 The violence unfurling in Charlottesville was as predictable—though no less upsetting—as was the response, especially from instigators and their families. Of course, many white supremacists in the photos were named, fired, expressed regret (mostly regretting the ways in which they were perceived, as if that is an event absent their influence), but all of this is largely performative and functionally obscures a much deeper and more nuanced conversation and set of truths. It was unsurprising to hear that Peter Cvjetanovic, the angry screaming racist wants us all to know he’s “not the angry racist they see in that photo.” Of course, we knew that would happen. We also could have predicted the familial response to Peter Tefft. Tefft, one of the many white men participating in the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, was identified by his family and at first glance one might be pleased with their response. His nephew said, Peter had “turned away from all of us and gone down some insane internet rabbit-hole, and turned into a crazy nazi,” while his father said his son was no longer welcomed home and that, “ “We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs, he did not learn them at home.” While both Teffts nephew and father denounce him and his views, which some liberals might celebrate, they both do something dangerous which illuminates the ways in which Peter was likely radicalized, and the ways in which all Whites internalize notions of White Supremacy: they distanced themselves from their neo-nazi family member, and thus distanced themselves from their own culpability. To the parents and family of Peter Tefft, let me briefly summon the image of my own, well meaning, liberal parents. They never once, in my memory, espoused racist ideals. They never once overtly lifted up a supremacy of whiteness, at least knowingly. They too taught me that, “all men and women are created equal” and that “we must love each other all the same.” I think, though, of the many nights as a boy that I went to sleep after watching some action film I was not old enough to see, one in which I did not have the critical lens yet to analyze, one wherein the heroes were white-almost always cops-and the villains were of course always people of color. And in my adrenaline spiked fear, I expressed to my mother or father that I could not sleep, and in their well meaning way, they rubbed my hair and said “don’t worry, the police will protect you from the bad guys.” In that moment, in my mind, people of color became the bad guys, and white men became the great protectors of civil society, of my own body and blood. These notions were not innocent or fleeting or passively learned: they were actively cultivated, entered my mind, and then my body, and these ideas were reinforced each film, each sleepless night, each news cycle, each joke I heard from white friends and their well meaning white parents. My parents did not provide me a critical framework with which to analyze the world in terms of race and nor did they seek one for themselves until recently: they did not need it to survive or to advance. That is their failing. Let me summon too the image of my liberal, Obama voting uncle who is as enraged as he is confused that his eldest son became a republican, a sentiment expressed the same day he questioned (in response to Ferguson) why “the blacks destroy their own neighborhood”. He cannot understand where his son learned to become a conservative. You may never have espoused blatantly racist notions to your son, my parents didn’t either. You may have had friends of color, my parents did too, but what good is any of that? My blessing, and perhaps your son’s curse (let me be so bold as to assume given that y'all are from North Dakota), is that I grew up with a diverse cohort of friends, that I had friends and the families of friends who held me accountable, who educated me not passively but through overt anti-racist lessons, and helped me erect a critical framework with which to deconstruct my understandings of the world and of race. I wonder how many times an uncle or neighbor came over for dinner and, in the presence of your son, said something like “black people just don’t want to work, except for this new guy I hired. He’s different” or perhaps “Trayvon Martin didn’t deserve to die, but he wasn’t a saint either, he really was a thug.” Did you speak up during these times? Or, as you admit you have been these past years, were you silent? You wrote so eloquently that, “We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake . . . it was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.” Your silence, however, is not only that you have not spoken out against your son since his transition into blatant, overt and active racism became apparent to you, until he carried a torch through the streets of Virginia. Your silence is also everything you did not say or did not challenge before this moment, from his first uttered word until now. Silence, is a lesson. It is a great and ardent teacher. You may have said all the “right” things to your son about love and equality, but these lessons mean nothing if they do not deconstruct power structures and history, they mean nothing in the face of what is not denounced, he learned-very clearly-much more from all that you did not say. It is not enough that parents