Conference Report

Reporting from the white privilege conference, “The Matrix: Examining Intersections, Making Connections, & Building Allies”

Keynotes:

• Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN: Tells a story about the complicated interaction of oppression and privilege through the experiences of his mother, Alice, a white Southern woman from a poor family in the mountains of Tennessee, her difficulties as the wife of a male-supremacist preacher in the 1940s and 1950s, fighting for her children’s education through the racist violence of segregation, standing up to members of the Klan in her own family, to her struggle to accept Kevin’s increasingly public gayness, to her eventual work as a founder of a PFLAG chapter in Winston-Salem and a volunteer in an AIDS hospice. At times humorous, very moving, and inspiring. And thanks to my friend Pelican and her post-speech comment, the existence of disagreement among gay men and lesbians about whether our sexuality is inborn or a choice was brought out to a mostly straight audience. Go Pelican!
• John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, Iowa Division of Latino Affairs: A very different but no less moving story of surviving violence as a child in Guatemala to immigrate to the United States. John-Paul discussed the problems with current immigration policy, particularly for people of color in rural areas, in light of the recent immigration raids across the country. He talked about the way that fear–fear of loss, fear of the “other”–is used to manipulate and control the emotions of dominant people. The similarities pointed out between the violent civil war in Guatemala–pulling people from their beds in the middle of the night, never to be seen again–to the immigration raids in the US–pulling people from their jobs in the middle of the day, never to be seen again–I imagine would be quite a blow to anyone who is still able to think of the US as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Just for the record, word is somewhere around 900 people are being held incommunicado here in Albuquerque as a result of the raids around New Mexico–their families don’t know where they are. Welcome to amerika.
• Jean Kilbourne: I’ve written about Jean’s marvelous work here before, and in fact she is a major inspiration to me, having seen her first film, Killing Us Softly, as a sophomore in college. And she did not disappoint; no one in that audience will ever again believe, in spite of the seriousness of her topic, that feminists don’t have a sense of humor. A couple jokes: A hand-drawn parody of an ad showing a teenage boy and an older man, and the caption reads, “Dad, do you ever feel–you know–not so fresh?” Another cartoon explains to men all the benefits of the padded jock strap on display. Many women in the audience howled and applauded wildly, while the young men in the row in front of me looked bemused. These parodies, and the fact that you never see ads like them targeting men, glaringly point out the different expectations for men and women–the difference in the way advertising media talks (condescends) to women and makes us feel bad about our bodies–a major point of Jean’s presentation.
• Paula Rothenberg: Paula has some great things to say about multicultural education, particularly a critique of the way in which “diversity” in education so often becomes yet another privilege that white people want for their children. She discussed what she calls the “tacos and eggrolls” approach to multicultural education, which presents whitewashed versions of ethnic and global traditions for consumption by white children without any discussion of white privilege or the structural power dynamics and realities of racism.

Workshops:

• What Role Do You Play? Group exercises and discussions explored the roles of educator, facilitator, and activist–what qualities or characteristics of each were more comfortable for us personally, which ones we used the most, which ones we’d like to use more, and the strengths and weaknesses of each one. I’m still on the fence about the emphasis placed (in this workshop as well as throughout the conference as a whole) on personal healing. I wholeheartedly believe that understanding our own problems, pain, and personal shortcomings–and working to resolve them–makes us more effective activists. I also know that, at least in lesbian community, the emphasis on therapy and personal healing has completely eclipsed political work as a valuable use of our life energy. I’m of the opinion that we have to do both simultaneously, because we’ll never be finished with either. I’m pretty sure that’s the perspective of this conference and its participants as well, but it makes me a little squirrelly when that distinction is not explicitly made.
• (White) (Man’s) Pornography with Robert Jensen: Yowzah. What a fantastic talk–an excellent analysis of white capitalist patriarchy made visible and tangible in pornography. The workshop focused on the increasing brutality and degradation towards women displayed in porn in the new millenium through the use of sexual acts not commonly practiced in people’s real lives, as well as through the porn “genre” known as “interracial”–most often involving black men and white women. Jensen described Gail Dines’ brilliant insight about this particular type of porn–that it is created for a white male consumer, and as such, it relies for its “kick” on racist notions about black male sexuality, and a reversal of the idea that white men have to “protect” white women from rape by black men–an idea which legitimates both white men’s violence toward black men as well as their restriction of white women’s freedom. Given the long history of this mythology in the US, what degrades a white woman in the eyes of a racist white man more than watching her get fucked by a black man? (This phenomenon as played out in real life is explored more in this post though beware the comments.) This is some brilliant feminist antiracist analysis people!
  
