Saturday, January 24, 2015

MLK Today: Taking the Blinders Off White Privilege


How far have we really come since Dr. King's passing in 1968? Could those who argue that we now live in a truly post-racial society be wearing the blinders of white privilege? Consider the following.
Have we achieved Dr. King's goal of eradicating racial prejudice?
Some would surely say yes. For example, I dined at a fairly pricey French restaurant the other night, and there a conversation took place between me and the white woman sitting next to me. She lived in an elite area in Manhattan's Upper East Side but also had a vacation home with her husband in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I currently live. I grew up in New York City; that was our common ground.
She said, "Before Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke up supporting the black protest of the choking and killing of Eric Garner, there weren't really any racial issues in New York. We had gotten past that."
"That's simply not true," I retorted. "The racial tension had been there all the time. De Blasio didn't create it. Many folks, especially black folks, knew it was there all the time."
From where did this woman derive her perception? I don't think this woman was mean-spirited; in many ways, she was quite intelligent. However, a certain psychological intelligence was absent--the ability to know that her framework was her own white, wealthy experience.
She had the unearned privilege of never being disadvantaged by racial stereotypes. She had the privilege of not having to listen and feel the pain of her fellow black New Yorkers, many of whose stories and perspectives clearly wouldn't match her own. She had the privilege of needing neither data nor experience but nonetheless feeling free to issue her definitive interpretation anyway.
In short, she drew on her unconscious privilege to conclude that racial prejudice was a thing of the past.
Is "colorblindness" the key to being judged by the content of our character?
Many argue, "If colorblindness was good enough for Martin Luther King, then it ought to be good enough for a society that still aspires to the movement's goals of equality and fair treatment."
Much of the argument for colorblindness relies on a superficial reading of the "I Have a Dream" speech, where Dr. King said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Proponents of this view argue that King believed that the end of racism would be achieved when Americans no longer saw race.
What allows many folks, especially white folks, to maintain this belief? There is no data that I know of to support the notion that this kind of colorblindness helps alleviate racial disparities or racial injustice. In my experience, many who espouse this view are simply unaware of what it is like to live in a dark-skinned body. They have the unearned privilege of not having to think of themselves racially.
Dr. Beverly Tatum, the president of Spellman College, conducted a regular experiment with her psychology students. She asked them to complete the sentence, "I am_____." She found that while students of color usually mentioned their racial identity, white students rarely mentioned being white. The same was true for gender, where women were more likely to mention being female. She concluded that racial identity for white folks is not reflected back to them and thus remains somewhat unconscious.
In short, black folks simply don't have the privilege of not seeing themselves as a color and know they will be seen as such, while many white folks easily enjoy not seeing their own. Trying to not see race before we are truly awake to racism's ugly present and past assigns racism to our individual and collective shadow, rendering its harm more insidious as it hides in what presents itself as goodheartedness or innocence.
To quote Dr. King, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
Please continue this article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bedrick/dr-king-taking-the-blinde_b_6501166.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000047

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