Why must there be "White Guilt" to resolve racism? (school, bias)
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The thread is interesting I was commenting that I have no white guilt at all.
I was never handed anything on a silver platter. In fact the first years of my life until I was about 8 I lived in a predominantly black community not far from Watts in Los Angeles.
Everything I have I earned. But I also did not walk around with this victim mentality like many minorities do. If you attribute everything that goes wrong by your race or the color of your skin it holds you back.
What needs to happen is get an education. Something that anyone in the this country can do if they put the effort in.
I went to a college graduation a few months back. There were blind students and students with wheelchairs and service dogs with very serious disabilities to overcome all getting awarded their degrees.
Interesting post. Lots to think about.
I'm from a town in NYS that was all White until about 1960, when one Black family moved in. They happened to go to our church. Were they welcomed into the town? Well, nothing overly bad was done to them, but nothing overtly good was done either.
I started out at a community college, and then transferred to a state university, both of which were awfully White (1968-1972), despite being near Rochester, NY, which had (and has) a fairly good-sized Black population. Was it a lack of interest in Blacks to want to go to college? A lack of funds to pay for college? A feeling of hopelessness that even if they applied they wouldn't get in? Tradition? Probably a combination of those factors. But I know this -- the White boy from a small town (me), while not rich, had the family resources to pay for college; the Black kid clearly did not. And when I think back to the crew I went to college with, that was pretty much all the same -- lower to upper middle class Whites that while their families were not rich, they could afford college. And housing. And food. And transportation. It wasn't a silver platter situation, but there was sufficient money for college. And when I bought my first townhouse in the D.C. area a decade later, it was with money I had inherited. In a sense, that inheritance is a silver platter situation.
And, while this is fading, I'm also reminded about the day after "Roots" was first broadcast. The Black principal of the school where I was teaching called an early morning faculty meeting because she was afraid there might be trouble as the slightly majority Black population of the school reacted to the program (although there wasn't). And she talked to us -- particularly us White teachers -- about how hard it is to break traditions. For example, the traditions that the not too far back ancestors of most of our Black students were not allowed to even learn how to read or write, and that as a result just a few generations having books and magazines in the home was not an established tradition. How that up until just 3 years before that miniseries (the show was in 1977, busing took place in PG County in 1977) Black schools had no libraries; White schools had libraries. Black schools had no hot lunch program; White schools did. Black schools got the textbooks the White schools discarded, making them incredibly out of date. Black schools had no school nurse; White schools did. And hey...this isn't ancient history. This 1976! Real change takes time.
Now, you mention present day students with physical handicaps. Fair enough. But it isn't s if those colleges don't have special programs and accommodations for students with physical and learning disabilities...they do (I'm a retired educator).
Or, how about "I got promoted because I'm white like my boss and my boss' boss"? "I got promoted because 'like likes like' and my boss is a lot like me"? Or, "I got promoted because I'm the son-in-law of the wife of the boss' brother" (yeah, you don't even have to be a close relation to take advantage of this one!). Or "I got promoted because I was in the same fraternity as the boss"?
If this bothers you.......... you should be an advocate for Labor unions. they are the best way to prevent these things........
I'm from a town in NYS that was all White until about 1960, when one Black family moved in. They happened to go to our church. Were they welcomed into the town? Well, nothing overly bad was done to them, but nothing overtly good was done either.
I started out at a community college, and then transferred to a state university, both of which were awfully White (1968-1972), despite being near Rochester, NY, which had (and has) a fairly good-sized Black population. Was it a lack of interest in Blacks to want to go to college? A lack of funds to pay for college? A feeling of hopelessness that even if they applied they wouldn't get in? Tradition? Probably a combination of those factors. But I know this -- the White boy from a small town (me), while not rich, had the family resources to pay for college; the Black kid clearly did not. And when I think back to the crew I went to college with, that was pretty much all the same -- lower to upper middle class Whites that while their families were not rich, they could afford college. And housing. And food. And transportation. It wasn't a silver platter situation, but there was sufficient money for college. And when I bought my first townhouse in the D.C. area a decade later, it was with money I had inherited. In a sense, that inheritance is a silver platter situation.
