Dear fellow TNJPers,
Herein is a report from this
conference that I attended (you may remember the email I sent to this
list inviting you to consider coming to the conference with me). I'm sending
it to this list because the issue of racism is, in our country, state and
city, a pivotal issue of justice that is still waiting to be adequately
addressed. If we look at it honestly and clearly, racism is still a dominant
factor in all aspects of our lives. In particular, racism still prevents
people of different skin colors in our community from uniting in large
numbers and working together effectively for positive change, even when
we have many goals and interests in common. The issue of racism will not
go away, and must be addressed head-on, particularly by us white people,
if our movement for justice and peace is going to gain great strength and
wide-spread credibility.
The report is long, as it is intended to be as informative as possible.
If you find yourself interested in doing more with the material in this
report, please be in touch with me.
With best wishes to all, Paul
p.s.--This report contains many links to pertinent web sites. If you
don't get the links for some reason and want them, write to me and I'll
email you the document in another form.
The Conference on White Privilege I attended April 9-13 of this year
was the Fourth Annual. It took place again this year in Pella, Iowa.
Pella is a lovely Midwestern town with strong connections to its Dutch
heritage, and made a wonderfully welcoming site for this conference, as
did the small college in Pella that hosted it, Central College. Tim Phillips,
a dean of Central College, addressed the conference on Friday morning and
included his David Letterman-esque “Top Ten Reasons for Having a Conference
on White Privilege in Iowa”. My favorite, at least that I can think of
right now, was “Do you know how many white people there are in Iowa?”
(Iowa’s population is something like 98% white.) This year’s conference
drew some 350 people of all skin colors or "races" from 21 different states
to focus on the issue of white privilege.
All of these Conferences on White Privilege have been the result of
the work and inspiration of one brilliant and hardworking man named Eddie
Moore, Jr. (He's from Gainesville, FL.) He's built something quite
remarkable--an annual multi-racial conference that addresses racism very
openly, and which people actually look forward to attending, largely as
a result of the warm and welcoming tone set by Eddie as the conference’s
organizer and key personality. For me personally (and for many others),
Eddie’s kindness and warmth, both prior to and throughout the conference,
made a big difference. It was indeed wonderful and an honor for me as a
white man to be so warmly welcomed at a conference on white privilege by
a black man.
Peggy McIntosh defines white privilege as “unearned assets” about which
most white people are unaware. She describes it as “an invisible weightless
knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes,
tools, and blank checks” that serve to advantage white people living in
a racist society. A few of the foundational assumptions that underlie this
conference (assumptions that I personally share) are:
-
White privilege is a cornerstone of our society, which was built on (and
still operates on) a foundation of racism and classism, as well as other
systematic oppressions.
-
Our society's system of white privilege is largely a taboo topic, very
rarely discussed honestly in our society outside of certain small circles.
-
In spite of the confusion and strong feelings that still surround this
issue, the topic of white privilege nonetheless can and must be looked
at squarely by all of us as individuals, and by our society collectively,
so that it can be seen and understood for what it is. Only then can
the system of white privilege (and male-privilege, class-based-privilege,
adult-privilege, etc.) be dismantled, and replaced with a non-oppressive
system, or society.
I attended the conference from Wednesday evening through Friday
evening, though there were institutes during the day on Wednesday and Saturday
that I did not attend. Both Thursday and Friday started with keynote
addresses. Thursday’s keynote was by Tim Wise. I had never heard
of Tim Wise before. I now know he is a very good person to know about,
so I’ll include some info about him here.
From www.speakersandartists.org:
“Tim Wise is one of the most prominent white anti-racist voices in the
United States. A social justice activist for the past two decades, Wise
has spoken to over 75,000 people in 46 states, on over 275 college campuses,
and to hundreds of community groups. In the early ‘90’s, he was Associate
Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the group
credited by many with the political defeat of neo-Nazi, David Duke. Wise’s
forthcoming collection of essays, Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist
Reflections From an Angry White Male, is due out in 2003. He
is also the author of Hardcover Hate, a rebuttal to David Duke’s 1998 racial
manifesto, and Little White Lies: The Truth About Affirmative Action
and "Reverse Discrimination”. [He’s contributed to many other publications,
and all of his writings look very challenging and worthwhile, though I’ve
barely begun to read him.]
Tim gave a very impressive keynote address. It was a rare pleasure to
hear a white person speak so forcefully and clearly about and against white
racism. (I have encountered a few equally clear and forceful white voices
on the topic of racism in the International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities,
though never before outside that organization.) I won’t try to summarize
all the points he made, but will put a few sentences of quotation of him
here from an
interview with him that I found:
“My job is to educate others - particularly other whites -
about the damage done by racism, not only to persons of color, but to whites
as well: spiritually, economically, and culturally. By accepting the bargain
of white privilege, we've really cut ourselves off from any possibility
of building a just society…until institutionalized racial inequity is destroyed,
justice in any real sense is impossible. My role, and the role of other
whites, should be to interrupt the dominant discourse on race and racism
by any means necessary: the spoken word, art, literature, political essays,
media, protest, whatever.”
