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WilliamPitt

(58,179 posts)
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 12:22 PM Dec 2014

"I Don't Know What to Do With Good White People"

I Don't Know What to Do With Good White People
By Brit Bennett
Jezebel

Wednesday 17 December 2014

I don't know what to do with good white people.

I've been surrounded by good white people my whole life. Good white people living in my neighborhood, who returned our dog when he got loose; good white teachers in elementary school who pushed books into my hands; good white professors at Stanford, a Bay Area bastion of goodwhiteness, who recommended me M.F.A. programs where I met good white writers, liberal enough for a Portlandia sketch.

I should be grateful for this. Who, in generations of my family, has ever been surrounded by so many good white people? My mother was born to sharecroppers in Louisiana; she used to measure her feet with a piece of string because they could not try on shoes in the store. She tells me of a white policeman who humiliated her mother by forcing her to empty her purse on the store counter just so he could watch her few coins spiral out.

Two summers ago, my mother showed me the welfare reports written about her family. The welfare officer, a white woman, observed my family with a careful, anthropological eye. She described the children, including my mother, as "nice and clean." She asked personal questions (did my grandmother have a boyfriend?) and wrote her findings in a detached tone. She wondered why my grandmother, an illiterate Black mother of nine living in the Jim Crow South, struggled to find a steady job. Maybe, she wrote in her loopy scrawl, my grandmother wasn't searching hard enough.

This faded report is the type of official document a historian might consult if he were re-constructing the story of my family. The author, this white welfare officer, writes as if she is an objective observer, but she tells a well-worn story of Black women who refuse to work and instead depend on welfare. Occasionally, her clinical tone breaks down. Once, she notes that my mother is pretty. She probably considered herself a good white person.

The rest: http://jezebel.com/i-dont-know-what-to-do-with-good-white-people-1671201391

An incredible, uncomfortable, important article. Read it.
9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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"I Don't Know What to Do With Good White People" (Original Post) WilliamPitt Dec 2014 OP
It's not a unique problem. To a large degree, it all comes down to varying degrees of bullying. hedgehog Dec 2014 #1
To see with anothers eyes riverbendviewgal Dec 2014 #2
This is the most important thing etherealtruth Dec 2014 #3
I agree riverbendviewgal Dec 2014 #4
The crux of the matter is death daredtowork Dec 2014 #5
Drove all the way home maindawg Dec 2014 #6
This is such a damn good article, thank you. K&R mountain grammy Dec 2014 #7
interesting bigtree Dec 2014 #8
Up WilliamPitt Dec 2014 #9

hedgehog

(36,286 posts)
1. It's not a unique problem. To a large degree, it all comes down to varying degrees of bullying.
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 01:49 PM
Dec 2014

Someone sees a member of their group bullying someone from another group. How do they interfere without asserting and affirming their privilege and special rights as a member of the bully's group? How can they stand by and do nothing?

White people seeing other white people bully people of color.

Straights seeing other straights bully members of the GLBT community.

The OK kids at school seeing other OK kids bully the not-so-OK kids.

A middle class person seeing other middle class people bully a homeless person.

And yes, "bullying" is too tame a term for what is going on, but it's the only one that comes to mind just now.

Obviously, if you're the one getting beaten or shot because you're a young black male, you're problem is waaaaaay more serious than mine, as an elderly white woman who is now grouped with the bad cop because we are both white.



riverbendviewgal

(4,251 posts)
2. To see with anothers eyes
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 01:51 PM
Dec 2014

to walk in another's shoes.

I copied the link to this story and filed it under racism. I may pass it on to others. but for now I will think about how so many are treated past and present.

Thanks for the link, WilliamPitt

I am an old white woman who was a young woman who went through the JFK, MLK, Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the riots in the late 60s. I lived in NJ at the time.

I left the USA when I was 21. No regrets. IMHO.... the USA is even worse now.

etherealtruth

(22,165 posts)
3. This is the most important thing
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 01:55 PM
Dec 2014

.... how can we ever know the experiences of others unless we listen (and hear) what others have experienced?

daredtowork

(3,732 posts)
5. The crux of the matter is death
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 02:33 PM
Dec 2014

My first reaction to the article is that as a disabled person, I have that same over-thinking problem. I'm always trying to guess what the secret intentions are because there IS a risk I will be discriminated against, and my status IS very low in society because I HAVE been discriminated against whether I could put my finger on the exact perpetrators or not. I suffer and live in poverty. I face the case workers who document me. I work with job developers who render judgments about my commitment to the getting a job, since I suppose they are being judged on whether I move forward even though they don't do anything that actually connects to work.

