CHAUNCEY’S HEADLANDS

Maybe the glass is half-full? Maybe we should be happy that half the country is not ok with racism and misogyny and open bigotry toward immigrants.  It’d be worse if 90% of Americans thought it was ok to kill unarmed black men, put children in cages, abuse women, etc… But do people come to hold the views they hold? Are my own “progressive” views based on values or interest? I think about white privilege a lot. Hey, I’m white, relatively well off, and from Cambridge.  I thought about it when I had a conversation with a black friend about anti-racist strategies.  I said something along the lines that it matters how you talk to white people. That some comments might unnecessarily hurt someone’s feelings, someone who might be an ally.  His response, understandably, was “it’s not about your feelings.” To which I responded “if my feelings don’t matter why should I care?”  

There are struggles for power going on.  The power of people of color and whites people, of men and women.  Being from Cambridge I was taught at an early age, and never really questioned, the belief that men and whites people have had too much power for too long and needed to give some up (or have it taken from them) so that power was shared equally among people from different groups. More power for women, more for people of color, gay people, very excluded group.  

But why would I want to give up my power as a white person, as a man? Two reasons I think. One, because a core part of my identity is as a “liberal” or “radical” who believes in equality of all people. That’s what I was taught. (And that is also what my peers believe so if I strayed from that I’d need a whole new group of friends, and family!) 

But I don’t think I should be too smug.  I have done well as a man and a white person.  My privilege has got me a long way.  I have never felt as though I would lose anything by women and people of color having more.  (My Latina girlfriend did transfer to Berkeley Law School from Golden Gate Law School, while they rejected me, although we both had similar grades.  It’s not impossible that affirmative action played a role.  But I was ok with that because in my heart I didn’t really believe it would hurt my prospects in life.   And it hasn’t.). So maybe I can afford to fight the fight for the less empowered? What do I have to lose? 

 But what if I either did have something to lose or thought I did? What if I’d come from a poor background and was the first kid in my family to go to college, let alone Law School, and I My Latina girlfriend had worse grades than me and she was accepted to Berkeley but I wasn’t and I was sure it would really set me back? Or, put affirmative action aside altogether, what if I was a poor white kid, first in my family to go to college and there were a limited number of seats and I was competing with recent immigrant kids and didn’t get in and someone told me that if it weren’t for those immigrant kids I would have gotten in? Even if the values of diversity had been instilled in me, or even the values of white people as a whole having less power, would I be the self-proclaimed anti-racist I am today? Would you? You don’t know. 

It has been said at times that those countries that are (in purely relative terms) liberal, tolerant, with social welfare programs, are that way because they are rich.  (And in the case of Norhern Europe until recently, homogenous.)  True of individuals as well? 

So I want to check my white privilege but also check smugness and sense of moral superiority for my ability to do so.  People are the way they are because of where the come from. 

(All of which leads me to an unintended quasi-Marxist realization.  Why “Strong Together”didn’t work for HRC.  For unthreatened, or less threatened, men and whites (coastal elites?) support the struggles for power by women and people of color is great. For men and whites threatened,  actually or in their heads, it sounds stupid. Becaus the question in politics is always: what can you do for me?)

 By the way, I do think all peoples’ feelings matter.  

June 22, 2018

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Don’t ever let your schooling interfere with your education.  – Mark Twain