Pain is White Bred...

...or, "I never realized how messed up it could be, being a white male,".

I have been working my way through Tim Wise's phenomenal book White Like Me: Reflections On Race From A Priveleged Son. I can't extol the virtues of this book enough as an entry text into the realm of social justice and especially privilege. Wise approaches privelege from his perogative as a white, but it is just as effective at stirring thoughts of privilege from perspectives as a male, heterosexual, middle class, American. If you have never read it or are interested in the subject matter, I highly recommend you pick this book up.

I was tearing through this book at warp speed, savoring the dissonance it was causing in my brain and allowing me to more fully grasp the concepts of justice and privilege I have been grappling with. Then I hit the chapter entitled Loss. This chapter is all about Wise grappling with the question of why anyone with privilege, be it grounded in race, gender, sexual identity, socioeconomic status, would willingly give up those privileges for the betterment of everyone and in the pursuit of equality. Wise spends the chapter examining the costs that privilege has on the privileged and it has stopped me dead in my tracks on several occassions to the point I have to put the book down lest I be blinded by the light of truth that comes in wave after wave of realization. It literally has taken me a month to go through 6-7 pages because it is so heavy in thought...but I have to plow through because the next chapter is Redemption and I need to hear that message.

The most striking thing about the Loss chapter is the pain. Now I am not talking about the pain that my privilege causes subordinated groups of people,that is a post for another time and something that those of you with subordinated identies know all about. I am talking about the pain that we as whites feel as a result of living in the insulated blanket of our privilege. Wise suggests that whites are hosts of a wide range of pathologies that are not consistent in other racial groups: higher binge drinking rates, higher drug abuse rates, higher suicide rates, higher proclivites for mass murder, more likely to develop eating disorders or self mutilate, etc, etc. The reasoning for this up tick in pathologies is directly linked to our battle for control.

You see, being white (and in my case male) carries with it a set of societal expectations or norms that have been crafted and cultivated by centuries of supremacy initiated and maintained by white males. These expectations have subconciously (and explicitly) told us that to be white means that you are to be the one in control, the one that is always supposed to win, or the alpha. However, as many of us know, that is not always the case for a variety of reasons. We are often confronted by a loss of control...we don't always win. For some this causes a dissonance that they can't explain and sometimes can't handle. Think of getting dumped, getting the bad grade, losing your job. These events are things that are not supposed to happen to someone with control, the winner. This dissonance sometimes passes and we get back into control, because as a privileged person we are often insulated from complete failure, or we cope with it in ways that are unhealthy. We cut, we drink, we ideate suicide, we starve ourselves. We cause ourselves pain...pain that has been created by us and for us through centuries of oppression of others.

Wise also expounds on the notion that our privilege makes us vulnerable to each other when we act out our pain. We move to the suburbs to escape violence, but we are confronted with school shootings, who are nearly exclusively white men. Men who feel pain at a loss of control they can't always explain. We see groups of people achieving or rising up beyond the circumstances we have put them in and we panic. We pass laws for more guns and easier access. We pass laws to shut down those that are not like us. We see our control slipping away and we are not equipped to deal with it. The pain causes us to lash out.

Now, this isn't dismissing that there are legitimate issues with mental health for some. Some people have chemical imbalances that need assistance from others. But having read and thought about this chapter, I think back to those times I read or watch the news and think, how could someone like that do something like that? They seem to have so much, why would they throw it all away? When I examine those on a deeper level now I see the loss of control, the feeling that you are not living up to the standard of what it means to be white or male. Exerting control in anyway you can, even if it is pathological or illegal, to try and get back to that place where you feel as you are supposed to be. To feel like you are back on top...in control.

I think about how this has manifested in my own life. I know people that have hit the snag in their life where things did not turn out the way they thought they would. An unexpected turn that takes away the control or that causes them to fail. They try suicide, the turn to drugs or alcohol, they gamble trying to get back to that place where society has implied they should be...powerful, in control. I have lived experiences where I have felt power or control slipping away and have acted out in ways that have taken power from others in order to try and give myself power back. I have sought control by controlling others. To deal with my own pain, I have given pain to others both subtly and bluntly.

So what are we to do? Hopefully Redemption has a few answers, but in the meantime I think back to conversations at the Social Justice Training Institute...sayings so simple that we heard them in our childhood, but forget them as the realities of a stark and seperated world knock us around. I repeat it to myself...and to you:

"I am enough."