BILL LEE
June 1, 2020
I’m getting tired and frustrated with the growing number of stories of white people who attempt to practice their racism, to get some sort of punitive action taken by authorities, to chastise or discipline Black or Indigenous. I suspect that I am hardly alone in this. There are many examples, unfortunately, in both Canada and the USA but two recent examples from the USA are pretty representative of what seems to be a growth in this unsavoury practice.1 The first is a Whitestream2 woman in Central Park in New York with her dog. She called the coppers on a Black man, watching birds of all things, because he had asked her to leash her dog, hardly unreasonable given that they were in a dog leash area. Another was a white man who confronted five Black men he encountered using the building's athletic facilities in which he, and they, unbeknownst to him, had leased office space.
He felt it hard to believe that Black individuals could actually be occupying the same space as he was. Perhaps it was beyond his ability to imagine such a thing. In any event he demanded that they prove to him that they had the right to be there. When they demurred, perhaps telling him to get lost, he called the management of the building to report them and hopefully get them heaved out. He was of course disappointed when management informed him the unimaginable was in fact true. These happenings are becoming almost banal in their ubiquitous presence in North American society.
All this is, as I say, tiresome and frustrating and has certainly not at all escaped public attention and condemnation. But what I find is that I am also tired of reading and hearing that these malign actions are being referred to as evidence of “White Privilege”. The term “White Privilege”, at least alone, is not adequate and does not really fit with all this kind of disgusting racist behaviour. White privilege is not something we do. Rather it is something we are vouchsafed and from which we benefit. We receive more economic goodies, more rights, more social and economic opportunities, more positive life experiences, etc. than those without it. We don’t go out to acquire it, let alone earn the status. We just have it as an accident of birth (I’m White, of Irish decent. I never had to fill out an application racialized brothers and sisters) or our geographical location (I live in a part of the world where standards of living are higher than other parts and where we have access to more goods and services than those from say Central America or other parts of the Global South). It is a rather inert thing.
We may be only dimly aware, or not aware at all, that we are taking advantage of this that is embedded in the norms of our society.3 That does not mean it is right or just, but it is a characteristic of us white folk’s existence not something we do. Worse, it conceals, hides from view, the fact that White Supremacy is racism, a practice4, and a constant painful experience inflicted on too many (all) racialized people and often practiced by too many whitestream people. I find it somewhat like the difference between the term “settler” which we hear used so much in Canada and colonial class which we do not use nearly enough. The first is passive, I can’t help who my parents were. Colonial class expresses a more contemporary and active attempt at maintenance of, or a refusal to challenge, the evil system of colonial oppression.
The two terms, of course, are not unrelated. An Indigenous friend of mine, Beth Gray, put it well, "Calling [the police in situations like this] is a dangerous act of white supremacy because there is always the possibility, even probability, of harm. It is an invocation of violence. That they feel righteous and safe from punishment for making these calls is their white privilege." The officious white man calling the management and the self-regarding white woman calling the police were not simply getting some benefit of which they might or not be aware of, a privilege.
There are many Whitestream people in North America, all the recipients of white privilege, but the majority of us do not attempt to undertake acts on Black or Indigenous people in order to denigrate and intimidate them with the threat of police action. These two, like so many others we are hearing about, were deliberately exercising their felt “right”, as white people, as they understood it, to intimidate, to regulate and discipline these Black men. That is what Jim Crowe was about, (as is the Indian Act which is so alive and well in Canada) and that was, and is, racist White Supremacy. White supremacy is racism. As George Orwell said, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”5 Let us call things by their real names so that they are in public view with all their terrible consequences. If we refuse to do so we cannot take the action that is necessary to get rid of them.
___________________________________________________
1 In an incident in Vancouver January of 2020, Police officers handcuffed an Indigenous man and his 12-year-old granddaughter after they tried to open an account at a Vancouver bank. The bank employee was suspicious of this Indigenous man and felt he had every right to bring in the police and have the man and his granddaughter handcuffed and treated as criminals. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/girl-grandfather-handcuffed-bank-account-police-respond-1.5423411). Not all incidents are so dramatic and painful. I teach Indigenous students in a Community Health Worker training program in Toronto. The majority of them have stories of being followed around, and sometime confronted, "like we're "criminals", while they are shopping. Less dramatic perhaps but a clear expression of regulation and discipline by members of the colonial class on Indigenous people.
2 Though the term whitestream is unfamiliar to some, I will often use the term it, more clearly represents the dominance of white people relative to racialized people than "White person". I also use "White" rather than "whitestream" when I am referring particular phenomenon that is commonly used, like "white racism" and "white privilege"
3 While a good many of us whitestream folks beat our breasts and say we are "ashamed" of our "white privilege", I can't see that there is a point in us simply being ashamed of our having it. No white person that I know ever has had the opportunity to make that application for skin colour. But we do need to be ashamed of ignoring it. We do have a responsibility to recognize it and damn well do what is necessary to join with racialized people to rid our world of the disease of thought and practice of racist white supremacy and racist colonial oppression.
