White Guilt and its Creation of “Black Privilege”
I watched a poetry recital online this afternoon by Crystal Valentine called “On Evaluating Black Privilege.” I didn’t know that people were talking about “black privilege,” which includes things like affirmative action, or getting to take pride in their race or getting to “pull the race card,” whatever that means. Does that mean something?
I guess sometimes I willfully ignore parts of society because they frustrate me to the point that I want to scream because I cannot explain to anyone that affirmative action is a cheap tab compared to the millions of dollars of buildings that slaves were forced to construct for free. That the United states is literally built on the backs of people who were ripped from their home land and forced to work, to stop speaking their languages, stop adorning their bodies, stop singing, stop worshipping, and to produce children that knew nothing of African culture and everything of work for white people without questioning what they were before or where they came from.
I can’t make anyone learn about black history, the history of oppression of black bodies for white profit. I have a white friend who claims he can’t be sorry for what his ancestors did and I tried to tell him that maybe instead of being sorry for what his ancestors did he could see that the way he lives now is still a product of that, and that the way that black people live in our society is still a product of that too.
He said that white people are supposed to feel guilty now, for what our people did to Africans, to slaves and to segregated descendants of slaves, and to “desegregated” victims of prejudiced housing policies like red-lining that created the modern ghetto.
I’m not sure I agree with that, because my personal guilt isn’t going to make Kenyana anymore likely to get considered for jobs the same way Kimberly does or Walter Scott less likely to get shot in the back by a police officer while he runs away. Does my white guilt make it all okay? Is it somehow important that we’re sorry now?
What I can be sorry for is that things like “pulling the race card” gets called “black privilege.” There wouldn’t be a “race card” if we didn’t live in a racist society that strategically has favored white skin over black for centuries. There wouldn’t be a need to “be proud to be black” if blackness wasn’t historically and presently associated with shame, inferiority, or criminality. There isn’t a need to be proud to be white because whiteness is already equated with goodness in society.
White guilt created black privilege by making us defensive, making us feel like we have to exonerate ourselves. White guilt makes us say things like “Hey, I’m not racist! I have a black best friend!” and all of those other things that black ears cringe to hear. White guilt makes us less likely to participate in conversations about race for fear of being called the racists that we already know we are. White guilt makes us want to prove that systemic racism isn’t actually real and that “black people get privileges too!”
Is any of that productive? Does any of that help us to understand each other? Does it create a space in which we talk about resolution of race issues? Does it help us think that race issues are even resolvable at all? Why do we have to fight with each other on who has privilege and who has to feel sorry for that? It drives a wedge between us, an ugly grey wedge of anger and resentment.
Let’s talk about racism unapologetically and loudly. Let’s talk about strengths of oppressed races and not what statistics they are associated with or what they supposedly get for free. Let’s talk about a future where we white people truly have no more likelihood to go to school, graduate, get a loan, buy a car or a house, and live a good life-- a good, long life, than anybody else.Â
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