How does racism harm white people?

October 29, 2007 in still thinking, systemic | by resistance

I asked this question once in a seminar full of white people. Got no answers. Have you got one?

39 comments

October 29, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Fear, ignorance and resentment are not healthy emotions to live with, but they also are hard to trace to their origins and not nearly as damaging as racism is to POC. Isolationism is also a bad thing, for families, for individuals.

However the benefits of racism to white people trump the nebulous side effects, so we really do not have enough motivation to do enough about it. My primary motivation comes from my kids, and I am sorry to say that before they came along, I was not motivated or active enough against racism.

October 29, 2007 at 1:14 pm

Kim

Reasons why white people should care about racism:

1. What goes around, comes around. We all live in the same society. I don’t understand what makes white people think that the social ills that our actions (or inactions) are actively maintaining in the ghettos aren’t going to come around and bite us in the ass one day, too. It’s easy to maintain the illusion that these are “their problems” in an all-white enclave, I suppose, but social ills like increased crime (and abusive and untrustworthy law enforcement) and the economic/social marginalization and geographic isolation of a huge chunk of our population WILL affect white people’s standard of living too. How can having such a huge number of Americans (predominantly young, black, male Americans) not have an effect on American society as a whole?

2. On a personal level, as a white woman, racism hurts me because I can never look in the mirror and say to myself “I earned and deserve my accomplishments.” Every victory is slightly hollow for the reason that I don’t know what percentage of my accomplishments are due to my own actions, and what percentage was simply due to white privilege.

3. On a similar note, I feel like my country doesn’t represent the values that it claims as a foundation – fairness, justice, equality of opportunity. I grew up believing in these values and internalizing them – I was ashamed to discover that the real America is so far from the ideal. I’d like to be proud of my country.

4. In middle school, I was attacked by a girl who was frustrated with white people in general and was looking to vent that frustration. Imagine – in seventh grade – a 12 year old girl is already so fed up with the unfairness of a racist system that she would go after someone she barely knew. White people can’t be the victims of reverse racism (i.e. the girl who beat me up does not have the systematic power to deny me a job, etc.) but individual whites may still reap some of the consequences of what a racist system sows (see point #1).

5. Systematic racism has created a climate of interracial distrust and suspicion. It’s a sad truth that I had far more friends of color as a 5th grader than I do now – and I’m hardly the exception to the rule. Many white people I know have expressed “discomfort” interacting with minorities, without realizing that it’s the racist system they (consciously or not) maintain that generates their discomfort.

Obviously, there are more, but that’s all I’ve got for 9:13 a.m. on a Monday. Thank you for all the good work you do with this blog. America needs more voices like this.

October 29, 2007 at 1:15 pm

Kim

Under comment 1, I meant to say “How can having such a huge number of Americans IN PRISON not have an effect on American society as a whole?”

October 29, 2007 at 1:42 pm

amanda

i agree with sue on this – there’s a whole lotta ways that racism hurts white people, but none of them remotely compare to the ways that it hurts black and brown people.

October 29, 2007 at 4:10 pm

Melissa McEwan

How does racism harm white people?

It induces them to shut themselves off from millions and millions of people, some of whom might make them think, some of whom might make them laugh, some of whom could be best friends, lovers, teachers, business partners… Racism drastically limits the world for the people who subscribe to it.

And I say that with not the slightest inclination to disagree that it’s nothing compared to how racism hurts people of color — because racism is primarily hurtful to the white people who make the choice to practice it.

October 29, 2007 at 6:06 pm

Nightprowlkitty

Wow, that’s a good question.

How do you explain the feeling of knowing Iraqi families and young American soldiers are dying over in Iraq in a bloody war of aggression? I’m not over there, I’m not killing anyone, I don’t even know any soldiers or Iraqis. Yet it hurts every day, it hurts personally. I’m not hurting the way they are, the Iraqis, the wounded and twisted soldiers. But it hurts every day. How do I explain that?

How do I explain the feeling of knowing good people are being treated badly, wondering how our society would be blessed and improved if those with real abilities and talents were given a fair chance to contribute to society, wondering if the mess we are in today would be any different, would there be more cures for diseases, better teachers, would we have a wiser culture, more art, more love and laughter? Wondering and never, ever knowing, because that chance has been robbed from us all. How do I explain that feeling?

