Friends Peace Teams in Asia West Pacific accepts the invitation of aboriginal activists in Queensland Australia, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This has been our experience.
As I have come to realize that we won’t rid ourselves of prejudice without ridding ourselves of privilege, I have also come to realize that privilege is not a blessing but an unnecessary curse that robs and blinds us. Privilege comes from “private law,” the structural or legal protection of advantages gained to some at the exclusion of others. It is unnecessary. When we give up “special” structural or legal protections and exclusions, we do not give up our advantages of education, skill, relationships, talents and so forth. We become socially responsible to use our advantages to the benefit of all, not only to ourselves or beyond the life of them.
Marianne Williamson reminds us, “Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.” In 1763, John Woolman calls us “to turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives.” In fact, we call ourselves Friends because we experience the inward tendering of love. Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I direct… Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:12-14).
Teaching Racial Justice to Young Friends, by Lisa Graustein (2013) offers us strategies for interrupting privilege and prejudice with love and conscience:
Always speak from your own feelings and experiences, using "I statements”.
Say true and real things, avoid conjecture, speculation or analogies.
Stop, listen, and don’t interrupt.
Ask permission to speak or share another’s story
Stay relaxed and calm in this time and place
Remember each person is good and capable
Speak up, take action, do something even if it’s not perfect
There are second chances, try again
Lisa discusses naming and claiming your feelings about privilege and prejudice to diverse people. She suggests that we ask questions, respect boundaries, follow-up on conversations, and speak to everyone's better self.
We need to learn to realize how important a multi-racial, multilingual rich environment is to our health and well being. That we welcome the challenges not as a burden or out of shame or guilt, but as a joy. Peace takes all of us! Our part in doing this is to remember our own histories as people in exile, settlers seeking homes, and each of our tribes and histories.
For more insight into white privilege, a great resource is “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, Peace and Freedom Magazine, July/August, 1989, pp. 10-12, a publication of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Philadelphia. Peggy wrote, "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group...As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage...The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”
Giving up this myth of meritocracy, however, opens our hearts to the social fabric of compassion, empathy and love. It’s been a wonderful journey for me. Aboriginal people in Australia asked me about Quaker practice. I said if most of us don’t know the answers any longer and are not practicing, are they still the answers? Their elder beamed, “That’s our problem! Now I really want to know the answers.” We talked about living in direct relationship with each other and the earth based on love and conscience. Whatever words we use, we both concurred: it was the same in both our traditions.
Peace and justice for people, all life forms, and for the earth itself is possible and holds the promise of a future, if we find our faith and call for it. As Paul Chappell says, war is unnecessary any longer, and unnecessary harm is immoral. It’s time to end all war, and I would add all state-sanctioned violence. It’s unnecessary and therefore immoral. If we gave up public use of violence, we would invest and rely on honesty, integrity, equitable investment, compassion, and love.
If you want to test your white privilege, Peggy McIntosh offers a check list, which most white people experience and people of color do not. Which ones of these do you not experience, experience, or take for granted?
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
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, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.
I can choose public accommodations 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 less match my skin.
Are you interested in participating in an ongoing dialog on racial justice? Ginny Riordan is proposing a Racial Justice Corner for Friends to share their thoughts, readings and activities with others in the Meeting. If you want to be included in this important social concern, please see Ginny.