General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: White DUers: Tell Your Stories [View all]Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)Anything "negative" I've encountered pales by comparison (yes, pun intended). The only things that come up for me at all fall into one of two categories; 1) Generalized expectations projected onto me and 2) "Affirmative Action". Let me address the latter first.
I spent many years working in fields related to mental health and/or community organizing. More often than not the organizations I either worked for or applied to work with recognized the positive (not to mention moral) virtues of work place (and implicitly societal) diversity. I believe that I lost a few jobs and/or promotions during my life to other candidates who were not straight white men like myself, even though I believe (and could sometimes rather "objectively" prove) that I was more "qualified" (from a surface perspective) than were they. And I fully understood and supported those decisions. They were the right ones for those organizations to make under the circumstances, in order to truly further their missions. I strongly believe in affirmative action so I accepted the occasional personal consequences that goes with that. Our society in all fundamental respects can't achieve its true potential without altering the inertia that gave/gives straight white men an inherent inside track for most positions of influence and importance. As Newton once wrote, a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless against acted on by another force. Racism and Patriarchy self perpetuate in varied ways and those tendencies must be directly countered. If that cost me a job or two over the years, so be it.
The matter of "Generalized expectations" is a little more subtle. It involves the concept of being "born into privilege", in my case a straight white male. I undeniably was born into privilege in those regards. I suspect sometimes that those who lacked those "legs up in life" might slightly overlook the fact that other non related limitations or misfortunes can, on an individual basis, more than cancel out that privilege, in some realms, in a very practical sense for an individual. Not all whites get all the breaks even with white privilege. The fact that members of minorities "on the whole" have a tougher road to travel due to the effects of racism doesn't mean that some whites don't have as tough a road due to other factors. We may have been fortunate to be born white without also being fortunate in life. It is easier in general to be white in America than not, but not all white lives are easier lived than those of other races.
Then there is the matter of the voluntary renunciation of privilege. To an extent I am in that category. It is true that the option was always largely there for me to "clean up my act" and be more typically white. And clearly my Caucasian complexion remains evident regardless of my life choices. But at a certain point even a voluntary path of renunciation leads to a point of near no return. The very minor quibble I have is with some POC who simply assume that all of my white privilege, and all the benefits that entails, is still fully in force waiting for me should ever I want to fully reclaim it. In some very real regards it no longer is.
I never mind it when Black People assume that I "can't jump". In my case that happens to be literally true, I suck at Basketball. In other cases I am a lot "less white" than many of my Black acquaintances initially assumed. But it's fun to bust up stereotypes, I don't hold it against anyone who "underestimates me" in some way, unless that'd done with both malice and foresight.