Share This Article
“Do you know why you’re white?”
This is the question that I ask my students.
Sometimes, they respond with a puzzled look and say “because I’m not black.” Other times, they tell me about their family’s history of living in Europe for generations or how they’ve never spent time outside of America. And sometimes there are those who give me an answer that scares me: “I don’t know.”
I’m a teacher at an all-black school. I was hired to bring some knowledge of white people and their histories into our curriculum, since this is not everyone’s lived experience in the United States. When we talk about slavery or segregation, black students are able to identify with those topics because they have memories from family members who were around during that time period. But when it comes to talking about systemic racism or higher rates of incarceration among blacks as compared to whites–those topics can be difficult for them because these experiences are new for most folks my age (Millennials).
Black children don’t grow up learning how much power whiteness has over their lives just by living day-to-day like white kids do; there
This blog post is focused on white people. People of color have been writing and speaking about racism for decades, but what are white people doing? They’re the ones with all the power! And yet they refuse to take responsibility for their privilege.
A lot of white folks live in a world where it’s easier just to be oblivious than face how unjust life can be–perhaps because it feels too overwhelming or daunting an obstacle (and this is also why we see so many performative wokeness) . But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something new by reading articles like “White Fragility” from Everyday Feminism. It talks about how whiteness has created a society where not everyone gets treated equally, which means that There are a lot of people in the world who hate white people. And I’m not just talking about black or brown folks, but also some whites themselves. White privilege has been an issue that’s come up more and more recently as we discuss race relations in America and all over the world. It doesn’t matter what your background is–whether you’re from England or India or Nigeria–white privilege exists because being born with certain skin color automatically means different opportunities than those born with other skin colors. But it’s easy to think that this isn’t true if you’re white yourself, like me for example (though my family came here from Scotland when they were still considered foreigners). But there are so many advantages afforded to someone
