Conversations on Race - A Conversation about Being White

A Conversation about Being White

September 1, 2020

“Until you can recognize that you are living a racialized life and you’re having racialized experiences every moment of every day, you can’t actually engage people of other races around the idea of justice"

-- Whitney Dow, The Whiteness Project

SEEING WHITE

Scene on Radio is a podcast series that tells stories exploring human experience and American society. Produced and hosted by John Biewen, Scene on Radio comes from the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University.

Season 2 - Seeing White - was initially broadcast in 2017. Biewen and collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika explored the history and meaning of whiteness. Below is a Tedx Talk presented by John Biewen in November, 2019, in Charlottesville . We have also selected an episode from Seeing White that is representative of the 14-episode series and should stimulate an engaging conversation. The entire series may be accessed by clicking here.

When did racism start, and why? Who invented the very notion of being “white,” or “black,” and why did they do so? Journalist and documentary podcaster John Biewen looked into these questions, and he argues that the answers could transform our approach to solving racial injustice. John Biewen, of Durham, North Carolina, is audio program director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University (CDS), and host and producer of the Peabody Award-nominated podcast Scene on Radio. He grew up in Mankato, Minnesota and earned a degree in philosophy from Gustavus Adolphus College. He reported for Minnesota Public Radio, NPR News (in the Rocky Mountain West), and American RadioWorks. His work has appeared on all of the NPR newsmagazines as well as This American Life, Reveal, Studio 360 and the BBC World Service. (18:32)

Episode 13, White Affirmative Action (47:58)

S2 E13: White Affirmative ActionWhen it comes to U.S. government programs and support earmarked for the benefit of particular racial groups, history is clear. White folks have received most of the goodies. By John Biewen, with Deena Hayes-Greene of the Racial Equity Institute and recurring series partner Chenjerai Kumanyika.

Right now it is especially important for us, "good" white people, to consider the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. from a speech in 1967 in Atlanta before the Hungry Club Forum, a secret gathering of white politicians and civil rights leaders:

King said: “For well now 12 years, the struggle was basically a struggle to end legal segregation. In a sense it was a struggle for decency. It was a struggle to get rid of all of the humiliation and the syndrome of depravation surrounding the system of legal segregation. And I need not remind you that those were glorious days. It is now a struggle for genuine equality on all levels, and this will be a much more difficult struggle. You see, the gains in the first period, or the first era of struggle, were obtained from the power structure at bargain rates; it didn't cost the nation anything to integrate hotels and motels. It didn't cost the nation a penny to guarantee the right to vote. Now we are in a period where it will cost the nation billions of dollars to get rid of poverty, to get rid of slums, to make quality education a reality. This is where we are now. Now we’re going to lose some friends in this period. The allies who were with us in Selma will not all stay with us during this period. We’ve got to understand what is happening. Now they often call this the white backlash. … It’s just a new name for an old phenomenon. The fact is that there has never been any single, solid, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans to genuine equality for Negroes.”

Asset Value of Whiteness_0.pdf

This Demos paper confirms that factors such as college attendance, two-parent households, full time work, and spending less will not close the racial wealth gap for African Americans. Whiteness is the asset that trumps them all. Are those of us who are white, and consider ourselves supporters of racial equality, willing to give up anything substantial? Are we willing to consider some redistribution of "rights, resources, and representation"?

The Boston Globe article, below, isn't an optimistic one, describing, for example, "a lawn in Newton with three yard signs. Two pushed back against affordable housing projects, reading: 'Right Size Newton' and 'Right Size Riverside.' The third sign said, 'Black Lives Matter.'"

Housing will test white support for Black lives - The Boston GlobeWhite people are rallying against racism, but will they finally make it much easier for minorities to move into their neighborhoods?

Click on the graphic at left to access the Boston Globe article directly or read the PDF below (although the PDF conversion really did a number on the graphs and illustrations. Sorry about that).

Housing will test white support for Black lives - The Boston Globe.pdf

Some Background and Context

On Being "White"...and Other Lies James Baldwin

Essence Magazine, 1984

on_being_white.and_other_lies_baldwin_0.pdf

Go to the Whiteness Page (click here) to find two Whitney Dow Projects: The Whiteness Project (see preview here) and Facing Whiteness. Lots of interviews with white people in Buffalo NY and Dallas TX; Battle Creek MI, Cheyenne WY, and Richmond VA. Try watching just one interview. It's hard to stop. And take a look at a discussion with Dow and an article from The Guardian.

Also on the Whiteness Page:

Jonathan Metzl's Dying of Whiteness - Review and Interview

Ralph's essay, "Driving While White"

AND, on the Black Voices page, check out Venita Blackburn's article from The Paris Review "White People Must Save Themselves from Whiteness" (click here)

"But race is the child of racism, not the father." ---Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

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