Here’s another short piece from a different
interview with Tim on the disadvantages of being white in our society:
“… whiteness carries a cost, even for those who benefit from
its privileges…despite the relative advantages, there are certain harms,
consequences, or perhaps dysfunctional aspects…one might consider the harms
that come from “racial privilege” if, by virtue of that privilege, one
remains isolated from others. So, to live in an almost all white neighborhood,
thanks to past and present housing bias, as about 85% of whites do, means
huge advantages in terms of wealth and assets, but also means that we're
cut off from the experiences, cultures and contributions of people of color
- to our own detriment in terms of being functionally literate and interculturally
competent for a country that is increasingly non-white, and a world that
never was [predominantly] white to begin with. And while that isolation
and ignorance might not have mattered in an earlier era, now it does.”
Obviously, he had much more to say than these short quotes convey,
but they are decent encapsulations of a few of his major points.
Friday morning’s keynote address was by my good friend (and Tallahassee
native) Dr. Na’im Akbar. I’ve known
Dr. Akbar (known to me as “Doc”) since 1984, when I was an undergraduate
student of his at Florida State University. It was Doc who informed me
about the conference, based on his knowledge of my long-standing interest
in the topic of the role of white people in ending racism. A bit about
Dr. Akbar: he has been described by Essence magazine as "one of the
world’s preeminent African-American psychologists and a pioneer in the
development of an African-centered approach to modern psychology." “Dr.
Akbar has a following on five continents because of his dynamic speeches
and insightful analysis... [re:]…the social concerns of African-Americans,
in particular, and humanity as a whole.” (from http://www.in.gov/legislative/hdpr/R14_10112001.html)
It is always a treat to hear Doc speak. His keynote address energized
and/or challenged everyone at the conference with his insights into three
topics:
-
(2) what he called “black privilege” (the one I can remember right now
is the right to be justifiably angry), and
-
(3) black collaboration with white privilege.
For me, though, better than getting to hear him speak was getting to spend
some time with him as my good friend. Both of his hips are failing, so
he has a difficult time getting around now. I borrowed a car and brought
him dinner to his hotel room on Thursday evening, his first night in Iowa.
We got to relax and have a great conversation about all kinds of things,
including his work and the next steps he wants his work to take, besides
just generally getting to enjoy one another’s company. I spent a good deal
of time by his side at the conference, and was very warmed by seeing how
appreciated he was by conference attendees of all skin colors. I had never
gotten to see him and his work be appreciated by other white people.
I later asked him if being appreciated by white people was different than
what we was used to. “Unheard of - it never happens” was, I believe,
his response. He told me he had never spoken at a conference that was both
as racially mixed as this one, and that so directly and honestly addressed
racism. He said he was very pleasantly surprised by his experience
at the conference. He’s been invited back next year, and said he’ll return
if he can.
There were many workshops also available in the afternoons. The best
ones I attended were both facilitated by Tim Wise. One was on the topic
of reparations--the idea of economic restitution paid to the collective
descendants of slaves in the U.S. Reparations is a great topic for
getting at the economic core of white privilege and white racism. In his
other workshop (can’t recall title of it), I really appreciated Tim’s emphasis
on the harm done to white people by being complicit with a system of white
privilege and racism. He made a clear case for the idea that the health
of our own souls and the quality of our own lives as white people depend
on our taking up the struggle to end racism.
A wonderful part of attending the conference was being there with two
friends (Dvora and LG) from United
to End Racism (UER), a project that I’ve been involved with for several
years. This was the first year that the conference was attended by anyone
from UER. We focused mostly on meeting people at the conference, and sharing
a bit about our approach to the work of ending racism with people who seemed
interested. For those of you who are unfamiliar with UER: “United to
End Racism is a group of people of all ages and backgrounds, in many
different countries, who are dedicated to eliminating racism in the world.
We understand that eliminating racism is necessary for humankind to progress.
We are committed to ending racism, and we support the efforts of other
groups to accomplish this goal. The main work of UER is to illuminate the
damage done to individuals by racism and to undo this damage on an individual
basis, using the resources and process of Re-evaluation Counseling.”(from
the UER website) Dvora, LG and I all hope to attend next year’s Fifth
Annual Conference on White Privilege as part of a significantly larger
and more prominent UER delegation.
(On the topic of next year’s conference, this is straight from an email
from Eddie Moore Jr.: “Mark your calendars for WPC5: White Privilege,
White Supremacy and the Prison Industrial Complex. The dates are April
28-May 03, 2004. We are extending invites to Na'im Akbar, Angela Davis,
Michael Moore and Cornel West as keynotes. We have Morris Dees from the
Southern Poverty Law Center confirmed for next year and a number of other
folks committed to doing workshops/institutes for WPC5.” Consider
yourself invited.)
