It has taken me a long time to recognize just how white I am. My actual skin color hasn’t changed much, except for occasionally showing the effects of gardening without adequate sun protection. My attitudes and spontaneous reactions tell me more about how white I am. I didn’t decide to be white. It came from being born of a white family lineage in a very white southern society. Now I get to decide just how white I want to be.
Being white in my culture is not just about how I react to traditional racial issues. Being white is also about how I act and react in my whole community. It’s not only about how I regard those whose skin tone is different from mine. I recognize how white some of my pale companions are because I am beginning to recognize just how white I am.
I instinctively respond to situations with an attitude that I know what is right. I often know the right solution to a problem. At leasst, I know the direction that is better. For me it is an attitude of white privilege, of knowing what is right and true better than others. I assert my whiteness when I think I am aware better than others or know the correctness better than others. That includes better than other people who look as white as I am.
I see whiteness in others who are close to me whenever they assert how right they are. I find myself in conflicts of whiteness. It is a contest of who can assert their whiteness. I am asserting my right of privilege, my whiteness whenever I claim that I know better than others. I feel white when I allow myself to feel attached to what I see is the correct or better approach.
It is this attachment to what I see as true or correct that reminds me that I am asserting my white privilege. I recognize it in my resistance to listen to an opinion that is different fron mine. I see it when I am evaluating an opinion to see if I agree. I recognize it when I feel that someone is trying to control a situation to conform to their notion of what is true or correct. Any time I participate in a disruption of the feeling of togetherness, I am being white. I am being white when I lose the feeling of community. I am being white the more I see companions as other.
I am slowly emerging from a feeling of wanting things to be right and true because I know what right and true means. I am slowly emerging from being managed by my being white.