DON’T teach racism, parents must actively teach ANTI-RACISM. So must friends, and uncles, and aunts, nephews, and nieces and neighbors and grandparents and teachers, and strangers. We, as white people, all benefit from white supremacy, whether we are white supremacists or racial justice activists. Your son, the nazi, is propping up a world that ultimately systemically benefits you, and me, even if it is a world which is to be abhorred. We do not opt into whiteness or racism, we are constantly inside of it; we must make the decision to leave it every day, and every moment. Unless we are EACH actively speaking and working AGAINST racism, unless we are studying our histories and demystifying the meaning placed upon our skin, and the meaning we too place upon it intentionally or not, we are pillars, we are bricks in the foundation of white supremacy’s proliferation. It is unhelpful to disown your son, not because he doesn’t deserve it, but because what you are really disowning is the notion of your own culpability. By separating yourself from your son you are separating yourself from your responsibility as someone with a direct hand in cultivating another human’s worldview. In an open letter, repudiating your son's beliefs, you write that his “hateful opinions are bringing hateful rhetoric to his siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews as well as his parents. Why must we be guilty by association? Again, none of his beliefs were learned at home.” Just because you did not actively teach them to him, does not mean he did not learn them at home. It does not mean you you never once turned a blind eye to his beliefs because that was more comfortable than challenging them. Your son was born with white skin, yes, but at some point he came to understand and imagine himself to be white-no longer German or Irish or Norwegian or Italian, but white-and he was guided along into this process. You must analyze the ways in which you helped facilitate that. He came to understand himself as pure, as righteous, as productive, as heroic, as chosen, and when these are the lessons that are internalized, the lesson of “we must love everyone” is a lesson that turns to dust and means less than dust. Disowning him is not enough. He learned from your silence. You must learn from it too. And then destroy it. That is all of our errand, if we are now considered to be-or believe ourselves to be-white. Our silence, and our comfort in that silence, must be smashed. Michael Lee is a Norwegian-American writer, performer and educator. He has received grants and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, & the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. He as worked as a dish washer, a farm hand, a traveling performer, and a youth counselor for teens experiencing homelessness. He recently graduated with his Ed.M from Harvard University. He lives in Minneapolis. You can help support his writing HERE.
0 Comments
Right now I’m thinking about a few questions so many white people ask around race and racial justice, the one which is burning me now, and always, but especially now is the ever popular “how do we discuss race without shaming or guilting white people”. This question seemed nonstop this year at HGSE from so many white peers, and every time it was shot down or reframed or challenged it grew back. White folks who are even remotely interested in anti-racism, Shame is when the nature of our (in)actions are revealed to us, guilt is when the nature of our (in)actions are revealed to those around us. The question isn't how do we make whites not feel these things, but how do whites act upon these feelings as they are a reflection of the beginnings of some kind of awakening process? To create a dialogue which seeks to shield whites from shame or guilt is to never call into question unequal systems of power which allows whites to exist in a state of constant dominance, one wherein our freedom and comfort are predicated upon the oppression and discomfort experienced by folks of color. Furthermore, to ask this question is to both center the dialogue once again on whites and whiteness insinuating that the goal of social movements is to create comfort for whites at the expense of POC (which is exactly the goal of white supremacy) as opposed to reaching equity for historically aggrieved communities. To ask this question is to position whites as primary visionaries and knowledge producers, it is to position white morality as the most human, and therefore trusted moral compass (asking that all progress adhere to this morality), though it is this morality which murders unarmed folks of color with impunity every day. It is this moral compass which kills and kills and kills and with which grand jury after grand jury finds no guilt. White supremacy isn’t just as simple as a public lynching, it is the instinctual place from which white people experience, imagine, and question (or don’t) the world. To ask this question is to ask to that we are not made to leave the imaginary. The white world is an imaginary one with real consequences. As Claudia Rankine says, “because white men can't police their imaginations, Black men are dying”. The distance between one’s internalized sense of superiority which asks a conversation on race to be centered around white comfort, and the execution of Philando Castile