Diversity of Whiteness

INTRODUCTION

"Diversity of Whiteness" (DoW) is the problem I see facing the efforts to remove racism from American culture. DoW is a two sided coin: on one hand whites try to expand their commitment to diversity by embracing diversity of ideas, while on the other hand whites are excluded from serious exploration of racism because of their whiteness. DoW is a viscous cycle, in that as whites chose diversity of ideas over diversity of peoples, they are further excluded from conversations on diversity of peoples, encouraging them to instead explore diversity of ideas as an alternative to diversity of peoples.


BACKGROUND

I grew up in an ethnically diverse non-segregated community on the West Coast with the traditional American populations and numerous Asian and Latino immigrants. I am acutely aware of my family's cultural roots in the South West and the effect Mexican politics has had on my family's culture over the last few hundred years, even though our family is dominantly Anglo. I am in an inter-racial marriage and I have bi-racial children.

I studied Anthropology at the community college level, cultural awareness at the university level, and global pluralism & human capital on a graduate level. I was a graduate assistant for two years at Antioch University, leading a team of graduate students who's main goal was to "establish diversity as a learning outcome." This involved discussing culturally charged issues with faculty, and interviewing students who had complaints about how the school viewed ethnicity.

I have helped employees use their non-white racial identity against their HR department to get more desirable outcomes. I have been a supervisor with several first generation immigrants from several different parts of the world on my team. I have lived in the culturally diverse part of Seattle (South Seattle) since I moved here over a decade ago.

To summarize: 1) I have a stake in how cultural diversity is handled. 2) I am highly trained in the subject of cultural diversity. 3) I am very experienced working on cultural diversity issues. 4) I have had numerous racially charged encounters and am acutely aware of challenges involved in conflicts between groups of people from different cultures.


DIVERSITY IN THIS CENTURY

What I learned from interviewing all those students at Antioch University is that non-White students want their ethnicity to be a non-issue for them in school. The second their ideas are judged by what ethnicity they are, they feel discriminated against. If they are ever asked to represent their ethnicity, this is when they think about calling a lawyer: if they have to do something with Latino challenges because that student speaks Spanish as their first language, they are not getting the education they were promised.

In 2000 I met a middle aged black man in the Pittsburgh area who claimed to be a Klu Klux Klan (KKK) member. Regarding this encounter I frequently hear "that's not right, a black man can't be so racist against his own kind as to be in a racist organization." THAT is the very type of racism that is dominant in our culture today, the idea that because of your ethnicity, you should be a certain way. If we have a problem with the black man being in the KKK because we feel no one should be in the KKK, that is not racist. But if we say a black man should not be in the KKK because he is black, that is racist discrimination against that black man, because we are saying what he should think because of his ethnicity.

White privilege is one of the most important ideas for a white entering the conversation to have between his ears. Great efforts have been taken to make whites involved in the conversation on racism aware of the privilege they have. However there is a frequent battle cry regarding that privilege that excludes whites from the conversation on racism.

Once in class at Antioch University we were talking about this subject, and I made an observation that "one night I was on the back of the bus on the way home. I had an encounter with some black male teenagers where they thought I was trying to buy drugs or guns from them, but I had no such intention. The big misunderstanding was around the idea that I was employed and on the way home from work, something a 3rd party had to explain to them to keep the situation from becoming violent..."

I was cut off my someone of a non-white ethnicity, exclaiming "don't pretend you know what they were thinking. You don't know how they feel, you don't know what it's like to be them!"

I wasn't able to participate in the conversation any further, because being fully aware of various cultural issues going on, and because of my extensive training in cultural awareness, I realized that just about anything else I could say would get me into serious trouble - possibly even being expelled from the program. But here is what I WAS going to say next "... so then I realized that even though we were neighbors, we lived in two very different worlds. Their cultural paradigms were almost completely alien to me, and mine were to them."

So I was about to say something that my critic would have agreed with, and which had a LOT more insight than what she had said. What she had said was discriminatory against me, because of my ethnicity, and little else. Because I am white I am not allowed to have certain ideas because of my whiteness: I cannot possibly imagine what it is like not to be white. To assume I can to any degree imagine what it is like to not be white is pure ignorance and evil on my part, because of my whiteness.

Of course the problem is this is the very racist meme we are trying to eradicate. Saying a white can't have this or that thought because of his race perpetuates the problem the conversation on racism is battling against.

