Being White in America

If you are a white American you are steeped in a culture of white privilege.

Imagine for a moment that you are in an auditorium filled with people of all ages, women and men, mostly white. The lecturer comes onto the stage and asks you all to close your eyes. He waits for the crowd to become quiet, eyes closed. He then asks people to rise, keeping their eyes closed, if they would like to be treated like a black man in America. After a moment he tells people they can open their eyes. Not one person is standing, including you, including me, including everyone we know in the crowd.

At some level we all know that privilege is ours because we are white. Pretending we don’t know or don’t understand is no longer an option.

Standing around wringing our hands and lamenting that nothing can be done is no longer an option.

Here are a few resources that help challenge our privilege and understand how we participate in and benefit from it.

• Pyramid of White Supremacy
• White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
• Dismantling White Privilege by Shannon Sullivan
• White Privilege Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
• Anti-Racism Resources for People of All Ages
• Dismantling Privilege: An Ethics of Accountability by Mary Elizabeth Hobgood
• America’s Original Sin by Jim Wallace
• White Privilege Unmasked by Judy Ryde
• Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
• Textbook Racism: How Scholars Sustained White Supremacy by Donald Yacavone
• How to Be an Antiracistby Ibram X. Kendi
• White Anti-Racism Must be Based in Solidarity and Not Altruism by Jesse A. Myerson

Christianity is a religion that should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Instead, we have become yet one more institution more concerned about our buildings and the status quo than the mission to which we are called.

We cannot be the people of faith we are called to be and not deal with our inherent racism.  It’s just that simple. The God we worship, the God of resurrection ushers in a new way of being in the world, showing us what is possible when we stand in solidarity with the oppressed.

Solidarity means, in part, that we

• don’t speak for people, but stand with them as they speak for themselves;
• use our privilege for the benefit of Blacks, Latinos, and other oppressed groups;
• stop appropriating the cultural celebrations of Blacks, Native Americans and others and using them for our own purposes;
• do the hard work of educating ourselves and looking into our very core;
• vote in the best interests of those with the least power; and
• keep up with the changing lexicon regarding race.

Check out new music recommendations here and here.

All of the resources listed above are hyperlinks that will take you directly to the site. They are filled with information and practical ways we can transform ourselves into people who stand in solidarity with our black and brown sisters and brothers.