is the length of a barrel. The distance is so fucking short, y’all. Who has the right to exist? Whose humanity is most valued? Philando Castile's execution allows for one’s priority in conversations on racial justice to be figuring out how not to feel guilty. That is what comfort allows, this comfort is built on the dead. Our sleep is built on the sleeplessness of folks of color. This single question was asked so much this year at Harvard it was baffling and sickening, especially coming from a host of some hundred future or current educators. Whiteness cannot imagine a world in which it is not the apex, the center, the objective-this question which seeks to redirect and immobilize progress only proves that. If you feel guilt or shame that is the feeling of seeing yourself honestly, if even just a glimpse, for perhaps the first time. This feeling is the feeling of the white moral compass beginning to bend. This is the feeling of realizing you are being seen, that POC are not in fact objects and are indeed agents and subjects and * holy shit * humans and knew what you were about long before you did. This feeling is the feeling of being discovered. And if we cannot bear to be discovered, if we cannot bear to discover ourselves, then justice will also remain shrouded and unrealized. If you feel guilt or shame in a conversation about race ask yourself why-do not ask a person of color-ask yourself how dare you believe the conversation’s purpose was to guilt or shame you, that somehow even on the topic of black and brown liberation the conversation is still about us. If you feel guilt or shame then realize your real self is facing your imagined self. What does a socially constructed lie do when it sees itself? Do not turn away. Take a good hard look and don’t look away. Step into those feelings and use them as fuel. Destroy the White Imagination. Destroy White Instinct. Destroy White Comfort. This comfort, this instinct, this imagination kills, and kills every day. Remember Philando Castile and Alton Sterling next time you think about asking how the conversation could be different to avoid your feelings of shame and guilt. Think of Rekia Boyd and Renisha McBride and Tamir and Trayvon and Eric and and and. Think. Think long and hard. We gotta reveal our real and imaginary selves, we need to close that gap. We are 600 years late in facing ourselves. The time is always right now. Rest in power and peace #PhilandoCastile #AltonSterling  Michael Lee is a Norwegian-American writer, performer and educator. He has received grants and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, & the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. He as worked as a dish washer, a farm hand, a traveling performer, and a youth counselor for teens experiencing homelessness. He recently graduated with his Ed.M from Harvard University. He lives in Minneapolis. You can help support his writing HERE.
One of the things my grandmother, a working class German-American woman from Jordan Minnesota (and one of the most progressive elderly white women you’ll ever meet), has always complained about is the ways in which working class white folks have, for as long as she can remember, voted against their best interests in staggering numbers. We do, it’s true, yet it is only half of the truth. A vote for Trump, like a vote for Bush before him, Clinton before him,and Bush before him, and Reagan and Nixon, and any other number of Republicans or conservative Democrats are of course votes against the economical security of the working class. Yet poor, working class white folks have ensured these victories time and time again. What I have come to realize, is that isn’t so much that these voters are voting against their economic interests so much as they are voting for their racial interests; they are forsaking class solidarity for a racial one. Let’s trace this back a little ways-Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 nearly 1,000 indentured white servants and African indentured servants and slaves rose up against the planter elites. The rebellion was violently put down but raised enough fear in the elites for them to see a racial caste system needed to supersede the class hierarchy. The class differential at the time was so great that not only did poor whites hate elite whites enough to try and kill them, they found it to be more plausible for them to align with free or enslaved black folks and attempt to violently overthrow the elites than they did to attempt to work their way out of economic exploitation. After Bacon’s Rebellion, between the Virginia Slave Codes-which stated that slaves could be whipped, branded or maimed for simply associating with whites-and new alluring benefits provided to white working poor and indentured servants, the poor whites began to distance themselves from African slaves and gravitate towards the elite with whom they still had nothing in common save skin tone. In cementing the racial caste system, the slave trade exploded and the construction of whiteness became more defined by ownership, both of stolen land and the stolen bodies forced to work this land; the domination to acquire such ownership and the subsequent fear of losing it also became inherent to white people, and the evolving white imagination and pathology. Derrick Bell, founder of Critical Race Theory, writes