Column: Many white men can’t see racism

Published 12:30 am Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Steve Trotter

I grew up in a majority-white suburb of Seattle. My father worked for Boeing; many of my friend’s fathers did too. Other fathers were mostly airline pilots and doctors, engineers and teachers, white-collar professionals. My high school had approximately 1,100 students in three grades.

I remember there being one black student in my high school. I never spoke to him. My father, in language and behavior, taught me that Blacks were subhuman and were to be both shunned and feared.

There were a few Hispanics and Asians in my high school. Very few. I talked to a Black person for the first time when I attended university.

I have since had the good fortune to meet and get to know people of many races and nationalities. I’ve had the good fortune of living, too briefly, in Asia and for a longer period in eastern Europe.

I have come to realize that I know nothing of racism. Oh, I know what it looks like from the books I’ve read and the conversations I’ve had. But as a white person I cannot know the sort of racism that goes on in our country.

Friends have a grandson, fostered since birth and now adopted by their daughter and son-in-law. The grandson, call him Steve, starts kindergarten this fall. He is already categorized because he is Black.

Earlier this year, in preschool, three boys, two white, and Steve, got in trouble for being boys. The white boys were described by the teacher as “high energy.” Steve, acting the same as his two companions, was described by the same teacher as “aggressive” and “violent.”

I know Steve. I’ve spent a bit of time with him. Yep: he’s a boy all right. He acts like his brothers: active and roughhousing. He acts like my brothers and I did as boys: rambunctious, loads of energy, prone to getting in trouble and all the rest that comes with the label “boy.”

If Steve were white, descriptive terms would be “active,” “boisterous,” “a challenge.” But Steve is categorized, put in a box, a box labeled “trouble” and “dangerous.”

Because Steve is five years old and Black.

I’ve never had to deal with that. I’m white. I’m male. I hold the top position in our culture.

I think racism needs to be brought to the fore at every opportunity. It needs to be discussed and explored by people of all races and backgrounds. And folks like me, white and male (I’ll include the females and all other white folks, ‘cause we’re in this together) need to do more listening than talking. (Note what I’m doing: talking!)

We who are white have to recognize that centuries of racial discrimination has shaped how we see things. Is America’s racism “systemic”? (“Systemic” refers to it being “in the system,” built in, so to speak.)

Many practices throughout our history would suggest it is: Redlining—which persists today; “Separate but equal,” from out past, with clear evidence that it was separate and not equal; the criminal-justice system.

If racism isn’t systemic, it is certainly well-established. America’s history shows it has at times received official sanction in law.

What’s a white guy to do?

I have no power over anyone but me. I control almost nothing. Still, at least I can not pretend racism is a myth, or think that people who speak of it are whiners or refusing to grow up. For me, it means speaking up when I find other folks like me (white) being naive or ignorant or condescending or crying as if we have it tough, as if we’re being discriminated against.

For me, it means speaking up when I read or hear someone saying discrimination doesn’t exist, that racism is done with, that white men are a persecuted minority. No. Stop.

Racism is alive and well in America and here in Central Oregon. Being white and male does put me at a disadvantage: I have shared the top position in our culture for so long I have trouble seeing anything and anyone else.

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