Wrestling with the idea of white privilege
A former co-worker was the first I saw charge that all Caucasian employees have the advantage of white privilege. I laughed and labeled it as the latest wave of thought designed to find perpetrators for victims. I laughed because of my upbringing.
I was born in The Dalles, Oregon, which isn't an epicenter of wealth and status. It's a town of about 10,000 residents on the banks of the Columbia River. It is known for cherries, wheat, winds funneled through the Columbia River Gorge, and a key historic spot for Lewis and Clark and the pioneers who ventured west on the Oregon Trail. It was a good place to grow up, at least for me. It was small enough that you had the feeling all residents were neighbors. A downside was that you were often known by who your parents were. I was often introduced as Eldon's boy, or Virginia's boy. I was the third child of three, so I also was known as Steve's little brother, or John's little brother.
It also was a town with a racist reputation. We had a neighbor who worked at what was then Harvey Aluminum (it became part of the Martin Marietta complex of companies) who said an African-American man he worked with drove to and from Portland every day because The Dalles was known as being anti-black. I remember exactly one African-American child at an area school, a boy named Edgar who attended Colonel Wright Elementary. I don't remember him being with us in high school. There also were comments aimed at Native Americans, notably the Celilo tribe that was displaced from its home and its salmon fishery east of town when officials constructed The Dalles Dam in the mid-1950s. The men of the tribe built walkways over Celilo Falls, and they dipped nets over the falls and harvested salmon. The falls disappeared in the backup caused by the dam.
Despite that white-dominated populace, I never saw myself as privileged. I wasn't the son of a physician, plant manager, or the owners of cherry orchards or wheat fields. We were far from rich, but we weren't destitute. There were, however, times when my savings bank, a plastic container from a downtown savings and loan that I filled with quarters and small change, provided the means to buy milk and bread because the folks' money didn't stretch from paycheck to paycheck. My dad was a railroad brakeman, my mom a stay-at-home mom until I was in second grade, and then a bookkeeper. We were taught the lessons that hard work paid off, that you didn't shirk if the job was hard or you had to do it when it was more than 100 degrees, which happened often in summers.
More pertinent to this discussion, I was taught by Eldon and Virginia that the color of one's skin had no bearing on one's value. African-Americans were respected although I didn't have ways to show that because they were few and far between for me. That value also extended to the Celilos and other tribal people. They were more likely to be the targets of racist talk, being referred to by some as braves or squaws. But I also knew the children of the tribe, and I never used those demeaning words. I worked at a grocery store back when boxboys took paper bags of purchased foods to the cars of customers. On early Saturday mornings particularly, I would perform that service for Native Americans. I loaded groceries into the back of a pickup or station wagon, and there was the pungent smell of fish because the family had taken part of their catch of salmon and sold it to local restaurants or other outlets before going grocery shopping.
See, I didn't have any trace of privilege. I got where I got in my career because I worked hard at it. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. To me, Old Money meant finding a potentially rare coin in the change I received. No one bought me cars, and they didn't furnish me with my first home as a way to get Junior an influx of cash to start an adult life. I worked during the summers to make enough money to pay tuition at the University of Oregon. No one gave me anything. I earned it.
It's only when I look back at my career do I see evidence for white privilege. I was a journalist, and I worked at newspapers in Oregon, northern California, and Colorado. Some of my stops were in small Oregon towns where there were no African-Americans, so it made sense that no African-Americans were on the news staffs. But that lily-white dominance in the newsrooms continued until I reached The Denver Post, and that was more than 30 years into my career. None in Baker City, or Bend, Oregon. None in Santa Rosa, California. None in Eugene, Oregon. I don't remember any African-Americans in my upper-level classes at the UO School of Journalism.
Maybe I was privileged by the color of my skin. It was nothing I was aware of, or sought to exploit. I don't know why no African-Americans were in newsrooms. I was in position to hire at some of my career stops. I had an African-American candidate at only one place, and that was the YourHub sections of The Denver Post. I hired that candidate, Hugh Johnson. I didn't hire him for the color of his skin, but for his hunger for a chance to write and become a reporter. The sad part was Hugh's hiring dovetailed with another wave of job cuts. I sat with Hugh and other members of the Douglas-Arapahoe counties team in the morning, and I pitched business names to Hugh so he could get established in one part of his job. Soon after that meeting, I was notified by higher-ups that the job class Hugh just stepped into was being eliminated. I had the terrible task of notifying five community managers that they no longer had jobs. It was the most gut-wrenching day of my career. I remember needing to take a long walk down the 16th Street Mall because, frankly, I needed to cry. The group of five who just lost their jobs were still standing in the lobby of the building, and it was difficult for me to look them in the eye. That was especially true regarding Hugh. I muttered a soft "I'm sorry" as I passed the group. One of the workers put her arms around me and told me she knew it wasn't my fault. I'm glad she understood, but that didn't make me feel better.
