What do you mean, White Privilege? by David Maxwell

It’s a really good thing that many discussions on racism in this country are focusing on the cause of the problem–white racism and white violence. This week, four white people will blog about whiteness and what we believe can be done. Thanks for reading!

• What do you mean, white privilege? By David Maxwell
• Parenting While ‘White’ by Jennifer Harvey
• Islamophobia by Donald Mead
• Becoming an Active Racial Justice Congregation by Tricia Lloyd Sidle
• What Can White People Do? by David Maxwell

What do you mean white privilege?

In my mid 30’s some cosmic revelation said it was time to get a decent paying job with health benefits, buy a house, and settle down. We’re an interracial couple and we wanted to find a racially diverse neighborhood, but everyone said that buying a house is an investment (location, location, location) so we bought a small house in a trendy, liberal, mainly white section of town. We were warned that houses in non-white sections of Louisville don’t hold their value. We enjoy our neighbors, many work in helping professions and do good for others.

There was a recent incident of a guy flying a confederate flag on his porch. At the neighborhood council meeting most everyone (all white) rolled their eyes. “Oh that Ralph. Just ignore him. He’s crazy, but harmless.”

Overall, I feel good about myself. I work hard, pay my taxes. I give to charity and do volunteer work. I hate the racism in this country, but what can I do?

My name is David. I’m white and privileged. (Everyone) Hi David.

I’ve come to learn that my story wreaks of white privilege. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve played the game well. The problem is the game is rigged to reward me if I play it well, while non-white players generally begin from behind and are given a different set of rules with little or no rewards. I was born into this game, benefit from it, and need to help change it.

• Access to better education. Public schools in my hometown of Tulsa were de facto segregated with many more resources going to the white schools, where most families already had one “non-working” parent at home to help their child succeed in school.
• Community support. Teachers, parents, neighbors, pastors, friends. Everyone told me I’d be a success. I don’t ever remember thinking I might NOT get to go to college.
• Family privilege. My parents paid for my public college expenses. Because they could. (I’m grateful of course.) At 22 I had a college degree, no debt, and no one I had to take care of.
• Access to a safety net. I was certain I’d never be homeless. Thus, I had the freedom to follow my dreams in my 20’s and 30’s. Everyone thought it was courageous and cute that I took off to save the world.
• Financial advantage. Banks tripped over each other offering me low interest loans to purchase our home in this predominantly white neighborhood. Redlining is no longer legal, but “market analysis” is, and lower-income residents in this town have little chance of a loan. Homes in historically Black neighborhoods have little chance of increasing in value and being an investment for later in life.
• Freedom from fear. White people are not the targets of racists, so we don’t feel threatened by Confederate flags. Ask 99% of people of color (there’s always a Ben Carson or Clarence Thomas) and they’ll assure you Confederate flag equals racist threat. People of color knew the Confederate flag was flying in our neighborhood. Most white people never noticed.
• Action is a choice. As a beneficiary of a racist system I don’t have to see racism and I don’t have to do anything about it.

The Need to Focus on Whiteness

I’ve always felt strange checking the “white” box on forms that ask for race/ethnicity. Certainly, I’m very light skinned, but most of the other categories are ethnicities aren’t they? People are grouped together based on common language, culture, customs. What is white? I know I descended from Scots-Irish and German immigrants several generations ago. So, why white?

In Dear White Christians, Jennifer Harvey explains that the term white emerged simultaneously with the effort to construct a system of forced, legal enslavement of Africans brought against their will to this country. Whiteness quickly became the category all ethnic groups aspired to join to gain access to power and privilege in a country whose founding documents deemed some as less than human. If the system allows it, drop your Italian/German/French/Scandinavian/Dutch/Irish customs and join the white club. You can have a day of the year to get drunk, have a parade and celebrate your ethnic heritage in exchange for participating in this system based on skin color. Indeed, where skin color has been used as a category – here, and in South Africa –  it has been used to discriminate and do harm.

Our government and institutions were constructed on this system of white privilege which allowed some to benefit off the backs of others. Many founders, including George Washington, owned enslaved Africans. Police forces were created to enforce this system and have consistently resisted change. A legal system, violence, intimidation, religious institutions and many of their theologians, financial institutions, all have worked to create, legitimate, and enforce this system. Just as it took the government and social institutions to create this mess, it will take government and social institutions to dismantle it.

I believe as a white man I do have a choice. I can bury my head in the white sand of privilege and believe alternative facts, or I can get used to being uncomfortable with unfair privilege, learn about what must be done to achieve racial justice, and join efforts to effect real change.

David Maxwell is a white, Presbyterian minister and acquisitions editor at Westminster John Knox Press in Louisville, Kentucky.