White male: part of the problem and the solution

White male: part of the problem and the solution

One evening a while back, my wife asked me to go downstairs and
fetch the last load of clothes in the dryer. The laundry room in
our building is in the basement, and to get there you have to walk
through the basement parking garage. It was after dark, and she
didn’t want to go down there by herself.

I resisted at first, but quickly realized that maybe it wasn’t
such a good idea for her to go down there alone at night. We have
had people break into our cars in other buildings, so one can never
be sure who might be lurking in the parking garage.

On my way down, I had a little revelation: that concern is
something always on a woman’s mind, but as a guy it’s not something
that would ever have occurred to me on my own. That got me thinking
that despite the inroads on white male privilege, there remains a
substantial benefit in being a white guy, but it’s a benefit we
rarely recognize because it means not having to worry about
problems that confront women and minorities every day. We don’t see
them, so they don’t exist for us. That’s why we have trouble taking
minority complaints seriously, and why we get angry when we’re
accused of being privileged.

I was (and remain) leery of approaching this topic. Talking
about race relations, particularly as a white guy, is to walk a
knife-edge. A wrong step to the left and you’re engaged in liberal
guilt-tripping, a wrong step to the right and you’re campaigning
for a job with the Klan. Charting a path through the middle is not
a job for the faint-hearted.

Two things need to be said up front. First, to be a white male
in America is to be privileged, in part because of what our
ancestors did, and in part because of things we have not learned to
stop doing. Second, to be a white male in this country is to be
viewed as the problem rather than part of the solution, when in
fact we are both.

The biggest privilege in being a white guy is the hardest for us
to accept. Even just a hundred years ago, if you wanted to get rich
in this country, you pretty much had to be a white guy. We get
defensive and uncomfortable when people point this out, but it
remains true.

If you were white in 1895, you had a chance to become successful
if your family wasn’t already. If you did, you could afford to pass
that prosperity down to your children, who then had a leg up on
everyone else ­ beyond whatever restrictions were written into
law ­ and that made things easier for their children. And so
on. In my case, at least, it’s too obvious to avoid.

Before the Civil War, both sides of my family owned slaves, and
afterward, they rented their land to sharecroppers. Whenever I meet
a black person named Overton, and I’ve met more than one, I have to
wonder if his ancestors once worked for my ancestors. If they did,
the hard work his ancestors put in ­ work that could have gone
to bettering their families ­ is still trickling down to my
benefit. So to say that this black Overton and I must compete for a
job on a race-neutral basis is disingenuous.

That the legal playing field may have been leveled through bans
on discrimination does not mean the social playing field ­ the
ability to take advantage of that equal opportunity ­ is level
as well. The disparity is not so stark for everyone, but the
argument still holds.

For white guys, this is a most painful truth to accept. The line
society has fed us since we were boys ­ one most of us have
swallowed whole and cherished ever after ­ is that if you work
hard and commit yourself, anyone can become a success. That we
might be deriving illicit benefits from our ancestors makes it seem
as if we’ve been cheating. No one likes to be called a cheater, and
that’s why so many white guys have knee-jerk reactions to
discussions of historical oppression.

It makes it doubly hard to be accused of cheating when dealing
with affirmative action, which on first glance, for the white guy
at least, seems to institutionalize cheating for minorities. Yet
the only way to justify affirmative action is to look back to the
disparities of the past ­ many of which persist, by the way
­ and this is a very hard thing for white guys to do.

We don’t feel responsible, so we don’t think we should have to
pay for it; we can’t see it, so we’re not sure the problem even
exists. We don’t have any problem going down to the laundry room
after dark, so why should anyone else?

Until we, as white men, can face this neurosis head-on, we’re
going to continue to walk around with undeserved chips on our
shoulder, pissed off and pissing off, and that isn’t going to help
us or anyone else. We have to recognize that we are still
privileged in this society and that our anger over having that
pointed out is misplaced. If we can make that leap, we will do
ourselves, and society, a very large favor.

However, not all of the difficulties in effecting change in this
society are due to white male intransigence. Much of it is due to
something related and equally wrongheaded: for too long in this
country, white guys have been viewed only as the problem, and not
as part of the solution. The truth is that we are, and have to be,
both.

I get the feeling, however, that that idea does not sit well
with many people. It’s understandable, to be sure. If white guys
have been oppressing you for generations, you’re not going to be
too eager to work with them. When white guys continue to publish
things like "The Bell Curve," it’s easy to assume there’s nothing
else there to listen to.

When for most of history white guys have been telling you that
you have nothing worthwhile to say, it’s hard to deliver polite
treatment in response. One has only to look at the yearly
Armageddon over interfraternity council sponsorship to see the
process in action at UCLA. Some minority authors even have gone so
far as to ask whites to stay out of race theory altogether.

But guess what? That simply isn’t going to work. Why? Try a
little experiment: go count heads in Congress and the boards of the
Fortune 500 companies. Mostly white guys. Who is president of the
United States? Who is governor of California? Who is chancellor of
UCLA? White guys all. And these, incidentally, are the people in
the best (read most powerful) positions to effect change. By
treating these people as if they have no ideas worth consideration,
you lose their ability to help. By treating white guys as if they
can do nothing but sit by and wait to be told what to do, you
guarantee they won’t be around to listen when you make up your
mind. By going out of your way to alienate them (how many dumb male
jokes have you told lately?), you turn them against you and make
your job that much harder.

If there is to be real change, we have to be involved. If we are
to be involved, we have to be treated as if we have something
worthwhile to contribute.

That is no doubt a bitter pill to swallow for many people. But
perhaps no more bitter than having to accept that you’ve been
cheating all the time you thought you were playing fair. The path
to the middle may be a knife-edge, but that blade cuts in more than
one direction.

Overton is a third-year law student. His column runs on
alternate Thursdays.