The Double-Edged Sword of White Privilege

So says the spokesperson for a conspicuously monochromatic group demonstration.

The most unintentionally ironic line uttered during the Support Darren Wilson rally is as follows: "Can justice ever be attained if one side's supporters are living in fear of speaking out?" The answer, of course, is no. Just not for the reasons she thinks. Justice cannot be achieved when an entire group of people lives in fear of speaking out, and the protests in Ferguson over the killing of Michael Brown are a direct result of just such a group casting aside that fear to demand, at long last, justice.

What has long irked me about these sorts of demonstrations in support of the status quo is the mindset which must necessarily inspire them. As is evident in the video above, the woman speaking—and being cheered by the crowd in the process—appears to believe quite sincerely that she is one of the beleaguered and the oppressed. Being a white person myself, I know for a fact that at one point in my life I held this same mistaken view of my lot, but it was based in a fundamental ignorance of how good I actually have it as a straight, white male in this culture. I believed that because I hadn't had everything handed to me in life that I understood what it meant to suffer injustice, and to an extent that is in fact the case. We all experience things which are unfair to us. We've all missed out on important things in life because someone decided to behave selfishly or cruelly. My father was fond (and I do mean fond) of pointing out to me the fact that life is not fair. He was right. It's not fair, but what he and I as straight, white men in this culture do not, in fact cannot, understand is just how much more unfair it is to anyone who isn't a straight, white male. This is not to suggest that straight, white men lack the mental capacity to comprehend how much better we have it. It is to suggest that we have no access to any means of directly experiencing how much worse others do.

While white people in this culture do not necessarily experience more favorable outcomes in life than every other non-white person, we do have a much smoother path to achieve those favorable outcomes—most especially if one is straight and male—and therein lies the error white people make when we find ourselves standing before a respectably sized crowd of other white people bemoaning how unfairly we're being treated at a time such as now in a place such as Ferguson, Missouri and the surrounding area where this rally in support of Michael Brown's killer was held. There is a subset of white people in this nation, or perhaps the subset is the group for whom what I'm about to describe is not the case, who are convinced that because they can point to non-white people with significantly more money or power or education than they have themselves it then necessarily follows that everyone everywhere is totally equal in our society. I would suggest that the vast majority of white people who hold that view also hold that they themselves have never been racist or sexist. They have non-white friends, after all. They have commiserated with women they know about sexism and sexual harassment, but one must wonder what those they claim are their non-white friends, as well as the women with whom they've commiserated, would have to say about such matters. Oddly, we very rarely hear that side of the story since, apparently, white people believe that simply by invoking the infamous "some of my best friends are [insert name of group here]" defense we have done all that is required to justify ourselves and our views.

I recall an incident in my life several years back when I was first beginning to become aware of how much privilege I've been bestowed by virtue of being born who I was, where I was, and when I was (and literally for no better reasons). So I asked a lesbian friend about something I had often said as a means, I thought, of expressing my solidarity with those who were promoting the cause of marriage equality. In brief paraphrase, the exchange was as follows:

Me- You know how I often say that your marriage is just as valid in my eyes as mine is even though mine is officially recognized while yours isn't? Is it wrong of me to believe that?

Her- Yes.

(scene)

What that experience taught me, and I had to really think about it for an embarrassingly long time to suss it all out, was that while the larger attitude I had adopted which said that same-sex marriage is equally valid and valuable and meaningful is both laudable and correct, it's not enough. The fact is that our society was (and, by and large, still is) refusing to admit same-sex couples into a class to which my admittance was guaranteed and unchallengeable. Unless and until that changed, it didn't actually matter how high-minded I was about the issue because reality differs from my convictions. It isn't possible for me to hold, in any appreciable way, the attitude that her marriage was as valid as my own because the reality in which we live did not allow her to enter into a marriage that was, in point of fact, as valid as my own. Believing in the principle of it is a necessary condition for justice to be done, but it isn't a sufficient one. We white people often pat ourselves on the back because we've managed to convince ourselves that, simply because we say the right things and honestly believe them, we've done enough. We've done our bit, and now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the rest of the world to recognize how awesome we are and join us. That is the sort of thinking that is only possible when one's privileged reality has prevented an understanding of the fact that those who lack that same privilege are barred from an existence you take for granted.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (yes, a white man is about to invoke the most emblematic American civil rights leader of all time but please do your best to keep your entirely understandable cringing at bay long enough to allow me to acquit myself in this thing) made famous the phrase, "Justice delayed is justice denied." To me, at least, the truth of that statement is both intuitive and powerful, but I had no idea for most of my life that I really didn't understand it. My response to it was to think, "Wow, that's such a profound thing to say, and it's clearly true." Then I would go about my day without actually considering what it might mean to me if, say, I had to experience such a delay in justice. I operate under the assumption, inadvisable as it may be, that if I should need to seek justice then I will both find it and do so in a timely manner. My experience thus far has not done much to contradict that assumption, and hopefully things will remain that way. But other people who aren't straight, white men in this culture cannot afford to operate under such an assumption. Reality doesn't permit them to, and just because I've got mine it does not then follow that I am blameless in the fact that others do not have theirs. This is the mental ascent I've found is most difficult for white people to make.

The fact that I, as an individual, have not personally committed some grave injustice against any individual or group does not lift from me the responsibility I bear for the injustices others suffer as a result of the system which has been tailor-made to benefit people like me. That's the flip side of privilege. While I did nothing to deserve the privilege with which I have been bestowed, I also can do nothing to abandon it. No matter what I say or believe or do, the system under which we all live benefits me in ways it does not benefit others who differ from me, and so long as that systemic injustice remains I cannot be absolved of the guilt for it. Even if I speak out in support of equality, even if I put my reputation and my body on the line in defense of the cause of equality for all, until such time as equality for all becomes a reality the responsibility for the injustice of inequality falls on me along with everyone else who benefits at the cost of others. All of us who share this guilt would do well to remember that, should we find ourselves angry about our lot, it's not the people who suffer in this system who are at fault. Uprisings such as what we've witnessed in Ferguson do not shift the responsibility for these injustices to those who have decided to protest what they have borne without respite for a lifetime. It's the fault of everyone who came before us to build and maintain this unjust system. Our anger is rightly directed at our ancestors who first committed these injustices then codified them, built them into a system rigged to preserve our undeserved privilege while offering just enough window-dressing to allow us a means to assuage any guilt which might arise—provided we don't look too closely—and ultimately at ourselves for being so slow to recognize what we've been doing to others without so much as a second thought about how this system we so enjoy came into being and to what purpose. Since we can't hold the dead accountable, we're really only left with one group we can hold accountable: Ourselves.