In my case, the reflection is a white, male, heterosexual, Baby Boomer, Lutheran, American of Swedish ancestry and graduate of the University of Illinois. This doesn’t account for political affiliation, employer, fraternity, sports team preference or other organizations I’ve joined.
Which of your many tribes would you fight and die for? I know Green Bay Packer fans that would take up arms to defend their identity. I would fight for my country and my family, but doubt very much that I would jump into a trench for U of I or Sweden. But at some level, when push comes to shove we need to feel superior to someone else. It’s sadly just the way humans are wired.
I now live in a place some continue to view as part of the former Confederacy. The news is currently filled with images of that reconciliation. I recently drove behind a truck that was plastered with Confederate emblems and flying an actual flag from the rear bumper, as if to say, “I continue to stand for the wrong-headed, traitorous movement that lost the Civil War.” But that’s judgmental. It’s their tribe, and as another flag they like to wave from an earlier war aggressively states, “Don’t Tread on Me!”
We also need to gain an understanding of the privileges many of us take for granted –white, male or otherwise.
My only experience as a minority was during a month I spent volunteering for Earthwatch in Honolulu, Hawaii. I was considered a “Haole” (how-lee.) This is a term usually applied by native Hawaiians or Polynesians to Caucasians. It is not necessarily derogatory, depending on context, but it is often negative. It was an eye opener that kept me on my guard. Living there permanently would mean adjusting to the notion of always being viewed as an outsider, with limitations on my rights and sidelong glances from those who dislike me without knowing me. But at the end of the month I was able to simply fly back to my privileged place on the Mainland and resume where I’d left off. Even police can take off their uniforms at day’s end and get a break from scrutiny. But people of color cannot for a minute remove their skins.
I am surprised that the 1964 film Black Like Me has not been pulled out of the archives and re-popularized. Based on a true story, actor James Whitmore plays reporter John Griffin, who went through treatments to darken his skin for a six week tour of the southern United States in the 1950s. It is the ultimate blackface experience and well worth watching.
I’ve encountered a wall of denial built around my white male friends. The suggestion that we have benefited from white privilege, particularly as males, sometimes triggers a defensive response. They point to a life of hard work (earned privilege) and a less than privileged upbringing. Everyone I know lived in a home with one or more working parents. That is privileged in itself. This generally leads into a discussion about how those less fortunate need to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps and stop living off of the welfare state funded by our taxes.”
“But they might not have boots, or straps,” I say.
Speaking in metaphors is never a good way to advance a debate. And failure of my friends to recognize that they benefit from an invisible collection of social assets is not their fault. Privilege itself is not their fault. We have been taught to be oblivious to our advantages. But failing to acknowledge those privileges is definitely our fault.
I am fully aware that I benefited from being a white male early in my career and in life (unearned privilege). As a young man in my early twenties I was able to stroll into a bank and secure a mortgage, having only recently graduated from college. The house I mortgaged was in an affluent north suburb of Chicago. I felt safe in my neighborhood and had pleasant neighbors. There was almost no crime. My high school class that numbered around 1200 had one Black student. I didn’t know him, but those who did said he was a great guy. What must his life have been like? The other 1199 students in our class looked like us. Our teachers looked like us. At the end of the day we turned on the television and saw people that looked like us. Our entire world looked like us. We took it for granted.
I waltzed into college, able to afford the cost and without much in the way of scholastic credentials. Most of my friends had help from their parents. We were not the first in our families to pursue higher education. We were financially and intellectually privileged. I was raised by two parents, with a father who was present and a life free from generational poverty, substance abuse and violence.
I later applied for and was promoted within a large corporation without much effort. I worked hard, but hard work is entirely separate from the privilege that eased my journey. Had I been openly gay, an entire spectrum of privilege would have been snatched away from me.
And then came the day when my company rolled out an initiative that included hiring percentages for women and minorities. The rug of privilege was suddenly seemingly pulled out from under me. The corporate ladder had a few new rungs upon which I was not allowed footing. I challenged what I considered “quotas” and in a meeting with a Black, female HR representative the new reality was firmly but politely made clear. I was handed a booklet on affirmative action and sent on my way. But before I left, that very nice young lady asked me:
“Can you imagine what it’s like to feel that people assume I got my job because of my race or gender, or to have to work twice as hard as someone else to be considered for a job?”
I couldn’t imagine that. Her comment spoke to the essence of being unprivileged.
Politicians as far back as Nixon have employed a “Southern Strategy” of focusing on racial issues to gain votes from a fearful white working class. It’s a real vote getter, but as our national demographics evolve the strategy is beginning to backfire. The assumption is that a gain in privilege by one race is part of an equation that results in a loss by another. Is that true? Is privilege a social currency that can neither be created nor destroyed – it just changes hands? Or can we learn to share?
Every so often our society lurches forward in a spasm that seems like a great awakening to those of us who were asleep at the wheel. Changes come quickly, two steps forward, and are often met with eventual resistance when things get uncomfortable, one step back. There can be collateral damage when boundaries extend into the marginal gray zones. The #MeToo movement tapped into a sweeping “cancel culture” that may have disproportionately held a few people overly accountable, but mostly not. This is a literal push coming to shove that bumps up against our tribal personal bubble.
“They tore down which statue? Well, that’s not right.”
“Al Franken resigned? But he was just joking!”
“Change the name of the Redskins? Why? That seems silly.”
“Aunt Jemima is a wonderful childhood memory. Gee whiz.”
“Black lives matter.”
“Blue lives matter.”
“All lives matter.”
Silly perhaps to some, but not to others. After all, cultural appropriation is nothing new. European Whites demanded it of Native Americans. Speak our language. Adopt our traditions. This land is our land…now.
If you read any amount of honest history you’ll find that much of this is not at all new. The rich have always needed the poor to generate their wealth. The rich amass power, become leaders, draft legislation and pass laws that benefit their position. Having become privileged they are not about to give it up. Those of us in the shrinking center enjoy our relative comfort and level of privilege. And we don’t want to lose it either. We’re part of a tribe called the Middle Class.
Darwin might say that tribalism carried with it genetic survival value. Competition between tribes over preferred resources, land and mates undoubtedly resulted in a stronger tribe and possibly a more diverse and healthier gene pool. But just as we eventually evolved language, religion, a conscience, moral values and laws, hasn’t the time come to eliminate the barriers that prevent us from viewing each other as members of a single human tribe? Maybe not yet, and perhaps not even very soon, but we can be hopeful for the future and begin to lay the foundation and framework for a time when that inevitably comes to pass.
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