To the credit of those at The Post, Hugh was hired for another job. He was a good worker there, but he recently moved to the Colorado Springs Gazette to do sportswriting. I wish him well. He has a young family, and I know he has that fire to write, and write well. I am happy I hired him, but it isn't because of color. It's because he's a helluva fine person with a strong inner drive.
Still, that onus of white privilege shows up. I wrestle with the facts of being a small-town kid who wasn't handed anything, but I worked in all-white newsrooms for almost my entire career. Why? It wasn't my choice. Whose was it, and why did it happen?
If there is one problem I have with those proclaiming white privilege, it is that those who proclaim it loudly are white, and they are privileged. Each had or have jobs that pay well above the average. My fight with their position is that if they believe what they say, they would direct that venom at their own situations. If they believe so strongly in the debilitating effects of white privilege, they should walk up to their supervisors, resign from their jobs, and tell the supervisors to hire minority candidates because they are disadvantaged in the job market. Well, we know that isn't going to happen. There are moral standards, then there is keeping a good-paying job. Personal economic factors win out each time. Maybe that perpetuates white privilege. Isn't that ironic?
I was born in The Dalles, Oregon, which isn't an epicenter of wealth and status. It's a town of about 10,000 residents on the banks of the Columbia River. It is known for cherries, wheat, winds funneled through the Columbia River Gorge, and a key historic spot for Lewis and Clark and the pioneers who ventured west on the Oregon Trail. It was a good place to grow up, at least for me. It was small enough that you had the feeling all residents were neighbors. A downside was that you were often known by who your parents were. I was often introduced as Eldon's boy, or Virginia's boy. I was the third child of three, so I also was known as Steve's little brother, or John's little brother.
It also was a town with a racist reputation. We had a neighbor who worked at what was then Harvey Aluminum (it became part of the Martin Marietta complex of companies) who said an African-American man he worked with drove to and from Portland every day because The Dalles was known as being anti-black. I remember exactly one African-American child at an area school, a boy named Edgar who attended Colonel Wright Elementary. I don't remember him being with us in high school. There also were comments aimed at Native Americans, notably the Celilo tribe that was displaced from its home and its salmon fishery east of town when officials constructed The Dalles Dam in the mid-1950s. The men of the tribe built walkways over Celilo Falls, and they dipped nets over the falls and harvested salmon. The falls disappeared in the backup caused by the dam.
Despite that white-dominated populace, I never saw myself as privileged. I wasn't the son of a physician, plant manager, or the owners of cherry orchards or wheat fields. We were far from rich, but we weren't destitute. There were, however, times when my savings bank, a plastic container from a downtown savings and loan that I filled with quarters and small change, provided the means to buy milk and bread because the folks' money didn't stretch from paycheck to paycheck. My dad was a railroad brakeman, my mom a stay-at-home mom until I was in second grade, and then a bookkeeper. We were taught the lessons that hard work paid off, that you didn't shirk if the job was hard or you had to do it when it was more than 100 degrees, which happened often in summers.
More pertinent to this discussion, I was taught by Eldon and Virginia that the color of one's skin had no bearing on one's value. African-Americans were respected although I didn't have ways to show that because they were few and far between for me. That value also extended to the Celilos and other tribal people. They were more likely to be the targets of racist talk, being referred to by some as braves or squaws. But I also knew the children of the tribe, and I never used those demeaning words. I worked at a grocery store back when boxboys took paper bags of purchased foods to the cars of customers. On early Saturday mornings particularly, I would perform that service for Native Americans. I loaded groceries into the back of a pickup or station wagon, and there was the pungent smell of fish because the family had taken part of their catch of salmon and sold it to local restaurants or other outlets before going grocery shopping.
See, I didn't have any trace of privilege. I got where I got in my career because I worked hard at it. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. To me, Old Money meant finding a potentially rare coin in the change I received. No one bought me cars, and they didn't furnish me with my first home as a way to get Junior an influx of cash to start an adult life. I worked during the summers to make enough money to pay tuition at the University of Oregon. No one gave me anything. I earned it.