How can I explain the damage done from ignorance and hatred? I see it all the time, I see the damage to everone that comes from racism, xenophobia, sexism, why does it hurt me, why does it make life almost unbearable sometimes, when I am treated well enough, I am not discriminated against?

If it is true that we are all made from the same stuff, that we are all connected, then it’s like having one’s eyes put out, one’s ears stopped, one’s heart always broken, having a chronic sickness, knowing one is always incomplete, never having any real union, that’s how it hurts.

I don’t know if this answers your question. I tried to look into my own heart as to why witnessing racism gives me such feelings of pain — it was difficult to come up with words to accurately describe what I saw.

October 30, 2007 at 10:19 am

links for 2007-10-30 at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

[...] How does racism harm white people? – Resist racism Really interesting discussion taking place here. I’ve often wondered the same thing. If racism benefits white people so much, what incentive would they have to help end it? (tags: racism white) [...]

October 30, 2007 at 4:21 pm

anna

I’m deffinately not a racist in the least bit, but may I ask why the question singles out white people?

October 30, 2007 at 5:52 pm

lisa13

It harms white people because, well, . . . . gosh it affects white people as much as the african americans. White people can be offended by the remaarks blacks makes against white and i’m not the prejudice one. I love people of all colors. i wasn’t brought up to see colors!!! dangett!

October 30, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Tom

Racism/white supremacy kind of looks like a mental health problem to me. So it has to be harmful to the people who have the condition.

I’m not saying that white supremacy harms white people more than it does the victims. I’m only saying that it looks like a sign of really poor mental hygiene.

October 30, 2007 at 8:15 pm

Allen

Anna feels singled out.

October 30, 2007 at 8:54 pm

WTTO

Racism hurts white people through empathy to the extent that they are at least somewhat aware of systemic racism.

October 30, 2007 at 9:47 pm

laura

Institutionalized racism (which denies power and access to resources to non-white people, while simultaneously denegrating and scapegoating them for “society’s problems”) does hurt white people and should be important to everyone. I am shocked that a room full of white people could not give one reason why.

I am a white woman who grew up with racial and economic privilege. Waking up every day to an awareness that my privilege comes from a deeply-rooted system of social injustice is a painful thing. Feeling a huge disconnect with people in my community is a painful thing. Hearing the testimonies of friends and strangers alike who survive racism everyday is a painful thing. Seeing racism in advertising and other media that damages the self-esteem of children in this country and everywhere else is a painful thing. Feeling the resentment of strangers because of our different experiences in life, because of a system that is huge and overwhelming, makes me feel powerless, frustrated and very sad.

My family gives me grief when I correct their racially insensitive comments or language, saying I’m too PC. I tell them that their views affect my friends and their families, and therefore it is personal to me. If it is personal to me, it might become something comprehensible to my family.

I had a professor in college who responded to the idea that non-oppressed people cannot understand or aid the cause of oppressed peoples. He said that this idea extremely limits and underestimates the powers of human empathy. He also said that if this idea is true, the world is f***ed.

White people must start with empathy and exposure. They must walk into situations of racial tension with humility and not defensiveness. White people cannot experience racism the way other people do, but they can feel the pain it causes others and be grieved.

October 31, 2007 at 12:41 am

Sue

I just had a thought–while reading comments on this and the “what white feminism looks like” post, where a few commentors are quick to point out that this is how the RICH not the WHITE live (begging the question: how many rich brown celebrities have adopted white kids from poor but intact families and can be photographed on cell phones with white maids pushing their foundlings around?)

SO.

If you had asked how classism harms rich people, I would have been dumbfounded. Yet I was quick to give a psychological way in which racism harms white people, because I guess I wish it did.

But if being rich does not harm the rich, then it might be logical to conclude that having white privilege does not harm whites.

So….that leaves with more of an “I got nothin’”

October 31, 2007 at 4:21 am

From Other Blogs… « Assumptions, Biases & Irrational Fantasies

[...] From Other Blogs… From Resist Racism: How does racism harm white people? [...]

October 31, 2007 at 6:42 am

baby221

It can be alienating.

