What do we do with white privilege?

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How much have we really "changed" in our regard to Native Americans and Black people? Can whiteness ever be transgressive, or can it only ever be violent? and other unanswerable questions...

Dear friends and fam,

As I’ve been tearing through Jonathan Kozol’s whirlwind of books about inequity, the South Bronx, and education, I’ve been wondering in what ways white privilege can be used as a site for transgression.

Or, to be honest, if white privilege and transgress are even capable of going in the same sentence (I have my doubts, but nevertheless, I’ll persist in this Tuesday thought experiment).

This Friday, my Bronx students are graduating from high school. Despite covid restrictions, I was able to worm my way into attendance despite the fact that I no longer work there as a teacher (yay for being a principal’s suck up even in adulthood). I’m very proud of my muffins (students) and cannot wait to see them IRL. It’s gotten me all nostalgic about my early days in the NYC high school classroom and all the optimism I had for working with the two Black principals to over-haul the ELA curriculum to include CRT. Wamp wamp on all the levels there. (If you’re not aware, Republicans are up in arms at their sudden discovery of CRT or Critical Race Theory because it suggests that they’re, well, racist, heaven forbid accuracy ammi right)

This crop of students I first taught when they were in the 10th grade, where I brought an intro to art history course into the high school classroom. I nearly immediately scrapped the syllabus and devised my own because 

a. I realized the best contribution I could make to their education would be to focus on teaching college essay writing and

 b. Renaissance art history is boring (sorry not sorry my early modern friends, to each their own). 

Beyonce drowning the police <3

So instead I taught critical thinking and how to write a thesis statement through music video analysis. I taught my favorite music videos to introduce the VERY DANGEROUS (plz read sarcasm here) CRT (Critical Race Theory): Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” and Beyonce’s “Formation.” 

After getting their analysis skills warmed up through a reading of the intro to bell hooks’ Black Looks: Race and Representation, I let them bring in their own favorite music videos to analyze within the same constructs. 

I did this because I believe that it doesn’t matter what you teach, so long as the message is received and the all important soft skills of critical thinking and analysis are used in their still-forming brains. 

Childish Gambino's lambasting of what America is

But I also believe it is what you teach: if students can’t understand how a work or art or literature informs their own lives and their understanding of it, it becomes what we colloquially call “boring.” 

I suppose now had I been “caught” teaching that, I would’ve been fired. But let’s be real, my days were always numbered in public education. If covid and a hiring freeze hadn’t gotten in my way, surely something as banal as being upset I taught Black kids their history via CRT would’ve been the deal knell for sure. 

Which brings me to my point: Did I, by way of being white, get away with more radical thought in the classroom because of that? 

Or, rather, did I transgress my own whiteness in order to teach some kids about Black joy, Black resistance, and of course, Black history?

I don’t have any answers for you all this week, as I’m mired in recent books about whiteness and its inherent violence that it represents. But I do think it’s worth thinking about for any of us looking to move beyond the limiting constrictions of “Western civilization” which is an (inaccurate) geographical way of saying “white civilization.” 

Instead, in order to toss my hat into the absurd ring of CRT debates, I want to leave you with a speech given in 1887 by Capt Richard Pratt on the education of Native Americans. This quote is ruminating in my mind and I’m hoping will make it into a final round of my writing soon, and I think it bears a stark reminder of just how far white people (haven’t) come.

The Generic White Man of the Week, let's all hope he's festering in some sort of hell of his own making <3

“A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, save the man.”

The Generic White Man of the Week, let's all hope he's festering in some sort of hell of his own making <3

What our main racist Capt Pratt is getting at here is both literal genocide and epistemological genocide. Native American youth were ripped away from their families and their cultures and sent away to boarding schools that more closely resemble today’s juvenile detention centers. They were not allowed to speak their native tongues, nor even discuss, their heritage. They were bible beaten within an inch of their life, and as Pratt’s message makes clear: they had two choices: death or assimilation. 

If you want to learn more, I’ve been tearing through Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, (Jill if you’re reading this, don’t worry I shall return it soon :P )

And in so doing, the U.S. sanctioned the cultural obliteration of alternative ways of being in this world, of cultures who might have had better solutions than the ones we are currently stuck with thanks to the white-washing of, well, the world, but most certainly the United States. 

It’s easy for us to look at this guy writing in 1887 and be like “what a racist dick,” because we have the luxury of time separating our realities. 

But how different is the mentality towards BIPOC peoples in the United States today than that of 1887? 

We still believe Black culture is “inferior” or “ghetto,” even as we simultaneously fetishize Black culture for our own enjoyment. We do the same thing for Native Americans, cherry-picking our shared history to pretend Thanksgiving didn’t also involve mass genocide or that today the Trail of Tears would “never” have happened.

But then we separated kids from their families and stuck them in cages. The trauma those children continue to face will never be undone. They will most likely have severe issues associated with PTSD for the rest of their lives. Just like those Native American youth who were stolen from their families so that their inner Indian could be “killed” so that they might be able to approximate whiteness (and white Christianity). 

How different are we today? Have we changed, or have we just changed our language?

What I’m reading:

I’m deep into lit review mode, and digesting everything I can get about whiteness. Here’s what’s on the docket this week:

Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People (2010)-- this book is smooth reading, especially as far as history is concerned, and I love the delicious tongue-in-cheek tone Painter takes us through the history of white people-- and particularly- white slaves. As the book jacket reads, the book “spins a less familiar narrative: the notion of American whiteness as an idea as dangerous as it is seductive.

Tyler Stovall’s White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea. (2021) Stovall makes a compelling case for the reality that what our founders meant by “freedom” was strictly “white freedom” and that the American ideal of freedom is not in contradiction to the enslavement of other humans. I’m just past the intro, but so far I’m into what he’s selling. 

Richard C Fording and Sandord F Schram’s Hard White: The Mainstreaming of Racism in American Politics. (2020). This is so far a great, well-researched read, even though I do sometimes resent the idea that this hasn’t always already been the case, I understand publisher’s gotta sensationalize even the shit that’s always been (especially if Pratt’s “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” is any indication). 

Vegas Tenold’s cheerily titled Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America. This is on the docket for today, and I shall report back if it’s worth reading. 

Reparation Opportunity for the Melanin-Deficient:

Read one of the above, learn the real history of the U.S. (or whatever country you call home), and think about ways in which we can disrupt it in our lived experiences. 

What speech patterns and sayings should we do away with?

E.g. the racist term “Indian giver” strikes me as pure psychoanalytic projection of what white people really are onto what they deem “other,” for whatever that’s worth. 

I’ll leave you with bell hooks to get your Tuesday super charged:

"Throughout my years as student and professor, I have been most inspired by those teachers who have had the courage to transgress those boundaries that would confine each pupil to rote, assembly-line approach to learning."

-bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

Best,

A

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