When I was nine or so, my cousin from Baltimore came to visit. A sophomore enrolled in a 6A high school was trying to inform little ole me from rinky-dink Tongue River who has less than a hundred kids on what high school was really like. She talked about sports, student council, and the minority groups. I asked her why there was no “white” club, and I remember feeling slightly resentful that there was a “Native American” club, and a “Japanese” club, yet not a “White” club. Can you believe that? The audacity of these people! Why do we celebrate their heritage but not ours? I don’t think I thought about race again until my best friend and I were in Safeway with her four year old black cousin and a 97 year old man walked up to us and exclaimed that we were “nigger lovers” in the frozen aisle section. I figured he had to have been a strange, horrible creature, a complete alien to our open minded generation. These monumental moments ultimately fell between the cracks of my life and I never really thought about race. I heard arguments about race, I saw movies with tense social situations surrounding race, but I could never quite grasp why people tried to make an issue out of race. Obviously it wasn’t relevant, we left that social problem in history decades ago… Right? As a little kid, I believed I had the world all figured out.
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Everything is clear cut, black and white and as simple as right or wrong. Tim Wise’s book, “White Like Me,” describes a naive, childish (white) mindset of perfectly. “If you work hard, you’ll get ahead. If you don’t get ahead, it’s because you’ve made poor decisions. If you get arrested, it’s because you broke the law, and people who break the law are just more likely to be black” (47). I knew this because on every third Monday of January, we learned how cruel America had been to the blacks and because of Martin Luther King Jr. it had been resolved. Because it had been resolved, we are all equals to each other. If you didn’t keep up in today’s world, it’s only because you were not putting forth the effort. This all rang true, I mean this is the lesson I’ve been taught since kindergarten. This summer I volunteered at a clinic that was three days long and held by Sheridan County’s Advocacy and Resource center about discrimination. The first day, Professor Lewis Annakinder spoke about discriminating by sex, the second day broached discrimination by age, and the third day was on race. She started her speech by saying, “Because you are white doesn’t mean you have to be a white supremacist, but because you are white, you directly benefit from the white supremacy.” She made us repeat it like an anthem. At least 3 times. WHAT THE WHAT? She would later go on to speak about Tim Wise’s, “White Like Me,” along with David Roediger’s, “Wages of Whiteness” and informed us on how our economic systems benefit from racism. There are specific reasons why black people ended up in urban centers. I realized after the professor’s speech I have come to understand America through white eyes. I understood the world through these distorted glasses that show a nice, clean history that makes the statement, “We used to be malicious, now we’re not, the end. Go us!” I realized I was white. “Because you are white doesn’t mean you have to be a white supremacist, but because you are white, you directly benefit from the white supremacy.” She tried prying open our closed minds to see that not all white people are chauvinistic, but because you are white, prejudice or not, you benefit from the racially structured fundamentals that is America. Yes, even 16 year old naive me. How though? I’ve never even muttered a racially intended slur in my life! Professor Lee would soon go on to explain “whiteness” is a standard where background against difference can be determined. For example, it’s “white” until proven otherwise. It’s “white” until proven guilty. These things have no correlation with actual statistics, populations, or anything of true substance. It’s just a culture that is submissive. In a video that featured Curtis Jackson, also known as 50
Everything is clear cut, black and white and as simple as right or wrong. Tim Wise’s book, “White Like Me,” describes a naive, childish (white) mindset of perfectly. “If you work hard, you’ll get ahead. If you don’t get ahead, it’s because you’ve made poor decisions. If you get arrested, it’s because you broke the law, and people who break the law are just more likely to be black” (47). I knew this because on every third Monday of January, we learned how cruel America had been to the blacks and because of Martin Luther King Jr. it had been resolved. Because it had been resolved, we are all equals to each other. If you didn’t keep up in today’s world, it’s only because you were not putting forth the effort. This all rang true, I mean this is the lesson I’ve been taught since kindergarten. This summer I volunteered at a clinic that was three days long and held by Sheridan County’s Advocacy and Resource center about discrimination. The first day, Professor Lewis Annakinder spoke about discriminating by sex, the second day broached discrimination by age, and the third day was on race. She started her speech by saying, “Because you are white doesn’t mean you have to be a white supremacist, but because you are white, you directly benefit from the white supremacy.” She made us repeat it like an anthem. At least 3 times. WHAT THE WHAT? She would later go on to speak about Tim Wise’s, “White Like Me,” along with David Roediger’s, “Wages of Whiteness” and informed us on how our economic systems benefit from racism. There are specific reasons why black people ended up in urban centers. I realized after the professor’s speech I have come to understand America through white eyes. I understood the world through these distorted glasses that show a nice, clean history that makes the statement, “We used to be malicious, now we’re not, the end. Go us!” I realized I was white. “Because you are white doesn’t mean you have to be a white supremacist, but because you are white, you directly benefit from the white supremacy.” She tried prying open our closed minds to see that not all white people are chauvinistic, but because you are white, prejudice or not, you benefit from the racially structured fundamentals that is America. Yes, even 16 year old naive me. How though? I’ve never even muttered a racially intended slur in my life! Professor Lee would soon go on to explain “whiteness” is a standard where background against difference can be determined. For example, it’s “white” until proven otherwise. It’s “white” until proven guilty. These things have no correlation with actual statistics, populations, or anything of true substance. It’s just a culture that is submissive. In a video that featured Curtis Jackson, also known as 50