If someone discriminates against me because of my religion, my first instinct is to find other company. I was not able to have another conversation with my critic again regarding diversity or racism. This behavior excluded me from whatever conversations on racism were taking place in the context of her being involved.

In this way "white privilege" is used to exclude whites from conversations on racism and diversity. Finding other company and still interested in diversity, whites then turn instead to the idea of "diversity of thought." Maybe if they aren't allowed to participate in establishing cultural diversity, perhaps they can instead promote diversity of ideas...


A WHOLE RAINBOW OF VANILLA FLAVORS

It is one thing to educate ethnic minorities about their own struggles. It is another thing to come up with real solutions to those struggles. If whites are the main perpetrators of racism by way of their privilege, how can they possibly hope to change society when they are being excluded from the conversation on racism? In this way the conversation on racism is self-defeating, illustrated in the following feedback loop:

Focus on diversity of ideas -> lack of focus on diversity of peoples -> even less confidence on the subject of diversity of peoples -> focus on diversity of ideas -> (repeat)

The dialogue that naturally leads to change is not happening with the people who need to change.

A second problem is how the white voice is excluded from the serious conversation on diversity of peoples:

• Ideas exist between the two ears of individual human beings.
• The biggest behavioral influence on someone (besides certain disabilities) is their cultural heritage.
• Even though this is obvious to anyone who studies culture, I can't share any of my examples from personal experiences from a multi-cultural marriage, living in Seattle's Chinatown, Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill, as an AmeriCorps working in the King County Jail with ESL students, or living in the toughest neighborhoods of inner-city Pittsburgh, because my white status automagically would make my stories seem racist to many who do seriously embrace this conversation on diversity of peoples, simply because of the color of my skin.
• Even still, without diversity of peoples - without that true edge of behavioral differences that is ultimately achieved through cultural/ethnic diversity - we can not have a truly diverse range of ideas. What we have instead is a "diversity of ideas that exists in the minds of white people."

All personal thoughts and ideas exist in a cultural context. Cultural diversity is the single biggest opportunity for getting diversity of thought. In today's world if you don't have cultural diversity, you don't have a meaningful amount of diversity of thought. Without cultural diversity, all you have is diversity of whiteness.

Diversity of thought for diversity's sake is not necessarily a good thing. Cultural diversity gives you such different view points, that it is inherently virtuous simply because different viewpoints are advantageous in most situations. However, not all thoughts are equal and difference without difference in perspective does not hold that same advantage.

Cultural diversity is a powerful advantage, and not only does diversity of thought fail to compensate for cultural diversity, it can give space to toxic ideas that can harm an organization. (A significant formal white supremacist movement tolerated in its student body for very long would gravely damage Antioch University as an organization.)


CONCLUSION

I disagree with the idea that whites can't have empathy for other cultures on two levels: First it is simply unverifiable - certainly no reasonable people go around the USA telling Latinos they can't imagine what it's like to be white. Once a white has his head around the concept of white privilege, further exclusion of his opinions based on his privilege only serves to exclude him from the conversation.

Second, not only is it impossible to prove what another person's imagination is capable of, I say that it is counter productive to make the assertion that whites cannot imagine with any meaningful accuracy what it is be another ethnicity. The obvious goal of this assertion is to discourage whites from having empathy for other cultures. Is the goal for conversations around diversity and racism to discourage whites from empathizing with other cultures?

It is far better for whites to try and fail to accurately imagine what it is like to be another culture, than it is for them not to try at all, assuming that "I will never be able to understand on a meaningful level." Whites should be able to put themselves in the shoes of those who they are involved in oppressing to help end this oppression. Even if it is an extremely superficial and shallow level of understanding, it is certainly a better level of understanding than what they have from not trying at all.


APPENDIX: CULTURAL COMPETENCY

If you want to build your own ability to handle diverse cultures, the first thing you need to do is get in touch with your own culture. If you think you have "normal" culture, you are wrong. Where do your ancestors come from? What habits have been passed down to you from your forefathers, and how far back do those habits go in your family line? How about your way of thinking and your ideas around right and wrong? Historically what has been the most influential religion on your family, and why?

Note: if this hasn't unearthed a revelation for you around food, meals or diet, you need to keep exploring these questions. As you learn about your own cultural orientation, you won't be so caught off guard when you have differences with others because their cultural orientation is different from yours.

If you are white, you should also understand the idea of white privilege. You might fundamentally disagree with it (as I do,) but it is very helpful for understanding the challenges whites have when encountering cultural diversity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege