The wikipedia definition of white privilege is this: In critical race theory, white privilege is a set of advantages enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). Theorists differentiate it from racism or prejudice because, they say, a person who may benefit from white privilege is not necessarily racist or prejudiced and may be unaware of having any privileges reserved only for whites.
Do other white adoptive parents with kids of color think about how white privilege might play into their family relationships as our families grow and mature? Are others as confused about this as I have been?
As embarrassing as some of this may be for me, I would like to give a brief synopsis how I have come to understand this concept of white privilege by using personal examples. It helps me (and maybe other white people) to think about our experiences with race as real. To think about white culture as real. To reflect on our own upbringing and the fact that we were carefully taught how to be white and how to succeed in white culture and that this is not a race-neutral event.
This is my way of recognizing white privilege. Privilege that has allowed me to at times be able to hide my ignorance, not push myself to understand someone else’s point of view and has also allowed me when it is not convenient, to not face harsh realities of race in America. This topic is not fun to think about, it can feel very personal, but is essential in dealing with openly and honestly. Especially important for our trans-racially adoptive families with white parents and kids of color, but all whites need to begin these conversations openly and honestly.
I am not an expert in this topic, only an expert on my own life and experiences. Although it would be interesting and I believe is necessary for white people to understand, I am not here to teach the history of white privilege as an academic exercise. My intention is simply to share my personal experiences and journey in understanding how my race has impacted my life using white privilege as a guide.
My greatest learning curve was in understanding myself and my inner journey within regards to my race, makes sense for me to start there.
I am a white woman, wife and mom to three children – two we adopted. Our daughter is from China and our first son is from South Korea. Our third child, another son, was born to us. I am involved in our local Korean American and adoption communities and have served on numerous volunteer boards mainly around issues of social justice, diversity and bridging diverse communities. I like to think that even if we had not adopted kids of color, I would still be on this journey, but the truth is, that I probably wouldn’t have the bravery and sense of urgency that have only come from being a parent when your kids needs are involved.
I was raised in an upper middle class mostly white suburb of Detroit, a metro community that while boasting one of the most racially and ethnically diverse communities in the country, is also the second most racially segregated cities in the north; after Gary, Indiana.
By the 1950’s within the Metro Detroit community, many African Americans, thanks to the auto company’s good wages and the strong economy that surrounded that industry, while reaching economic stability higher than that of African Americans in other metro communities around the US, still faired worse than the local white community. Detroit has a long history of racist policies and practices, not unlike many other cities.
This brings me to 1968, where I come in – literally - the year of my birth, March 20th. Within that first year of my life, many events happened in the US to shape our country’s racial conscience; a mere 15 days after I was born, MLK would be gunned down. Also within that year, the second summer of race riots within metropolitan communities in the US would occur, sparked by police brutality against African Americans in urban communities – for us locally in Detroit it was a police red-light district sweep that began in 1960 using the ‘Big Four’ police tactic; 4 man all white units targeting bars supposedly looking for prostitutes to arrest. During the summers of 1965 and 1966 these small groups of police officers would frequently stop young black men in the 12th street neighborhood using racially degrading language and asking for ID – and in other ways harassing behavior or worse. The summer of 1968 erupted for a second summer of unrest in Detroit. That summer spurred the ‘white flight’ from our neighborhood that had begun a decade or so before from of the city of Detroit proper and creating massive suburban sprawl and a donut of abandonment and decay, similar to many other cities in the US. This created even more racial segregation now supported by miles of distance. Meanwhile blacks were moving into the city, making Detroit what is was to become, overwhelmingly majority African American city with an overall decreasing population, coupled with decreasing American manufacturing industry and jobs, reducing state and national funds for capital improvements and a failing school system where the public school drop out rate is now a shocking 80%.
My family was part of that ‘white flight’ 4 years later, after the riots, when we moved from Forer Street in Detroit to the almost all white suburb of Plymouth-Canton.
In our days in Detroit, I used to play with another preschooler on the street, an African American girl named Stephanie. I have only snapshots of real memory of our home and street, but vivid recollections of one story being told about our days there. It is one of the only and my earliest recollections of any conversation about race with my parents while growing up.
After having months of playdates at her house, it was one day I came home and announced that ‘Stephanie’s dad is black’, never noticing or mentioning that Stephanie as well as her mom, and two brothers and grandparents were also black. Considering the racial tensions in Detroit and around the nation at the time, I can’t help but think that my mom’s decision to send me over to Stephanie’s home as a 3 year old, knowing now as a parent what playdates really mean for 3 year olds, total inclusion in the family routine, was an attempt to give to me what she lacked, multiracial relationships - and was actually quite brave. Maybe she was looking for some herself too, with Stephanie’s mom.
My mom and I never got to talk about her thinking at that time. But she re-told that story in a lighthearted way many times and it always made me proud to think that even as a young child, race did not matter to me; making my colorblindness dreamlike, idealistic, as if my friendship with Stephanie was so pure it transcended race. The sweet innocence of a young child, before society was to imprint very strict rules regarding how, as a white girl, I was to interact and think about all people of color. I’m sure my mom’s purpose in the retelling was to show me that race really doesn’t matter, or shouldn’t. She may have even left out details in that story that didn’t support that notion. This sums up the entire “conversation” about race that I had with either of my parents until high school, when my junior prom date was a classmate named Brian, who was African American. Brian was one of only a handful of African American students in my high school of over 1,400.
Those conversations about Brian or rather dictates from my parents were dripping with intolerance, racism and anger at my decision; frustrating and confusing me, because for some reason race was no longer able to be transcended. Innocence lost. Hatred and fear in it’s place. They did not know Brian at all, only met him once, in fact.
I was carefully being taught that my race did not matter, but that was all that mattered about people of color.
These are memories painful to remember now, and painful to admit about my family right out loud. My parents were also very loving, church going faithful people who led Girl Scout troups, PTO’s, and marriage support classes. They were well within the norm in our community in their thoughts or lack of thoughts about people of color and their own privilege. They were not socially ostracized for their thoughts and feelings about people of color. It might even make this much easier if they were. Saying that they were the only whites with racist attitudes and conversations as I grew would compartmentalize the problem well. The truth is that I rarely met racially tolerant adults until I became an adult and let go of most of the racist people from my life.
Another truth is that it was not, as I was taught, a race-neutral decision to move away from our Detroit home. It was not simply a matter of better schools and more opportunities it was also an act of racial self-segregation and on some level was meant to teach us kids strong messages about race in the US. About where people belonged. And where they did not.
I was carefully taught that all-white communities offered better opportunities, a better life, and that while we may have some individual positive experiences with people of color, those relationships are isolated and not meant to last and certainly dating or marriage outside of my race was forbidden.
What I did get was that whenever we had to drive downtown Detroit (not unless we had to) or even straight through the city at 65 miles an hour on I-75 I was instructed to ‘lock the doors’ – and knew even at that young age that it was based on unfounded fear and racism. Although my mom spoke fondly of Stephanie and her family, we never saw them again once we moved. I understood who was right and who was wrong in the scenario, but rarely let my opinions be known. No one ever asked. The topic was quickly dropped if brought up. This clumsy, racist and confusing scenario is I see now, actually valued within white culture and not at all uncommon. I was taught not to talk about race as those conversations are seen as rude or inflammatory. Playing the race card. Looking for a fight, or not living up to our highest ideal in white culture; colorblindness.
What I was carefully taught was that driving through a community populated with a high percentage of people of color was dangerous. People of color were criminals and would attack a car full of white people, even traveling at 65 miles an hour. This meant that people of color were dangerous; white people were normal and white communities were safer. This was not to be talked about or questioned. In a family that respected education, well thought out political perspectives and rapier wit, it was OK to be really thoughtless and incoherent on the issue of race. My privilege also allowed these assumptions to go unchallenged in my school, church, in the news and among our friends.
What I have learned since then is that without the conversations about race, white culture and white people won’t be able to unpack or understand a non-white perspective, let alone let go of the racism. Once these topics are discussed rationally, the racist underpinnings don’t hold up as easily. But it takes lots of these conversations. With white culture teaching white people that these types of conversations are rude, where are we to go? How do we begin to finally cut the ties and maybe even get a little or a lot angry at our racist upbringings?
The US’s history of racial intolerance and fear, local communities and their unique spins on racism that have woven themselves in and throughout our histories, our choices and our lives are topics that should be at everyone’s dinner table. They are complicated and insidious. Most racism cannot continue without the silence and the colorblindness ideal. Not many other topics are as taboo or controversial within white culture as white privilege. But yet, because white culture holds colorblindness as the ideal method of race relations, and because of our lack of productive conversations about, for example, understanding how we as whites and our white culture adds to real life problems like how to reduce wage and social disparities, imprisonment and school suspension rates among African American males, of course they survive. Thrive actually. How could they not? And because these events are not race neutral as we were carefully taught, many whites create their own biases based almost completely on stereotypes. This is the perfect recipe for continuing the racism, albeit now perhaps often more underground.
It is a privilege not to have to have a well thought out response to people asking your opinion about race in the US, or not to have to consider historical impacts of your race in the US.
It is a privilege, afforded to whites, to ignore the effects of historical as well as current racism. In fact to ignore the topic of race altogether, rendering white culture invisible. The DEfault. The norm. Normal. Everything else compared to it ‘different’, exotic, not as good, or even model, as in model minority. Perfect, without needs or areas of struggle.
There are other privileges afforded to members of our society; privileges for the able-bodied, men, heterosexuals, those with wealth and class, all come with their own set of privileges that others do not enjoy to the extent of those with the privilege. I can only assume other societies have their own set of prescribed privileges also. To not see those, however, is to not grow and to not see yourself fully. To take them for granted sets the privileged up for perfect scenarios for abuse of those without and further feeds on itself. Unexamined privilege has become ugly to me as I unwind my privilege.
My journey over the last 14 years in parenting has held some hard lessons for me in understanding white privilege and continually unpacking my own racial and ethnic biases, and leaving them to dry out in the sunlight. I continually give up the privilege of ignoring race and racism and seeing my culture as invisible without the natural cause and effect that cultures have on thoughts and ideas. I’ve let go of the colorblindness ideal. We simply haven’t done the work yet as a society to have earned a colorblind society. Just by wanting it doesn’t make it so.
I’m in no way suggesting this has been easy, quick, nor do I expect it to ever be a job that is done, nor do I suggest that I am any kind of expert in this. However, we are all incredibly fortunate to have others who are experts and to whom we can rely and ally ourselves. Let’s do it. As whites, let's examine our upbringings and how we were all carefully taught to be white. I look forward to reading yours.