And I say this as a mixed daughter of a white father, who to this day has difficulty relating to me through my ethnicity. He prefers to think of himself as colourblind, so things related to race that are difficult for him to hear simply get laid aside and forgotten — which means that, to a degree, a big part of who I am gets laid aside and forgotten. And that’s hard, and is among the reasons why we are no longer as close as we were when I was a child and still thought of myself primarily as white.

October 31, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Tim Wise

Though it is certainly true that racism’s impact on whites is far less than that on people of color, there are several serious injuries to whites (call it “collateral damage” for lack of a better phrase) that come from white supremacy and privilege. The ones already mentioned are good ones, but here are some more:

1. Racism and white privilege/supremacy have served to trick working class white folks (the majority) into believing their interests were racial rather than economic/social, etc. The whole history of whiteness as a concept was created to divide and conquer class-based coalitions of Europeans and Africans in the colonies of what became the U.S. Instead of providing decent jobs, land and working conditions, the elite extended skin privilege to euros, no matter how poor, so as to get them on the “white” team. After these benefits were created (the right to own a little property, to serve on slave patrols, etc), rebellions diminished greatly. The divide and conquer worked. In the civil war, this same race privilege and identification with the elite on the part of working class and piss-poor whites led them to go off and fight to maintain rich folks’ property interests in slaves. Ironic, since the slave system actually undermined the wage base of working class whites (think about it, if I have to charge you a dollar a day to work on your plantation but you can get someone who is enslaved to do it for free, guess who gets the gig?). Then in the early days of the union movement, white labor leaders elevated whiteness above class interests by barring folks of color from their unions (supposedly to maintain the “professionalism” of the working class). This meant their unions were smaller, weaker and less militant, to the detriment of working people everywhere. So, historically, white privilege and racism against people of color has created an alternative form of property for whites (whiteness) which may pay psychological dividends, to be sure, and material ones too in a relative sense, vis a vis people of color, but which comes at the direct expense of their overall well being.

2. Racism and white privilege/supremacy generates a mindset of entitlement among those in the dominant group. This entitlement mentality can prove dangerous, whenever the expectations of a member of the group are frustrated. Principally this is because such persons develop very weak coping skills as a result of never having to overcome the obstacles that oppressed folks deal with every day and MUST conquer in order to survive. SO, as a result, it is the privileged (the beneficiaries of racism, and also, it should be pointed out, the class system) who are ill-prepared for setback: the loss of a job, stocks taking a nose-dive (who were the folks jumping out the windows in the great depression–not poor folks and folks of color, but rich whites who couldn’t handle being broke!) Likewise, if you look at the various personal pathologies that tend to be disproportionate in the white community (and upper middle class for that matter) they are interesting in that they all are about control–controlling one’s anxiety, emotional pain, or controlling and dominating others–like suicide, substance abuse, eating disorders, self-injury/mutilation, serial killing and mass murder (as opposed to just regular one-on-one homicide), sexual sadism killings, etc. Now, think about it, which group would be most likely to manifest a control pathology: the group that had never been in control, or the ones who always had been, and had long felt entitled to be, but who then had their expectations frustrated and snapped. Think Columbine (and the vast majority of the mass murder school shootings, for that matter–Va Tech was an exception to the rule on these things).

3. Not knowing how the world works is dangerous. White privilege and racism allow the dominant group to live in a bubble of unreality. Most days that’s no big deal I suppose. But every now and then reality intrudes on you and if you haven’t been expecting it, the trauma is magnified. So, when 9/11 happened, millions of whites were running around saying “why do they hate us?” because whites have never had to see our nation the way others do–we’ve been able to live in la-la land. But folks of color didn’t say this, because those without privilege HAVE to know what others think about them. Not to do so is to be in perpetual danger. So whites flipped out, and by virtue of being unprepared, pushed for a policy response (war) that folks of color were HIGHLY skeptical of from the beginning. But whites, enthralled by our sense of righteousness (itself a manifestation of privilege), pushed forward, convinced that the war in Iraq would go swimmingly. How’s that working out?

In other words, racism and privilege generate mentalities and policies that are dysfunctional, even deadly for whites as with folks of color. Folks of color are the first victims, to be sure, and the worst. But as someone else said, what goes around…

There is more I could say here, but these are a few of the key points I try to make when speaking about these issues, and in the re-write to my book White Like Me.