that “slave masters then appealed to working class whites by urging that their shared whiteness compelled the two groups to unite against the threat of slave revolts or escapes. The strategy worked. In their poverty, whites vented their frustrations by hating the slaves rather than their masters, who held both black slave and free white in economic bondage . . .in a nation where property is viewed as a measure of worth, many whites, possessing relatively little property of the traditional kind - money, securities, and land - view their whiteness as a property right” (Bell, U.C. Davis Law Review, Wanted: A White Leader Able to Free Whites of Racism, Spring 2000. Pg 536). The white elites continue to exploit working class whites while convincing them that the reason their lives are not the lives they want, or have imagined for themselves, are because of people of color. As the US grew, and more people from around the globe immigrated to its shores, the list of scapegoats grew larger-and once on that list one never seems to get off-black folks,indigenous folks, the Chinese, then the Japanese, Mexicans, Southeast Asians, Muslims, particularly, as of late, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians-the list is by no means comprehensive, it grows and grows and evolves as whiteness requires. Additionally, whiteness absorbs who it must in order to maintain its majority and dominance (i.e. Irish, Italians). The task of European immigrants wasn’t simply to distance themselves from their own cultures, but to enter the roles of dominators over people of color so that that could prove their whiteness, now solidly defined in opposition to and dominance over people of color, and yet it remained that poor, working class whites seldom made it much further above the bottom of the societal barrel than working class folks of color. Nearing the 21st century, Derrick Bell bell writes too of North Carolina’s Jesse Helms’ 1996 re-election bid for Senate in that “Fear and resentment of blacks led many whites in North Carolina to vote to reelect Jesse Helms . . . his support for economic measures advantage the rich while burdening the lives of poorer whites - the very constituents that provide Helms with his electoral victories . . . The leadership of both the House of Representatives and the Senate hold their powerful positions in substantial part because, like Helms, they convinced whites that if elected, they would preserve the racial status quo. Having done so, congressional leaders can ignore the nation’s need for health care, environmental reform, effective schools, and a decent minimum wage. They need not acknowledge the tremendous, and growing, gap in wealth and income” (Bell, U.C. Davis Law Review, Wanted: A White Leader Able to Free Whites of Racism, Spring 2000, pg. 534). Now, again and always, we are watching one of the most quintessential American dynamics play out during these primary elections. Working class whites are choosing between class solidarity and whiteness. While some are undecided between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders (both candidates offering polar opposite economic change), the vast majority have been simply duped into believing the economy is being destroyed by "illegals" and "terrorists". Trump's rhetoric is vague enough he doesn't have to provide any details and consequently the lack of detail acts as rallying cry and anthem. His rhetoric feeds off the fears that conservatives have been supplying to white working class people since after Bacon's Rebellion. Recently, just before the Minnesota Primary, a white nationalist group made robocalls to Minnesota’s Iron Range on behalf of Donald Trump. The Iron Range, which has fallen on intensely tough economic times with mines shutting down and unemployment skyrocketing, particularly among working class whites. Now, regardless of how the range will or has voted, the fact that white nationalist groups are making calls to this area ahead of Super Tuesday, and not to-lets say, the Twin Cities-is very telling and shows just what game they are playing, one which has been in elite’s deck of cards since America’s inception. The message, called in by The American Nationalist Super PAC, reportedly said, "I am William Johnson, a farmer and white nationalist. The white race is dying out in America and Europe . . . our government destroys our children's future, but don't call me racist. I'm afraid to be called racist. It's OK to give away our country for immigration, but don't call me racist. It's OK that few schools anymore have beautiful white children in the majority, but don't call me racist. Gradual genocide against the white race is OK, but don't call me racist. I'm afraid to be called racist. Donald Trump is not a racist, but Donald Trump is not afraid. Don't vote for a Cuban; vote for Donald Trump. This call is not authorized by Donald Trump." Yes, this was literally something that rang out into people’s phones across the Iron Range. And still, Trump refuses to speak out against the KKK or other white supremacist organizations who support him. Trump, who has promised a wall to keep out Mexicans, Trump who has promised to ban all Muslims from the country, Trump who has promised he will bring back jobs and make America great has struck the chord of fear of the economically exploited working class. Whites