Claiming Race

So with all of the fallout surrounding the strange case of Rachel Dolezal, I have been more than a little bit apprehensive. For all the people... many of whom have opinions I respect... who say that it's just plain wrong to claim a race that isn't your own, I always had a slight ick. It wasn't that long ago that a trans person would be nigh-universally rejected, and YES, I know the cases are very different for a myriad of reasons. It still gives me the ick.

But I'll tell you what Rachel has done that many of her white detractors HAVEN'T... and that is claimed the concept of race for herself.

One of the pillars of white privilege is that, for us, the concept of race tends to be optional. Coming from centuries of being the de facto default, a white person can choose to engage with the concept of race or not. In fact, it's almost preferred (among white people, anyway) that we DON'T, because the only white people we see really claiming their race are white supremacists, and who really wants to be in that club?

There have been lots of causes for racial outrage recently, from Ferguson to Baltimore to Rachel to Charleston. I have seen plenty of people showing that outrage, many of them white as I am. And nearly universally (I say nearly, but I am having trouble thinking of an exception) the outrage has all been given in the third person. Talking about white privilege as if it were something someone else was doing, or talking about "white people" as if the twitter-er was talking about a group they didn't belong to.

This is, of course, how systems of racial prejudice work, how they thrive. We get irritated with others when they claim race isn't an issue, but we're not much better when we, as white people, act like race isn't OUR issue. We want to look at race as an entity separate from ourselves, hide from it, or act as if "white people" is a group we aren't members of, so we can properly scold it. And in so doing, we perpetuate it by enacting one of the greatest privileges white people have... pretending that we are just people, rather than white people.

I don't think it comes from an evil place, or a malevolent place. After all, after being shown example after example of white people who openly claim their whiteness being horrible, it is entirely understandable to not want to be seen as one of them. We may not use makeup or hairstyles to do it, but we DO IT... even when we are trying to address the problems caused by racial differences.

We can't stand outside of the system to judge it... that only perpetuates the system, and does so by using its tools. We do it because we'd really like to judge the system but would rather not judge ourselves in the process, and in so doing we become yet another "white moderate" like MLK JR talked about, thinking ourselves as superior to those "racist whites," but every bit as much of the problem as them. Sure, we may not hold the gun in the prayer meeting, or order militarized police to the protest, but we support the system that creates the ones who do.

It's time to drop to the third person language when we are talking about ourselves. It's time to stop talking about "white privilege" and start talking about "OUR privilege," it's time to stop talking about "them" and start talking about "us."

And in the process, it's time to find a way to reclaim white pride in a way that doesn't degrade others. Because if we can't find a way to be proud of our racial identity we'll never use it. And if we never use it, then we will continue to treat race as an external problem, thinking of "white people" as a group with voluntary membership, and continue perpetuating the very system that we can't quite seem to get rid of.

We have a problem, White people. And we also have a lot of power. That's a dangerous combination. Other races are asking us to please get our act together. That will never happen if the only ones holding the reins of "white people" are those who think that power is precisely where it belongs.