Foundational Work on White
Privilege
McIntosh,
P. (1988) "White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of
coming to see correspondences through work in women's studies." Excerpted from Working Paper 189,
Peggy
McIntosh described the knapsack of white
privilege, with the knapsack stuffed with privileges enjoyed in the culture
of the
“• I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to "the person
in charge," I will be facing a person of my race.
• If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax
return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
• I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting
cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
• I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to
feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, out numbered,
unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
• I can
take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the
job suspect that I got it because of race.
• I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of
my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
• I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will
not work against me.
• If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each
negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
• I can choose blemish cover or bandages in flesh color and have
them more or less match my skin.”
This essay is available from the
Foundational
Work on Cultural Competencies
The
American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association
worked to modify their ethical guidelines in relation to cultural issues. They developed the acronym ADDRESSING to remind people that they
needed to consider:
Age and generational influences
Developmental and acquired Disabilities (cognitive, physical, learning, psychological)
Religion and spirituality
Ethnicity
Socioeconomic status/class
Sexual orientation/identity
Indigenous heritage (First Nations,
Aboriginal, American Indian,
Native, Inuit, Métis, Mestiso, Native Hawai’ian,
Samoan, Chamorro
people of
Guam, Anu people of
National origin (including
immigrants, emigrants, refugees and visitors of
whatever
duration)
Gender identity/orientation
These
issues and their relevance are discussed in Addressing Cultural
Complexities
in Practice: A Framework for Clinicians and Counselors by Pamela A. Hays (2001).
Foundational Work on Allies
How do allies prepare themselves
for this work?
In
relation to a group that has experienced historic oppression, allies understand
themselves to experience privilege. They
understand the concept of the “knapsack of privilege,” a term coined by Peggy MacIntosh, and can describe privileges they enjoy because
of factors completely beyond their own making, such as skin color, abilities,
gender identity/expression or affectional/sexual
orientation, or class. They are familiar
with examples of the ways in which people who are part of marginalized groups
experience oppression on a routine basis, and recognize these circumstances
when they arise.
Allies
also understand the need to work on their own reactions and responses, and know
what their own ongoing work in relation to historic oppression is. They understand that people who experience
oppression routinely are likely to experience anger, resentment and
frustration, and are able to companion or accompany someone going through those
reactions. They can separate their
internal reactions from those of the person who has experienced historic
oppression. Someone who has experienced
historic oppression in one area might serve as an ally for someone who has
experienced oppression in a different area, and since identities are fluid and
shaped in part by the larger culture, someone may be affected by more than one
area of historic oppression at any given time.
Many
people are familiar with the concept of compassion
fatigue, or a “glazeover” factor when an
individual reaches the end of her/his ability to work on a particular
issue. Allies understand the need to
involve people in the work so that when one person reaches the end of his/her
ability to participate for the moment, s/he can hand the work over to someone
else with confidence. Allies understand
that historic oppression involves structural and cultural support that can
require much more than one lifetime to change.
One goal
of the conference overall, and of these workshops, is to link the concept of
being an ally with certain skills that anyone can acquire and use. Someone who is an ally in a particular area
can become an ally in a different area, provided s/he is willing to learn the
history of how the group has been marginalized or oppressed, and is willing to
bring things up rather than letting them slide.
People
sometimes think they can become allies just because they want to. Part of our work at this conference will be to
make it clear that there’s a good deal of work in relation to being an ally,
and that if we do it together, we will acquire cultural competencies around
many areas of diversity in our beloved community. Those competencies will serve us well as we
work to increase our effectiveness in areas of diversity.
Things allies could do
Entry
Level
Pay
attention to media presentations on issues of oppression.
Speak up
in response to offensive jokes, comments or remarks.
Celebrate
successes, large and small, as they occur.
Write
letters to newspaper editors and journalists about working to end oppression.
Ask
someone who has experienced oppression how s/he would like to be assisted.
Apologize
for errors and mistakes, with the understanding that they are inevitable.
Moving On
to Mid-Level
Become
knowledgeable about the history of a group that has experienced historic
oppression.
Participate
in workshops and seminars to continue learning about the issues currently
facing people who experience oppression.
