After the movie, “The Help” ended, I sat in my seat and wondered how different would things be if white people were the domestic servants and workers on the plantations and blacks were the affluent well to do?
You really have to walk in someone else’s shoes (or skin in this case) to fully understand how they see the world. You probably wouldn’t always like the view.
It’s hard to believe that people were treated so poorly in our lifetime. We’ve made progress but still have a long way to go. Just because there are laws on the books, that doesn’t necessarily translate into equality and justice. People still speed, people still steal and people still discriminate.
What can we do? We can help by joining our company’s employee resource groups (ERG’s). Just because we may not be part of an underrepresented group doesn’t mean we can’t be involved.
We can reach out to those who have different characteristics and learn to understand and celebrate those differences.
The movie made me think of “white privilege” which Peggy McIntosh and Tim Wise write extensively about. Peggy McIntosh said the following,
“Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected.
As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege.
I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.”
Here are the first ten instances of white privilege that she lists in “White Privilege - Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
The old American Express commercial said “Membership has its privileges”. Shouldn’t this be an open group?
This way we can all help each other.
Please feel free to comment.