And, while this is fading, I'm also reminded about the day after "Roots" was first broadcast. The Black principal of the school where I was teaching called an early morning faculty meeting because she was afraid there might be trouble as the slightly majority Black population of the school reacted to the program (although there wasn't). And she talked to us -- particularly us White teachers -- about how hard it is to break traditions. For example, the traditions that the not too far back ancestors of most of our Black students were not allowed to even learn how to read or write, and that as a result just a few generations having books and magazines in the home was not an established tradition. How that up until just 3 years before that miniseries (the show was in 1977, busing took place in PG County in 1977) Black schools had no libraries; White schools had libraries. Black schools had no hot lunch program; White schools did. Black schools got the textbooks the White schools discarded, making them incredibly out of date. Black schools had no school nurse; White schools did. And hey...this isn't ancient history. This 1976! Real change takes time.
Now, you mention present day students with physical handicaps. Fair enough. But it isn't s if those colleges don't have special programs and accommodations for students with physical and learning disabilities...they do (I'm a retired educator).
Need to add that a traditional route for many to higher education is the GI Bill which provides education funding through military service as well as VA loans to buy a home.
So often today no one mentions this and it was so crucial for those with modest to no means to get a leg up through benefits they earned.
Just about everyone I grew up around benefited from these benefits including my father.
The important thing to remember these and expanded benefits are ongoing...
In the last 5 years we hired two new RN nurses that came from nothing... broken family, minority, drug and criminal elements... these two young ladies were looking for a way out and signed up as soon as they could... they used their education benefits to make it possible to become RN's and now make $48 and hour plus plenty of overtime...
Why must there be "white guilt" to resolve racism and inequality ?
Is it not possible to empower people without vilifying other people? Isn't that a little ironic ?
"hey, life's not fair, let us make it fair, by playing unfair".
Am I the only white person that is complete exhausted from having this rhetoric everywhere, where I have to now feel guilty for the plight of a group of people when I have my own adversities to overcome, but apparently who cares about my adversity. my "people" who I have nothing to do with started this country I now live in so now I have to take on their sins. What is this? some twisted warped version of Catholicism?
you are born with sin and now, if you are born white, you are born with sin and some.
what are we getting that is important from perpetuating white guilt ?
I have never felt guilty about being white.
I have felt a little embarrassed sometimes, when I read things like this.
I don't think the right word is "guilt". I think it's acknowledgment. Or perhaps affirmation.
My feeling is that many white people do not want to admit that white privilege exists. Justifiably, black people are upset.
WHITE PRIVILEGE is very real. When we attempt to level the playing field through affirmative action, which I fully support, some white people explode with anger. I am not sure why.
White people need to ask themselves if they would EVER want to exchange places with a black person. Become black. And live as they do, with judgement and suspicion, fewer opportunities to build wealth, lack of confidence in law enforcement and neighborhood segregation - which exists ALL over the US - not only in the South.
With that segregation come inferior schools.
I do not think there would be many white people lining up to be black in America.
I agree that acknowledgment or affirmation would be better words. I am white and do not feel guilty--like many white people, none of my ancestors owned slaves or even met a black person. My grandparents came from England where they had terrible lives working in the mills.--no black people in their area of England back then. On the other side, my grandparents lived in northern Vermont and they and their ancestors probably never even saw a black person either.
But I do acknowledge that some white privilege exists. Probably normal in a country that was settled and developed by whites. In a perfect world it would be equal for everyone but that never seems to be. Affirmative action was supposed to help and it does seem to have helped a lot.
The reason some white people are sick of affirmative action? For example, a friend couldn't get a college scholarship for her kid even though he was at the top of his class and they don't make a lot of money. The scholarship had to go to a black kid who didn't have such good test scores. How is that fair?
White privilege falsely assumes that all white people are rich or privileged and it discriminates against white people who never had a chance or are poor. I have no solution as to how to make things fair for all--but is it really going to make any difference even if all white people acknowledge that there is some degree of white privilege? How does that change anything?
The boss will promote the people with the highest work output, or his/her business will fail. That's how it actually works.
I'm thinking that a lot of life experiences don't confirm that. Also most "bosses" in charge of promotions have do not own the companies they work for and get paid a salary. As such the bottom line of the corporation does not serve as an incentive to promote in the manner you describe.
Am I the only white person that is complete exhausted from having this rhetoric everywhere, [/color]
Mmmm possibly. Dont worry about it, just be a good person and live your life. I dont worry about that kind of crap. I've got much else on my plate.
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