fears about writing a series of columns that would deal with race, among other things, is that many white folks would think that what I had to say did not matter to them, that I was only speaking to my fellow people of color. This is a broader social phenomenon reinforced by my personal experience of Core class conversations and the oft-repeated criticism of Under One Roof sessions that they are designed to make white people feel bad about what they’ve done to people of color. Working through race and racism is not simply a charitable act for the poor people of color, it’s necessary to free white people too from the manacles of an oppressive identity.

I’m not the first person, white or otherwise, to write about white privilege in Spectator, which is a good thing. But, one of the funny things about some of the groups that I am in that deal with racism is that the people of color in the group often have to rely on a select few white people who “get it” to communicate with other white people about white privilege, like some kind of translator. These folks are great examples of how dealing with white privilege is not an impossible feat, and I know that intra-group caucusing is important, but I find it terribly disturbing how hard it seems for me or other people of color to be listened to seriously when we talk about whiteness. If you’re familiar with W.E.B. Du Bois and “Double Consciousness” or have read James Baldwin, you’ll understand that people of color are only all too painfully aware and understanding of whiteness and can be quite insightful to boot. I’m not putting myself anywhere near the level of those two gentlemen, but I would hope that white folks would entertain my thoughts on whiteness and white privilege with as much seriousness as they would another white person.

Christien Tompkins is a Columbia College senior majoring in African-American studies. Freedom Dreams runs alternate Thursdays.
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