Back when I was a college professor of English, we were
undertaking curriculum review, seeking to revise our course offerings in order
to affirm more “multicultural” and “ethnic” literature. Some of us revised our syllabi to include
more non-white writers and voices. I
think our efforts were noteworthy, but there is little doubt the Western,
European, white literary tradition remained fully intact and fully dominant in
our curriculum. Perhaps, this cannot entirely be avoided in an “English”
department, which focuses on reading/writing the English language and
literature written in English, not to mention the dearth of non-white writers
and voices in English given their history of oppression in a white-dominant
culture.
At best the changes we made led to more conversations among
faculty and students regarding race relations, colonization, white supremacy,
and systemic, historically-based racism reflected in our English language and
literature. At worst these changes
merely cosmeticized and therefore reinforced what remained an essentially white
supremacist curriculum.
I remember an occasion when I was discussing our Ethnic
Literature course with an indigenous faculty member. He pointed out to me that
the effect of relegating non-white literature to a separate, “ethnic” category
implied that white literature did not have ethnicity, that white literature was
the norm, whereas non-white literature was some kind of aberration. That was a
moment of revelation I have never forgotten.
Of course, I had routinely checked the box for white or
Caucasian when asked for my race on an informational form, but somehow it had
not quite sunk in that my whiteness is just as much a race or ethnicity as all
the other categories. Furthermore,
multiculturalism includes whiteness as a separate culture distinct from
non-white cultures. I was more likely to
think of white culture regionally—Southern, Southwestern, Irish, German, etc.
Such is the power of white supremacy. As whites we are socially conditioned to
think of ourselves as the norm, and the entitled norm at that, and to think of
non-whites as deviations from that norm.
In other words, whites are more color-blind when it comes to themselves
than when it comes to non-whites.
This book by Robin DiAngelo (2018) not only analyzes white
supremacy as a system of both conscious and unconscious patterns of racism, it
also documents and demonstrates in example after example how white people
resist acknowledging their participation in this system, much less accepting it
and taking responsibility for changing both themselves and the larger system.
Until white people, including, and perhaps especially, white
liberals, move beyond this resistance and open themselves to learning how to be
authentic allies of those fighting for their liberation from oppression, we
will continue to be part of the problem, benefiting from and reinforcing the
system of oppression, instead of part of the solution. Good intentions won’t cut it. Genuine humility, consciousness-raising, and
transformation are called for.
This book can be the beginning of a long journey during
which white people learn how they can contribute to the work of dismantling
white supremacy and achieving racial equity.