My one criticism of the conference, which I communicated via a feedback
form, was that the scheduled allowed for very little time for participants
to simply connect with and talk with each other. There was a great need
for people at the conference to be able to get to know each other, and
also to process things they were hearing and feeling. The schedule was
packed (there were even presentations during meal times), and the need
for people to connect was not accommodated by the intense schedule.
So that’s a good deal of information about the conference.
Following are several of my own key insights and impressions from the conference.
First, I repeatedly noticed how good it was to be in an environment
where the often-obscured reality of white privilege was "out on the table".
That factor alone seemed to create great safety for me and others at the
conference. The acknowledgement of racism (and in particular white privilege)
by everyone in attendance, created common ground on which we could all
connect. We could find unity, connection and sister/brotherhood in our
determination to tackle and work together to eliminate our society's system
of privilege for white people. As a result of all this, I found the conference
an excellent and enjoyable place to connect with people, both white people
and people of color. I think many other people, both people of color and
white people, had a similar experience. One of the most important things
about the conference to me was that it modeled that white people
and people of color can work together in an enjoyable way to address the
issue of racism and its inequities. This was and is a great relief
for me as a white person!! If that model was ALL that I came back with,
I feel the conference would have been completely worthwhile. Now that I'm
back from the conference, I'm reminded of how much harder it is to make
good connections with people of any group in environments (like our mainstream
society) in which huge realities like racism, Jewish oppression, etc. are
largely treated as "behind us", or “something we worked out in the ‘60s”
- even though most of us know better.
Another lasting impression was that, among the many speakers and workshop
presenters, there was surprisingly little confusion about the heart of
the race problem being a system of white privilege, as opposed
to the problem being white people themselves - either individually or collectively.
This absence (or near absence) of blame of white people, particularly
in a mixed race conference on white privilege, is itself a remarkable achievement.
Though none of us white people at the conference were excused from the
responsibility of learning about and understanding how we benefit from
white privilege, neither were we personally blamed for it. I think this
is an excellent and important balance to achieve when doing this work,
especially with white people.
Finally, here is some of my updated thinking about this topic, since
returning from the conference. The privilege experienced by white people
is central to keeping white people confused about and passive about ending
racism. White privilege is a sort of buffer that insulates us white people
from the realities of racism. Also, (as the quote from Tim W. above points
out) racism tends to alienate us and our lives from people of color and
the realities of their lives. Therefore, we white people tend to not have
very good information about how racism works in this society, leaving people
of color as the real experts on racism. However, another aspect of racism,
that of arrogance, tends to leave most of us white people with some
difficulty admitting that there are things about racism we don’t
know, and that we’re not completely expert on this topic. Even more difficult
for many of us is admitting that people of color know A LOT more about
racism than we do. My guess is that most of us white people spend quite
a bit of energy being our own “experts” on racism. I think we will find
a great sense of relaxation and relief when we are able to fully admit
to ourselves that there is quite a bit we don’t know about racism. Once
we can admit what we don’t know about this, we can also realize that it's
alright we don’t know, and that we white people are alright, too,
even with our unaware racism. How are we going to be able to learn about
this topic until we can admit we what we don’t know or understand?
So what do I plan to do with this experience? Besides
writing this report that I hope will be read by a couple hundred people,
I plan to immediately begin organizing people, especially white people,
in Tallahassee to look at and work on the issues I’ve written about here.
I plan to start with a small group of people (8 or so), gain some experience
leading on this topic, and learn a few things about what works and what
doesn’t. I am convinced that in many places in the world, racism is a key
issue that divides and hurts people. Particularly here in Tallahassee,
it seems clear to me that racism is still perhaps THE key divisive issue
in this community, and one that keeps most of us who live around here feeling
beaten down and powerless. I consider it essential for Tallahassee to have
a large, organized, and visible anti-racist presence, especially one that
welcomes and expects participation from white people. My longer-range (next
year or two) goal is to found an organization called something like “Big
Bend Anti-Racism Coalition” (BBARC), unless I think of something better.
(Thoughtful suggestions will be accepted, but I may ask you to use the
name you suggest to start your own such organization!)
Also, just this week I’ve begun taking steps to have Tim Wise come to
Tallahassee as a speaker at the city’s Martin Luther King Day festivities
in January 2004. And I’ve sent an email to the local Urban League and NAACP
chapter offering to work with them to create a Juneteenth celebration in
Tallahassee this year. (Juneteenth is June 19 each year. From the
Juneteenth web page: “Juneteenth
is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. From its Galveston,
Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American
Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. Today
Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education
and achievement.”)
Thank you for reading however much of this you were able to. I really
believe that everything we do on this issue is significant. Reading this
was likely a significant thing for you to do, just as writing it was a
significant thing for me to do. I look forward to connecting with you further
in our work to end racism.
With appreciation,
Paul Beich