October 31, 2007 at 2:25 pm

Bryan

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” MLK

One day they are going to find themselves as the “other.”

October 31, 2007 at 4:55 pm

deb

Tim Wise, you did a “re-write?” Cool. Guess I’ll be re-reading “White Like Me.”

November 1, 2007 at 11:07 am

Tim Wise

Yep, it’s been updated, revised, extended and vastly improved. There’s a new chapter on denial, lots of new stories in the existing chapters, (some of which replaced old ones that I didn’t think made the points quite as well), and an epilogue on Katrina and New Orleans. It should ship to stores by late November.

thanks

tim

November 1, 2007 at 3:51 pm

Anna

yea, i have to agree with lisa13.

November 1, 2007 at 3:53 pm

Anna

BUT, racism doesn’t only have to do with remarks directed to black people. It envolves white people too.

November 1, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Jeremy Pierce

The question does assume that there is never any anti-white racism. A question that would better express the original intent is “How does white racism harm white people?”

I would think that the primary way racism of any sort harms the racist is that it is bad to be a racist. It’s bad to be bad. It’s bad for you, not just because it has bad consequences but merely because it’s bad to be bad.

But there are all sorts of bad consequences of racism on those who are exhibiting it. One is that much of what’s excellent in the culture that surrounds us, including things racists appreciate and rely on, is due to those racism harms and victimizes. So there’s a kind of inconsistency in any kind of racism that names things as bad in the person one isolates as “other” and therefore bad. It’s bad to be inconsistent, because it’s irrational.

Also, we’re all morally and socially interconnected, and harm toward an entire community of people is thus harm toward an entire segment of humanity, and we’re all part of humanity. Thus harm toward other human beings of any sort (including racism) is thus harm to ourselves inasmuch as we are all human. Crimes against humanity are crimes against ourselves.

It’s only after all that that I’d bring in things like how our lives will be better off externally when we interact in a moral way with those who are different.

April 14, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Jen

Sounds like white racist need a 12-step program!

April 18, 2008 at 5:52 pm

death

I would comment but this whole blog is stupid. As a white male I owe you nothing.

May 6, 2008 at 11:33 pm

nobody.really

I contrast racism with meritocracy – that is, treating people on the basis of some bona fide measure of merit in lieu of race. So, when do I as a white person benefit from a lack of meritocracy, and when do I suffer from it?

As an applicant to med school, meritocracy may hurt me; I may benefit if racism gets me in the door past other more qualified applicants. As a patient, however, I want my doctor to be the most qualified person available; to the extent that racism prohibited the most qualified people from becoming doctors, I (and all other potential patients) suffer. Now, let’s count the number of white people who are med students, and the number who are patients, and decide whether on balance racism helps or hurts white people.

As a building contractor, meritocracy may hurt me; I may benefit if racism gets me a bridge-building contract that otherwise would have gone to some other, better builder. As a member of the public, however, I want bridges to be built on time, on budget, and to stand up over time; to the extent that racism impeded the best builder from building a project, I (and everybody else wanting to use the bridge) suffer. Now, let’s count the number of white people who are in the bridge building business, and the number of white people who cross bridges, and decide whether on balance racism helps of hurts white people.

When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, he probably displaced some white player who otherwise would have gotten on the team. And Robinson won a lot of games. On balance, is a white Dodgers fan – even a racist one – happy or sad for this development? On the other side of the coin, is a white soldier who is stuck in Iraq – even a racist soldier – happy or sad that Donald Rumsfeld, not Colin Powell, got to manage the occupation of Iraq?

I know this seem too obvious to say, but Gary Becker got a Nobel Prize for saying it: Everybody benefits from excellence – yes, even white people. Everybody suffers from incompetence – yes, even white people.

May 13, 2008 at 8:36 pm

panracial

Death, who said you owed minorities something — other than justice? What specifically do you not owe?

June 6, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Mel

Racism and socio-economic classism run parallel. It is sometimes hard to make a distinction between the two nevertheless they have impact on everyone. I do dream of a place and time where our differences are ignored. It’s when I wake up from dreams that I can’t believe this is my reality. I think George Carlin summed up some American sentiment quite nice for those who wish for a better America,”The problem with the American dream is you have to be asleep to believe it.”

