I have a confession: I have a problem with whiteness in America. This does not mean that I have a problem with white people but rather the ideologies that surround their thinking which in turn causes them to perpetuate systems of Injustice towards people of color. Historically and even today white hierarchies continue to threaten the tenants of antiracism and diversity. Take for example my job. I work with slew of white women who are pathologically bias. To tell them this would invite white tears, white rage and also white fragility as many white people especially white women struggle to reckon with the fact that they are indeed racist. Whiteness has shielded them from taking accountability for their “invisible bias”.
In her book White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo deconstructs this phenomenon. She mentions throughout the book how white people have never been expected to see themselves in racial terms. White privilege has made white people “racially innocent” and thus immune to racial stress. Once the burden of racial stress is thrust upon them, in other words once they are forced to confront their bias and see the ways in which they are indeed bigoted, enter the tears and claims of ignorance as a mechanism for absolution.
I’ve seen this firsthand at my job where discussions about race are kept to a minimum and when they are engaged in, there is both a superficial exploration coupled with a tendency to want to hurry the conversation or change the topic to avoid dealing with the reality of inequality. There are even some white team members who refuse to even participate in such discussions as many of their relatives, ones who they continue to have association with mind you are bigots. Often times after such discussions, there is an exodus of white silence as white people do not know how to sit with the discomfort of hearing about the atrocities committed by their ancestors. I usually sit there and observe such dynamics nursing my own discomfort as I do not feel completely safe knowing that I work with people who continue to have dealings with people who want me dead. Their silence instills a sense of harm in the workspace and makes them indirectly complicit in the perpetuation and maintenance of racism in America.
Working with white women has taught me the importance of self-protection. Throughout my career, many white women have tried to orchestrate my professional demise. Oftentimes these women tried to hide behind white innocence, acting as though they have the best of intentions towards black people when in actuality they want to continue to perpetuate systems of white dominance. An example of this can be seen in my current place of employment. In an effort to roll out Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts, my agency has hired 2 new black people. There is now a total of three of us on the team. We are not fully staffed but staffed enough to get the job done. Upon hiring these two new team members, I’ve noticed the subtle ways in which whiteness begins to cling to its perceived supremacy. For one, these 2 new hires have not been properly trained or provided with adequate supervision to strengthen their confidence in their role. Instead they have been put at their desk and given busy work. They are literally expected to learn their role on their own. This is because whiteness does not want to see Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts succeed. They want to merely give the illusion that they desire equity as a way to offset claims of bias, bigotry and inequality. They want to appear as though they are doing their work when in reality, they are not. This is what I refer to as Symbolic Diversions/Performative Gestures.
Additionally most mission statements at various human service agencies will posit some aspect of social justice and empowerment for persons of color and yet many of these white saviors will continue to enable dysfunctional patterns of behavior within communities of color for many reasons namely: fear, lack of familiarity with the cultural history/resilience of said communities and the misguided belief in the inherent inferiority of black people. They will buy client engagement, purchase client investment and put a downpayment on client participation by offering money, gifts or food items instead of teaching clients the necessary skills to help them secure these things for themselves. They call this “helping underserved communities”, I call it perpetuating systems of inequity through excessive gatekeeping, virtue signaling and access policing. Then when you call them on this, they will begin to, as New York Times writer Charles Blow so eloquently stated, “Act as instruments of terror”.
What does this look like in real time? For one, they will offer intermittent kindness. This will be used as a tool to throw you off balance and keep you questioning your judgement. Such inconsistent displays of benevolence and counterfeit kindness are used to create uncertainty and have you clinging to the slightest bit of kindness. They will begin to monitor, surveille, watch and build their case against you. They will research you on the internet. They will seek out opportunities to undermine you in public spaces to ruin your credibility. They will engage in office gossip and assassinate your character thus influencing how other coworkers see you and interact with you. They will unduly challenge your authority. They will oppose anything that you suggest. They will feign ignorance and rebuff your intuition. They will deny your accusations and recluse back into dainty innocence. They will weaponize their tears and exhibit hyperemotional behaviors intended to make you not only look and sound like the bad guy but also offset your suspicions. They will align themselves with others who dislike you and engage in mob tactics to denounce your thinking. They will play on toxic workplace dynamics between coworkers and use these dynamics to further their own agendas. They will be very passive aggressive and try to covertly complicate the most simplest of tasks in an effort to frustrate you. They will hide behind policy and procedure except when it comes time for them to adhere to it. They will triangulate and even align themselves with their office enemy in an effort to destroy you. Thing you have to remember is that whiteness will always normalize the tenets of supremacy while in the same breath advocating for equality. They want equality as long as they are able to maintain superiority.
In navigating predominately white work spaces, I’ve come to realize that white women will only be helpful as long as they are not threatened by you. The moment that you become proficient in your role is the moment they begin a full on attack of you. This is first manifested by extreme yet performative kindness. This is what I refer to as compensatory kindness as they are trying to compensate for their underlying contempt of your existence as well as their dangerous insecurity as secretly these vipers struggle with an inherent sense of low self-worth which presents as grandiosity. Such kindness is afforded you with a condition: your subservient mediocrity. The moment you exude greatness is the moment you sign up to become their enemy.
Many black professionals have felt the need to soothe the fragile egos of white bosses and employers in an effort to survive predominantly white workspaces. It’s like we are constantly having to be the caretakers of white insecurity in order to survive. This is a slave mentality what I refer to as a plantation mentality in which we feel as though our very survival hinges on how satisfied our masters are with our performance. We no longer have to “shuck and Jive” in order to survive. And while the remnants of Jim Crow still persist and are deeply baked into the fabric of America’s badly stained quilt, we no longer have to put up with that nonsense. We are now creating launch plans and quietly quitting such spaces because we have learned that our contributions will never be valued here. I mean traditionally our voices have never been valued by whiteness. Nothing black has ever been adequately respected, compensated, appreciated or celebrated by whiteness. We have been APPROPPRIATED but never APPRECIATED. What makes us think we ever will be?
Truth is whiteness will be whiteness no matter how much it continues to disturb the possibility of a diverse utopia and so in order to combat whiteness, we as black people must be strategic. We must document and learn how the systems operate. We must begin to create our own spaces that honor our talents, skills, abilities and knowledge. We must avoid being the midwives to white grief, treating their insecurities to our empathy. Instead, we must begin using that energy to uplift and build our own communities. Also we must stop waiting for whiteness to give us anything. We must take it. We take it through knowledge, assertion and the definite understanding that no matter how nice whiteness appears, it is never what it seems.