who, often, own little but their whiteness are now having to decide, once again, which is worth more? Working class whites know deep down that Donald Trump and those like him throughout history are the ones which have kept us down. Despite what we were told and what we came to believe it wasn’t Chinese factory or rail workers, it wasn’t Japanese miners, it’s never been Mexican ranchers or apple pickers, it certainly was never slaves or the indigenous peoples we displaced as we terrorized the plains and burned the fields down to ash as we pushed further West. However, oppressed communities of color have always been more within reach of the economically exploited white working class than the white elites have been, easier to blame, easier to stop, to steal from, to kill. Despite a deep seeded hatred and fear of the bourgeoisie, a deep love of and admiration for the capitalist also exists, and as we yank our bootstraps harder and harder, though we do not move, we dream of him and his table. While many working class whites have chosen and are firmly invested in either their whiteness or class solidarity, there is, at this very moment, a working class white family sitting around their table trying to decide who to vote for. They are struggling to decide what to invest in, whiteness or class solidarity. And in Trump's promise of white supremacy there is a belief, rooted only in the white imagination and in hope-the poison that is the American Dream-that, despite his capitalist, dominator rhetoric that perhaps he will pull the working class whites up, reaching down like some filthy hand of god and bring us from the bottom of the well. It is this dream which has prevented significant racial solidarity among working class communities. This idea of true class solidarity course not as simple as a Sanders/Trump binary (Sanders' Marxist understanding of race is problematic in its own right, and reifies whiteness in a different way, one which is vaguely reminiscent of the New Deal which offered widespread economic reform, but failed to address racial inequities and thus left people of color largely out of the following economic boom), but it is this moment in American Politics-in which there is significant unrest among working class people,particularly whites-that there is opportunity for true class solidarity and a workers rebellion. The modern American worker's rebellion does not come as the result of a presidential candidate, it comes as a result of a collective orientation towards the rejection of capitalism and racism, and in this presidential election the lens is widening showing us the unrest of the working class, the power of that unrest. The topography of power is always visible if you know which dynamics to look for, but during this moment it is staring us back in the face and, again, a significant portion of the white working class does not see it. Or refuses to look. There is a belief, it seems, if we choose Trump, he will choose us and the tables and the ballrooms we have been promised for four hundred years, and have come to believe we deserve because of our race, will finally be ours that, finally, this time, we need but work a little longer, and give one more good yank of our bootstraps and we will be rich too. We have largely always sided with the rich elites before siding with working class communities of color from whom we attempt to distance ourselves as a means of more sharply defining our whiteness. We swear, we are all the next Trump, the next Rockefeller, and none of us are poor or have been. We are White, after all, we are only briefly stunted millionaires.  Michael Lee is a Norwegian-American writer, performer and educator. He has received grants and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, & the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. He as worked as a dish washer, a farm hand, a traveling performer, and a youth counselor for teens experiencing homelessness. Currently, he is an Ed.M candidate at Harvard University. You can help support his writing HERE. When I saw that Macklemore had released White Privilege 2, I was skeptical to say the least. I mostly listened to it, because I saw the absolutely incomparable Jamila Woods was singing on it. Given the amount to which Macklemore has spoken out against white privilege while not actually actively challenging his own white privilege, and the system of racial dominance which constructs that privilege, I didn’t know what to expect when I listened to the song. This piece was inspired by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib and his piece in Fader, you can find more of his essays and poems here Shout out to Jamila Woods for her vocals in White Privilege 2, you can learn more about her and her work here, and check out her newest song “blk girl soldier”  Michael Lee is a Norwegian-American writer, performer and educator. He has received grants and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, & the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.He is an Ed.M candidate at Harvard University. You can help support his writing HERE. |
Writer. Performer. Youth worker. Educator. What I know is eclipsed by what I don't. Working and writing for justice in all the ways I know how. Radical imagination. Deconstructing Whiteness.
Archives
August 2017
Order Michael's Book |
RSS Feed