June 11, 2008 at 11:35 am

Pat

To not see the world as it is, to constantly misperceive, compromises our (whites’) integrity every day.

September 10, 2008 at 2:32 am

kyle dawe

Race as a social construct has a negative impact on both the majority and the racial minority. This negative impact can be seen in many areas, especially in our educational system. The class lecture supports this negative impact on education, for example: If a white student and a black student both get a “C” on an essay, the teacher would approach each student very differently. The teacher would tell the white student that he or she could have done better and they are disappointed. This will cause the white student to work harder, and in the end receive a better education. But in some cases there is an unfair bias with the white student and the white teacher. The teacher will not grade the white students paper are tough as she will grade the black students. This will mean the white student will not have to work as hard and therefore in the end he or she will receive a poor education. The teacher would tell the black student that the “C” that it was a great grade, and that they couldn’t believe that the black student did so well. This causes the black student to not try harder at a better grade because they feel as if they should be satisfied with that “C”. Also in most cases the teacher will assume that the black students work is not very good and will grade it a lot harder. This means that the black student will have to work twice as hard as the white student to get the same grade.

There is not only a negative impact of our racial social construct on both the majority and the minority, but also on society as a whole. One of these negative impacts would be well qualified people not being appointed to a high position in society simply because of their race. The society would then suffer because the less qualified white man was appointed. We discussed this in our class lecture, and an example of this would be: A well qualified black man running for president of the United States and he loses the race to a less qualified white man only because he was black. Now the whole country will suffer under a president who does not have as good of leadership skills as the black man did, or maybe the black man had a universal health care plan, and now the society will still have millions uninsured.

October 1, 2008 at 11:17 pm

NiceLady

Typical White People

October 12, 2008 at 1:25 pm

JUSTICE

It leaves them clueless. Dying and never knowing how much more they would have enjoyed life if they could have seen past their own color. I often get asked why I married a black man. I always tell them, “I’m married to a black man?” Wow!!! I have so many more options than they do. Why do we never allow ourselves options?

White people don’t believe it hurts them…..come on. Most of them don’t even think they are. That’s because they never really reflect on what they say or do. They have “friends” that are black…but let their children bring one home as their significant other and see their mood change.

October 21, 2008 at 5:47 am

ok_state_amber

Justice,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. White people who claim that they are “not racist” say some of the most racist things…and they don’t even realize it. It’s not blatant…like some ignorant redneck. It’s more frightening. They actually think they are not racist but their thoughts and behaviors tell a different story.

October 25, 2008 at 10:07 pm

lady_cow

Kim: your #2 hit home to me—thanks. I’m white, and any pride that I feel toward my accomplishments is always tempered with shame and guilt knowing that I achieved them through priviledge. That is not a great way to live (although I’m certain it doesn’t suck as much as being on the receiving end of racism).

Tim Wise: some of what you said makes sense, but your #2 seems a little off to me. You seem just to be repeating a stereotype—white people are priviledged but frail and childlike (”la-la land”?); Black people are oppressed but wise and strong in spirit. See the Eloi in H.G. Wells’s “The Time Machine”. Beware of anything that seems so simple. The idea that white people are more likely to “flip out” or suffer more from certain mental illnesses is very likely due, at least partly, to a reporting bias.
Furthermore, wealthy people, who are disproportionally white in this country, are more likely to be diagnosed with mental illnesses for obvious reasons (money to go to doctors who diagnose such things). And furthermore, the doctors themselves can be subject to racism—for example, there is a stereotype that Black people are “tough” and therefore can’t possibly suffer from things like depression (see the article “Black girl, interrupted” in Bitch magazine #31 2006, which unfortunately isn’t online…But basically if I remember correctly she talks about how hollywood has given the impression that only glamorous young white women suffer from mental illness, and how when she went to several doctors seeking treatment for depression they doubted that a Black woman could really be depressed).