Educate individuals
and groups about issues of oppression.
Seek out
and support organizations and institutions that work to correct historic
oppression.
Offer
assistance to families affected by oppression.
Work with
children affected by oppression.
Moving On
to Complex Level
Work to
change oppressive systems and organizations.
Support
societal changes needed by people who experience oppression.
Plan and
offer a worship service on justice in any of the areas explored at LREDA’s Fall Conference 2006 (racism, classism,
ableism, ethnocentrism/languages other than English, transphobia/genderism, heterosexism/homophobia).
Develop
lists of resources (books, articles, videos, DVDs, music, art, poetry, web
sites) related to issues of oppression that are of particular importance in
your location. Discuss the use of these
resources with people active in social justice and adult programs in your
congregation.
Get the
facts about the history of your community with regard to race and ethnicity.
Find out
what the demographics of your community are.
Use census data to find out the percentages of racial and ethnic
identities in the community in which you live, and the community in which your
congregation is located (if they are different).
Explore
the possibility that your community is a “sundown town,” that historically
chose to deliver the message that African-Americans, Latino/as,
Jews, Asian-Americans, or GLBT people should be out of town by sundown. If you
find out that your community is a “sundown town,” send that information to Dr.
James Loewen, author of Sundown Towns: a Hidden
Dimension of American Racism (jloewen@zoo.uvm.edu). Let your congregation know what you’ve found.
Go to
your community’s Town Hall, and find out if it’s accessible to people with
disabilities. Can someone using a
wheelchair get in the door? Use the
bathroom? Gain access to community
forums? Are interpreters available for
people who use American Sign Language?
Is there Braille signage throughout the building? Are people with multiple chemical and
environmental sensitivities guaranteed a smoke- and fragrance-free environment?
Propose a
town marker that describes the history of your community in terms of racial
justice. If you live in a “sundown
town,” include that information on the marker.
Encourage
the leaders of your community to publicize an accurate history leading to truth
and reconciliation. Encourage them to
set up a human relations commission, and to eliminate any requirement that
employees live in the community, if there is any evidence that blacks,
Latino/as, Asians, Jews, other ethnic minorities, or GLBT people were once
excluded, whether by regulation, by restrictive housing covenants, or by public
opinion. Encourage youth in your
congregation to take an active part in these discussions.
Meet with
corporate and business leaders in your location and discuss how they can
help. Corporations that insist on
open-housing ordinances and equity in hiring practices can help move the
community toward justice.
Encourage
community leaders to establish a priority around affordable and accessible
housing.
If you
live in the United States, talk to senators and representatives about the need
for a “Resident’s Rights Act,” modeled on Dr. James Loewen’s
recommendation (p. 442, Sundown Towns) of an act “parallel to the
registration clause of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, extended and strengthen
in 1982. This law provides that in
counties with an unusual disparity between the percentage
of the black and white electorates registered to vote, the Department of
Justice can send in federal examiners, once complaints have been received from
ten individuals who were rebuffed when trying to register. Similarly, a blatant disparity between the
percentage of a town’s population that is African American compared to the
proportion in the metropolitan area (the entire state ofr
independent sundown towns) will trigger sanctions under the Residents’ Rights
Act – when coupled with at least two
valid complaints from families who were rebuffed when trying to buy or rent a
home in the community and a careful showing that it was a sundown town
[italics in the original].” Dr. Loewen recommended that complaints go to the Department of
Housing and Urban Development for investigation and remedy, which might include
sanctions on tax money being spent on discretionary programs, since “every
dollar of federal or state tax money spent in a sundown community is a dollar
spent only on white Americans, yet collected from all Americans” (Sundown
Towns, p. 443).
Foundational Work on “Covering”
http://www.kenjiyoshino.com/covering_defined.htm
Kenji Yoshino, "The Pressure to Cover" (NY Times Magazine, Jan. 15,
2006)
According to the author, “’Covering’ is sociologist Erving Goffman’s term for how we try to “tone down” stigmatized
identities, even when those identities are known to the world. In my work, I
describe four axes along which individuals can cover: appearance, affiliation,
activism, and association.
