quote:
And second, can Kai's theory of a white liberal conundrum be expanded so that we might find examples of "(insert race here) liberal conundrum" in non-white communities or even regarding fundamentally non-racial issues?
Why not? The key to the question for me, is the line I pulled out above:
quote:
If white folks disavow and destroy all the systemic advantages and interlocking privileges and perks of whiteness, then they're off the hook!
I would argue "whiteness" is not exclusive to skin color but is also a state of being.
I am willing to bet, materially, my life is not very different from the author of the article. In a world where a good part of the population lives in darkness and dies from malnutrition or contaminated drinking water, or violence related to resource extraction or other conflicts, we can both hop in our SUVs, fuel up 24hrs, drive off to the all night Wal-Mart that is bristling with merchandise brought together from the far corners of the world, load up on cases of bottled water, and head home to sit in front of the warm glare of our computers where I can be dismissed as being too white to appreciate racism all the while snacking on cheap and available snacks.
Perhaps it is true. Perhaps I am too white to appreciate racism. But the author, himself, on a global basis, enjoys "all the systemic advantages and interlocking privileges and perks of whiteness" as I do.
In a white dominated society where I, with no choice of my own, was born white, I enjoy a greater privilege and a greater sense of entitlement simply by the virtue of being white. I acknowledge that. But what we are talking about is not anti-racism or social justice but, rather, pecking order. I gladly give up my position in the pecking order to him.
But there remains that which destroys spirits and lives in a real sense, right along with the rivers, lakes, trees and the life they once sustained, and of which we are both net beneficiaries.
