New Thinking

Right now, I should be doing school work.  I am supposed to be writing my response to our readings this week.  Our readings this week were about White identity development and White privilege.  "Everything I read was so disheartening and confusing"  (which is basically as far as I've gotten on my school work.)

I don't even know where to start.  I guess at the beginning.  I never really began thinking about my white identity/culture till last year.  Many white people NEVER consider having culture, because to in our thinking "culture" means "different" and white is normal.  This is the article I read more than a year ago:   White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Over the course of the last year, and specifically in the last few months, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.  I feel guilty, uncomfortable, unsure of my own intentions, I find myself analyzing even the simplest of actions.  When I smile at a stranger even.... I think was that paternalistic?

Here is what I know for sure:

• There is no such thing as being color-blind...that is just something that white people say.

• Racism is not just action and conscious behavior, it is thoughts and unconscious behavior. White people, when they think of racists think of white supremacist groups or the KKK, but those are just extremes.  Racism is a spectrum...and almost everyone is on it.  

I fall on that spectrum, and I don't want to anymore.  This is for me to work on, and I am.  But this is also where my frustration and confusion kicks in.  I can "fix" myself but I am still a recipient of this unearned privileged....Am I just supposed to feel guilty and privileged...no of course not, I should DO something.  But what?  What can I do when even those closest to me can not acknowledge the privileged we have as whites, the privileged my children have....

As I continue to learn about the embedded racism in our culture I am overwhelmed.  Where can one person start?  I guess the short-term answer is....me.  I start with me.