It's only when I look back at my career do I see evidence for white privilege. I was a journalist, and I worked at newspapers in Oregon, northern California, and Colorado. Some of my stops were in small Oregon towns where there were no African-Americans, so it made sense that no African-Americans were on the news staffs. But that lily-white dominance in the newsrooms continued until I reached The Denver Post, and that was more than 30 years into my career. None in Baker City, or Bend, Oregon. None in Santa Rosa, California. None in Eugene, Oregon. I don't remember any African-Americans in my upper-level classes at the UO School of Journalism.
Maybe I was privileged by the color of my skin. It was nothing I was aware of, or sought to exploit. I don't know why no African-Americans were in newsrooms. I was in position to hire at some of my career stops. I had an African-American candidate at only one place, and that was the YourHub sections of The Denver Post. I hired that candidate, Hugh Johnson. I didn't hire him for the color of his skin, but for his hunger for a chance to write and become a reporter. The sad part was Hugh's hiring dovetailed with another wave of job cuts. I sat with Hugh and other members of the Douglas-Arapahoe counties team in the morning, and I pitched business names to Hugh so he could get established in one part of his job. Soon after that meeting, I was notified by higher-ups that the job class Hugh just stepped into was being eliminated. I had the terrible task of notifying five community managers that they no longer had jobs. It was the most gut-wrenching day of my career. I remember needing to take a long walk down the 16th Street Mall because, frankly, I needed to cry. The group of five who just lost their jobs were still standing in the lobby of the building, and it was difficult for me to look them in the eye. That was especially true regarding Hugh. I muttered a soft "I'm sorry" as I passed the group. One of the workers put her arms around me and told me she knew it wasn't my fault. I'm glad she understood, but that didn't make me feel better.
To the credit of those at The Post, Hugh was hired for another job. He was a good worker there, but he recently moved to the Colorado Springs Gazette to do sportswriting. I wish him well. He has a young family, and I know he has that fire to write, and write well. I am happy I hired him, but it isn't because of color. It's because he's a helluva fine person with a strong inner drive.
Still, that onus of white privilege shows up. I wrestle with the facts of being a small-town kid who wasn't handed anything, but I worked in all-white newsrooms for almost my entire career. Why? It wasn't my choice. Whose was it, and why did it happen?
If there is one problem I have with those proclaiming white privilege, it is that those who proclaim it loudly are white, and they are privileged. Each had or have jobs that pay well above the average. My fight with their position is that if they believe what they say, they would direct that venom at their own situations. If they believe so strongly in the debilitating effects of white privilege, they should walk up to their supervisors, resign from their jobs, and tell the supervisors to hire minority candidates because they are disadvantaged in the job market. Well, we know that isn't going to happen. There are moral standards, then there is keeping a good-paying job. Personal economic factors win out each time. Maybe that perpetuates white privilege. Isn't that ironic?
You’re right on so many accounts. But the part that white privilege applies to employment and economic security is incomplete. White privilege is not having to think twice about what neighborhood you move into, where you shop and what schools you might attend or send your children. For a person of color that’s not an option.
ReplyDeleteI have often thought about walking through those “white neighborhoods” in the trailer park and asking them about their glorious white privelage.
ReplyDeleteChris, this Pat Lester, posting through a different email. I was browsing your posts and this one caught my attention. If you want to best understand race privilege, in this case white privilege, you need to look a little deeper. You have to ask yourself, does a black or native american have to clear any hurdles that a white person doesn't doing anything, not just employment? White people are usually oblivious to these privileges. After all, why should they worry about being discriminated against in job position, or rental housing, or home selection, or questioning errors made with a restaurant bill? Whites don't really worry about any of these things too often. There may be economic class issues that give one group of whites more privilege than others, but the gap between race related assumptions is significantly wider.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who grew up in the same town as you, but who migrated east to Boston, the only prejudice I've ever felt was the fact that I wasn't born and raised in the area - I wasn't a townie. But this never affected my job seeking, my housing, or my social mobility. But the same could not be said for my black, Indians (India/Pakistani) or even Chinese friends. While I never had deep conversations with most of them, the challenges they faced were often evident, and it was often clear that their success was based on being flawless and deferential. This is a feature of white privilege - whites don't need to worry nearly as much this.