And for your #3: I don’t like “Black people said this..”, “white people said that”.. Treating an entire group of people as through they speak with one voice and have exactly one thought is one of the hallmarks of racism. After 9/11, there were also Blacks calling for war and whites not calling for war. How do you decide which of those multitude of voices you are going to attribute to “Black people” and “white people”? You pick the ones convenient to your thesis, and neglect the rest as exceptions. Sound familiar? (It occurs to me that maybe you don’t actually believe what you wrote, but just wanted to make white people here understand what it’s like to be reduced to a stereotype. If that was the intention, great job…)

October 27, 2008 at 10:18 pm

Kathy

lady cow, i was struck with your statement that you feel guilt about your accomplishments. i don’t know if that is really how white racism hurts white people, to me, it’s that white racism closes peoples eyes to the damage and hurt they cause, and turns white people into cruel zombies.

i feel good about myself. i think a lot of white people spend too much time focusing on their accomplishments and struggles. to me, it’s isn’t about that, and that actually gets in the way of discovering the true nature of white racism, the structure of double standards and impact of that point of view on the lives of people who aren’t white.

now matter how rich you are or how accomplished you are, if you are a person of color, you will be treated to a different standard with a negative impact on your life.

we learn racism from the images and messages from birth onward, it’s a mental disease that puts white people to sleep. even if we open our eyes just a little, it will probably take a lifetime to undo the images and messages we have absorbed.

November 14, 2008 at 5:11 am

aatic

Racism effects white people only if they are immigrants. What I’m trying to say is that people who come from Europe, through forced or willful immigration, do not come with racist ideologies and steretypes that white American culture holds. By being exposed through culture and main stream media, these immigrants learn what is acceptable and what is not: in America, this being that it is alright for a white person to be racist and to hold such ideologies. The negative effect of racism on white people, or immigrants from Europe whose children will be the next white American generation, is that it furthers this conditioning of a racist mentality that they had not had coming to the country to begin with. Yes, they might be less than keen to assimilate but that would only be due to not being in familiar conditions. They might hold on to their national heritage and practices but racism furthers this idea that it is okay for whites to be on top and to have a larger gap before you hit minorities and sadly even a larger one before African-Americans come into play. At least, that was my understanding from a semester of Sociology at Loyola University.

November 16, 2008 at 12:03 am

Dianna

White people are harmed by racism because their judgmental attitude towards others that they perceive to be different and inferior, keeps them from forming healthy relationships outside their limited socially acceptable group.
White people are harmed by racism because they see certain people as inferior and through this develop phobias about other people outside their limited socially acceptable group. The stereotyping of non-whites by whites creates a divide or a hierarchy with whites on top but fearful of being toppled by those they suppress.
White people are harmed by racism by their own negativity they live with and project.

I can’t think of other examples at the moment, but this will suffice for now.
Dianna

November 28, 2008 at 7:13 am

lady_cow

hi Kathy: you say white people focus too much on their accomplishments. I don’t know if this is true or not; “white” isn’t any particular culture or ethnic group so white families don’t necessarily all have the same stories. However, one thing we have in common is that our families came here voluntarily, generally because they were poor and wanted more economic opportunities. So the first generation was achievement-driven, and they passed that onto their kids. (I’m 4th generation, so I have some memory of how this works).

Also, people of my generation—the children of 60’s civil-rights era white liberals—can’t really take any pride in themselves or their “culture” (we are the generation that has had diversity pride fairs and anti-racism trainings since kindergarten; whose parents chose schools specifically for their high proportion of students of color. Shame is the strongest feeling we have about ourselves and our families.). So the only way we can find to feel personal pride is through accomplishments. But then we learn that our accomplishments are not really accomplishments, but more of our own insidious racism, another example of our great shame. And again we are back to hating ourselves.

(Hey anti-racist white people: don’t raise your kids to hate themselves! Kids who hate themselves don’t make good anti-racists. Actually they don’t make good ANYTHING. Teach them to love themselves first. Then when they have that down, you can tell them about all the horrible things their people did. Then they might be able to listen and care, and they won’t grow up to be angry and self-absorbed).

March 18, 2009 at 12:40 pm

mad matty

i dont think that is fair because if a black person be’s racist to us, we dont cry or tell on you, but if we be racist to them, they cry and tell on us. also their government run for equal rights, but now they have more than us

How does racism harm white people?

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