Last week when my friend Nathan asked me if I wanted to go to the Programming Board's community dinner I though to myself, "Why not?" The topic of the night, "What Does it 'Mean' to be White in a Multiracial Community" was, well, topical. Figuring the amount of racial discord this campus has had in its immediate past, I expected I would hear an interesting speech, engage in stimulating dinner-table discourse, eat a scrumptious meal from Panda House, and make it back to the basement of Streeter Hall just in time to find out whether Ross and Rachel were going to break up on Friends. It turned out to be an interesting night indeed.
When we arrived at Collis Common Ground, I was surprised right off the bat as the speaker stood to speak. I had a preconceived notion entering the dinner that the lecturer would be someone who could give real insight into what it 'means' to be white in a global community. I thought that this person would be the prototypical oppressor, a middle-aged WASP male, who would proceed to break the mold one would have about the Caucasian cadre that some say still run the world. Well, one could say I was certainly amazed when I learned that speaker would be Mary Childers, Professor of Woman's Studies at Dartmouth. I didn't think Professor Childers could give a fair interpretation of what it means to be white because she, as a woman who lives an alternative lifestyle, has been discriminated against and stereotyped by the old guard of the white bastion of elitism. I was right.
Professor Childers began her speech with a brief anecdote about a coffee klatch she had with an older relative and the relative's friends in Florida. The elders were discussing how great the Sunshine State is and one of the reasons they all like it so much was because they paid cheap wages to the immigrant laborers that tiled their beautiful green lawns. But then another one of the women stated how bad the area surrounding their community had gotten lately. At that point, Professor Childers could no longer bite her liberal tongue, as she put two and two together for the ladies in a much less nicer way than I am writing now. The rest of her talk continued down the same path as she made several statements that were easy to agree with (i.e. there are ignorant people in the world), until she delved into the subtopic of privilege. In very basic terms, Professor Childers said white people have it while minorities don't. I almost choked on my chicken chow-mein when I heard her make that remark.
After Professor Childers finished her speech, I was quite ready to discuss her oration with my fellow table-mates. So many ideas were racing through my head; I was thinking about homeless people, and whether white homeless men have more privilege than black homeless men; or whether the white women with three kids on welfare has any more privilege than the Asian woman with three kids on welfare. Do race and privilege really go hand in hand? And then I thought back to my senior year of high school.
I'm a white, Jewish boy from Long Island, and the area where I grew up was pretty well off and pretty well racially balanced. In all my classes there were people from all different backgrounds -- white, African-American, Asian, Haitian -- you name it, we had it. All of our parents were professionals who drove around in nice cars and who offered us help whenever we needed it. But when it came to applying for college, it seemed to me certain students received more privileges than others. Specifically, some minority students with lower cumulative averages and SAT scores got into better colleges than those non-minority who had better qualifications. Is this privilege fair?
I guess, according to my table, the answer to my question was "Yes" because when I told them that story, I got an incredibly negative response. "What are you complaining about? You seem to have done well for yourself. You ARE at Dartmouth." In fact, one student went so far to call me "condescending" for not recognizing the special privileges I have received.
The dinner ended, so Nate and I began to walk back to the Gold Coast. Then, midway between the Tucker Foundation parking lot, I got really angry about what had just happened. Why am I "condescending?" How dare he! That guy doesn't know me; he doesn't know that my father immigrated to this country over twenty years ago with not much but a passport and a dream. He doesn't know how hard my parents have worked to provide my brother, sister and I with the amenities that make life a bit more enjoyable. He doesn't know how much I appreciate, respect, and love them for the privilege they have sacrificed in order to give more to me. It certainly was easy for him to talk without providing any reason or solutions.
Trudging through the cold New England air I came to the conclusion that being white does not correlate to privilege. I now know what it means to be white in a multiracial society. It means one should try to understand and respect one another as a joint fellowship of people, as well as the different cultures that built our nation . It means one should help those less fortunate than them, regardless of the color of their skin. In fact doing the above does not define what it means to be white; it defines what it means to be a person in a multiracial society.
Remember, race doesn't matter; being a good human-being does.