“Appearance concerns how an individual physically presents himself
[herselfhirself] to the world. Affiliation concerns his[/her/hir] cultural
identifications. Activism concerns how much he [s/he] politicizes his [her/hir] identity. Association concerns his [her/hir] choice of ‘fellow travelers’ -- spouses, friends,
colleagues.
“So a person with an X identity can cover by making sure he [s/he]
doesn’t look like a stereotypical X, disaffiliating himself [herself/hirself] from X culture, not engaging in activism about X
causes, and distancing himself [herself/hirself] from
other Xs. It’s probably easier to see how this works in concrete cases.”
Racial covering involves aligning
oneself with the dominant cultural group, which in the
Sex-based
covering for men encourages behaviors
that would be described as “masculine” and avoiding behaviors that would be
described as “feminine.” A movie that won
an Academy Award for actress Hilary Swank is titled Boys Don’t Cry, and
research has shown that boys in the United States understand by age 10 that
they will be ridiculed if they cry in public, even when they are hurt. The most common insult heard on elementary
school playgrounds is “Fag,” used against boys who appear “too feminine.” For women, this kind of covering means
support for “feminine” behaviors and ridicule for behaviors that are described
as “masculine,” although women are often discouraged from breastfeeding infants
in public places. Women who appear “too
masculine” are often insulted by being called “dykes” and other derogatory
terms calling their affectional/sexual
orientation/identity as heterosexuals into question. For transgender people, this kind of
“covering” means going along with a dichotomized gender structure, on the
grounds that a transgender person could “easily” identify as “man” or “woman,”
regardless of how s/he truly identifies.
For example, when bathrooms in UU congregations are modified to make
them accessible to people using wheelchairs, scooters or walkers, people often
insist on using traditional signs indicating “men” and “women,” rather than
providing a unisex bathroom that can be used by anyone.
Gay covering involves requiring
that people who are lesbian or gay refrain from public displays of affection,
including holding hands with a partner.
Heterosexuals sometimes say, “I don’t mind if you are gay [or lesbian],
but don’t flaunt it,” and express concerns that if too many lesbians or gay men
begin to participate in their congregations, they’ll become known as a “gay
church.” Bisexual people are often
erased from this discussion, or expected to “choose sides” by describing themselves
as either lesbian/gay or heterosexual.
Religious covering can range from being
forced to participate in religious practices of the dominant group to
eliminating external signs such as head coverings which signal identity with a
particular religious group. Muslim girls
in
On July 13, 2006, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition
reporter Anne Garrels covered efforts by Debbie Al Mantacer, an elementary school teacher who came to the
United States in the 1960s from Yemen, and her husband Najii
to persuade the New York City Board of Education to recognize Islamic holidays
for the more than one million Muslims living in the city, as they now recognize
Christian and Jewish holidays. In 2006,
the Board scheduled key school examinations on one of Islam’s holiest
days. Najii
stated that in his opinion, Muslims are required to decide issues of right and
wrong for themselves, rather than following the guidance of imams. Debbie, Najii and
their children experienced discrimination after the attacks of September 11,
2001, and believe that they need to end their own religious covering so that non-Muslims will come to trust their
Muslim neighbors and friends again, “to promote Islam that is compatible with
American life.”
For Unitarian Universalists, this type
of “covering” might mean not naming our faith community, not taking the time to
explain our beliefs for fear of ridicule or misunderstanding, or going along
with anti-UU jokes such as those told regularly by Garrison Keillor,
host of National Public Radio’s “Prairie Home Companion.” This kind of “covering” might also mean
emphasizing what we do NOT believe rather than stating what we DO believe.
Disability-based
covering involves people with disabilities refusing to use
adaptive equipment that would make their lives easier,
or going along with
“jokes” on how much space they take up or
how much able-bodied people
resent benefits such as restricted parking. A recent example is a statue of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who became paraplegic after contracting
polio,
which depicted him standing without crutches or
braces, although he was
unable to stand without assistance and used a
wheelchair routinely.
Journalists refrained from letting the public know of
on the grounds that he would not be regarded as
“presidential” if people
were reminded that he was disabled.