4 For an excellent discussion of how racism, is not what we believe but a practice, what we do, (see, Fields, K. & Fields, B. (2012). Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. Brooklyn NY: Verso).
5 George Orwell published his classic essay, "Politics and the English Language" in 1946. In it he addressed the importance of language and how its misuse has significant importance for how and how much we can understand our situation, and which can have significant negative effect on our politics, action and inaction. (https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
He felt it hard to believe that Black individuals could actually be occupying the same space as he was. Perhaps it was beyond his ability to imagine such a thing. In any event he demanded that they prove to him that they had the right to be there. When they demurred, perhaps telling him to get lost, he called the management of the building to report them and hopefully get them heaved out. He was of course disappointed when management informed him the unimaginable was in fact true. These happenings are becoming almost banal in their ubiquitous presence in North American society.
All this is, as I say, tiresome and frustrating and has certainly not at all escaped public attention and condemnation. But what I find is that I am also tired of reading and hearing that these malign actions are being referred to as evidence of “White Privilege”. The term “White Privilege”, at least alone, is not adequate and does not really fit with all this kind of disgusting racist behaviour. White privilege is not something we do. Rather it is something we are vouchsafed and from which we benefit. We receive more economic goodies, more rights, more social and economic opportunities, more positive life experiences, etc. than those without it. We don’t go out to acquire it, let alone earn the status. We just have it as an accident of birth (I’m White, of Irish decent. I never had to fill out an application racialized brothers and sisters) or our geographical location (I live in a part of the world where standards of living are higher than other parts and where we have access to more goods and services than those from say Central America or other parts of the Global South). It is a rather inert thing.
We may be only dimly aware, or not aware at all, that we are taking advantage of this that is embedded in the norms of our society.3 That does not mean it is right or just, but it is a characteristic of us white folk’s existence not something we do. Worse, it conceals, hides from view, the fact that White Supremacy is racism, a practice4, and a constant painful experience inflicted on too many (all) racialized people and often practiced by too many whitestream people. I find it somewhat like the difference between the term “settler” which we hear used so much in Canada and colonial class which we do not use nearly enough. The first is passive, I can’t help who my parents were. Colonial class expresses a more contemporary and active attempt at maintenance of, or a refusal to challenge, the evil system of colonial oppression.
The two terms, of course, are not unrelated. An Indigenous friend of mine, Beth Gray, put it well, "Calling [the police in situations like this] is a dangerous act of white supremacy because there is always the possibility, even probability, of harm. It is an invocation of violence. That they feel righteous and safe from punishment for making these calls is their white privilege." The officious white man calling the management and the self-regarding white woman calling the police were not simply getting some benefit of which they might or not be aware of, a privilege.
There are many Whitestream people in North America, all the recipients of white privilege, but the majority of us do not attempt to undertake acts on Black or Indigenous people in order to denigrate and intimidate them with the threat of police action. These two, like so many others we are hearing about, were deliberately exercising their felt “right”, as white people, as they understood it, to intimidate, to regulate and discipline these Black men. That is what Jim Crowe was about, (as is the Indian Act which is so alive and well in Canada) and that was, and is, racist White Supremacy. White supremacy is racism. As George Orwell said, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”5 Let us call things by their real names so that they are in public view with all their terrible consequences. If we refuse to do so we cannot take the action that is necessary to get rid of them.
___________________________________________________
1 In an incident in Vancouver January of 2020, Police officers handcuffed an Indigenous man and his 12-year-old granddaughter after they tried to open an account at a Vancouver bank. The bank employee was suspicious of this Indigenous man and felt he had every right to bring in the police and have the man and his granddaughter handcuffed and treated as criminals. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/girl-grandfather-handcuffed-bank-account-police-respond-1.5423411). Not all incidents are so dramatic and painful. I teach Indigenous students in a Community Health Worker training program in Toronto. The majority of them have stories of being followed around, and sometime confronted, "like we're "criminals", while they are shopping. Less dramatic perhaps but a clear expression of regulation and discipline by members of the colonial class on Indigenous people.
2 Though the term whitestream is unfamiliar to some, I will often use the term it, more clearly represents the dominance of white people relative to racialized people than "White person". I also use "White" rather than "whitestream" when I am referring particular phenomenon that is commonly used, like "white racism" and "white privilege"
3 While a good many of us whitestream folks beat our breasts and say we are "ashamed" of our "white privilege", I can't see that there is a point in us simply being ashamed of our having it. No white person that I know ever has had the opportunity to make that application for skin colour. But we do need to be ashamed of ignoring it. We do have a responsibility to recognize it and damn well do what is necessary to join with racialized people to rid our world of the disease of thought and practice of racist white supremacy and racist colonial oppression.
4 For an excellent discussion of how racism, is not what we believe but a practice, what we do, (see, Fields, K. & Fields, B. (2012). Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. Brooklyn NY: Verso).
5 George Orwell published his classic essay, "Politics and the English Language" in 1946. In it he addressed the importance of language and how its misuse has significant importance for how and how much we can understand our situation, and which can have significant negative effect on our politics, action and inaction. (https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
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