My first instinct around black people is also to "check my privilege" and over-compensate - not because I'm preening over how "good" I'm being, but because I'm probably over-thinking in that encounter, too. I'm hyper-aware of the social problems, and I want to do the right thing.

But here is the problem with white people, including me. No matter how much we can appreciate overthinking the intentions of others, being discriminated against, and personal suffering, there is one aspect we can't understand: the feeling of being victims of genocide.

If you listen closely, the phrases you hear over and over during these #BlackLivesMatter protests is: my LIFE is not worth as much as a white person's, an inconvenienced commute is not on a par with an empty seat at the dinner table, when the cop pointed a gun at my brother he thought he was going to die - and he had done nothing wrong!, etc. The issue at hand - the issue of racism and the police is a MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH which has become embedded in the psyche of black people.

This is something that no one in any other ethnic/social category can identify with, so it's hard to even discuss: if you say you understand, you sound patronizing. If you say you don't/can't understand, then what steps can be taken toward healing and reducing the amount of "overthink" going on?

I have a feeling though that black people, like all people, would be better off if their problems were simply dealt with rather than endlessly discussed, analyzed, documented, and empathized with.

 

maindawg

(1,151 posts)
6. Drove all the way home
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 03:01 PM
Dec 2014

Without remembering to turn his headlights on', kind of gave me chills........

mountain grammy

(26,571 posts)
7. This is such a damn good article, thank you. K&R
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 03:36 PM
Dec 2014

I read it, saved it, and will re read it several times. We have to put the blame for racism where it belongs, on white people.
I'm still shocked at the report that more than half of white Americans believe that police treat the races equally, and torture's ok too.

Don't know why I'm shocked, just not ready to give up on my country yet, but I'm getting close.

bigtree

(85,919 posts)
8. interesting
Wed Dec 17, 2014, 04:20 PM
Dec 2014

While this article correctly points to the sometimes condescending and subjugating attitudes of some white people toward black individuals, it should remind us that there are also stereotypes made and perpetuated against white Americans. The difference, of course, is the consequence in a majority white society in which black people are regularly discriminated against, judged, repressed, or attacked in a disproportionate measure by many in that white majority. Still, there's an imperative need to refrain from assuming these patronizing and subservient attitudes are universal and inherent in all white individuals; just as it's imperative to refrain from stereotyping black individuals.

I've seen a lot of this line of reasoning this year in many portrayals of white allies who identify with and have expressed support for the current struggles and protests for justice against police brutality which is disproportionally directed toward black Americans. I don't think its particularly useful or productive, and I view most of the rhetoric and logic generalizing in a negative way about attitudes of the white majority as antithetical to an effort which seeks equality and, ultimately, unity. Still, the points are certainly taken that there are different perceptions of ourselves and others based on our color line.

The article is a good illustration of how many black Americans, myself included, grapple with the way racism is so ingrained in all of our everyday insecurities about ourselves and others; and how its almost impossible for black Americans today to put aside those insecurities when so many perceptions of us and so many actions and attitudes of us are still so negatively skewed in ways which allow whites opportunities to define black lives outside of the boundaries of opportunity, acceptance, and understanding that they afford their own.

I had the opportunity to illustrate this to a former white soldier who had experienced verbal abuse upon his return home. He regularly characterized blacks who had run afoul of the law as 'thugs' and 'criminals' and I asked him to put himself in their place by questioning whether he thought he had served honorably and was a good soldier. When he replied in the affirmative, I pointed out that he was able to remove his uniform and avoid the stereotyping that had motivated the people castigating him for his service; but that blacks had no way of removing their 'uniform' or changing the color of their skin which compels so many to associate them with the worst our society has historically labeled our race with.

Point is, we need to avoid entering into interactions with each other assuming the worst of what we believe or assume about each other. It's, perhaps, naive and disarming, but that's the only way we'll be able to move beyond these barriers of perception; on either side of the racial divide. Easier said, then done, I know - but, we can all do our part to push past these artificial and contrived images of ourselves. Our national history has affirmed this possibility. There's no reason at all to second-guess ourselves or become overly cynical about our respective intentions now.



ron fullwood @ronfullwood

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