  And not only did Jensen lay out the feminist critique of pornography, he discussed the intellectual debt the current antiporn movement owes to lesbians and radical feminists, without whom, he stated, there would be no critique of pornography in the United States. He quoted Andrea Dworkin! And, miracle of miracles, the discussion was incredibly focused on solutions–not one person said “but choice!” or “but women’s empowerment!” though several people were interested in how to address those arguments when raised by others. After the presentation, he was mobbed, and copies of his new book Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity were flying off the table. Overall, this was a great workshop and did a lot to convince me that I was right to attend this conference.
• Dealing with Defensiveness and Denial with Allan Johnson and To Act or Not to Act? with Allan Johnson: In the first workshop, Johnson talked about the reactions people have when confronted with evidence of privilege, and the ways in which those of us who have privilege are able to ignore things that are right in front of our faces. As an example, he described watching an interview with “experts” on school shootings discussing the “profile” of the “typical” shooter. The interviewer asked whether there were any particular demographic characteristics in the profile, and the “experts” said, no, no, this cuts across all races, all ethnicities, all economic classes–without once acknowledging that all the shooters are male. How to account for this, he asks? These people are experts, they are studying this phenomenon, they are clearly not stupid–therefore, something extremely powerful must be operating when people fail to see something so obvious. This is just one of many examples of the way that members of dominant groups are seen as individuals–for example, if all the shooters were women, there would be public outrage and questioning of why so many women had gone wrong. Likewise, the fact that the Virginia Tech murderer was Korean is being made an issue of in the media in a way that the Oklahoma bomber’s whiteness never was. People rarely ask why whiteness or maleness cause people to resort to violence. White male mass murderers are seen as deviant individuals; when a man of color or a woman is violent, suddenly race and/or sex become pertinent to the discussion.
  
  As an exercise, we were then asked to think about what being defensive feels like in our bodies, and then have a conversation about that with a partner. We then discussed what particular situations spark defensiveness in us.
  
  The second workshop helped us evaluate the risks of social justice work; in small groups, we answered three questions–what do I, personally, risk in standing up for what I believe in? What do I risk if I don’t stand up for what I believe? And what do I need in order to stand up for what I believe? The small group work was pretty valuable, particularly when the white members of my group were challenged by an African-American man to answer the question, “If you stand up to racism, someone is likely going to call you an ‘n-lover.’ What will you say to them?”
• A Conversation on Teaching about White Privilege with White Students of Any Age with Peggy McIntosh: I was really psyched for this discussion with the author of the classic piece on white privilege, “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. The high points: Peggy asked for responses from people under 30 regarding the moment when they first became aware of white privilege as real for them, in their lives. Though she repeatedly asked, “But what was the moment?” people kept giving her a lot of backstory, and finally Peggy said, “Part of white privilege is talking a lot and being very wordy without really saying anything. Get to the point.” Several participants pointed out that exercises often used in educating about privilege, such as the one I described here end up educating the privileged by reminding the disadvantaged of their marginalization–which reminders those of us who are marginalized in various ways do not need.
  
  The majority of the films listed at the end of this post came from “seasoned educators” in this workshop who were asked to suggest videos they had found most useful in teaching about racism, whiteness and white privilege.
• Paula Rothenberg continued her critique of multicultural education in a later workshop. Some gems from this workshop included her stating that our collective house is on fire; although some of us are so insulated by privilege that we can’t see the smoke, it doesn’t mean we won’t be going down in flames too. She suggested the importance of taking social justice work seriously, in the face of an adversary that is extremely well-organized, well-funded, knows their goals and has a plan to reach them, and will stop at nothing to protect the concentration of power and resources in the hands of an elite few.
  
  In discussing ideas about victimhood, Paula said that when people of color claim to be victims of racism, they are pointing to a history of disenfranchisement, marginalization, repression and violence. However, this discourse is changing to the point where white people are claiming to be victims of “reverse discrimination” by pointing to a future in which we imagine we will be marginalized and excluded by an emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity. This is supported by studies that show that, to dominant groups, almost any attention paid to subordinate groups is viewed as discriminatory; since men, white people, straight people, etc. are used to having all the attention, all the space, all the discourse focused on them, any change in this pattern of domination is perceived as “special rights.”
  
  Additionally, Paula pointed out that the most important questions to ask about any educational material is, from whose point of view is this material being constructed? And, who benefits from people being taught to see the world from this point of view?

Films:

• Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible by Shakti Butler: Personal stories and interviews with white participants in previous white privilege conferences. I thought it was interesting, but I’m not sure if I missed something because of my own defensive reactions, because I was exhausted, or for some other reason. Seeing it again would probably be useful for me.
• Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video by Sut Jhally: This is a really excellent, very feminist film, though difficult to watch, particularly for its comparison of the imagery used in music video with actual footage of women being assaulted in crowd scenes in Central Park and Seattle.

  The facilitation was extremely poor, as the (white male) facilitator was unprepared to deal with the reactions of women survivors of sexual assault, of whom there were several in the room. Many women were in tears as the facilitator repeated several times a central message of the film, “These images don’t cause rape and sexual assault.” As a feminist, I don’t understand what men are hoping to accomplish by making apologist statements like that–what does it even mean, in that context, to say that violent, exploitive images don’t “cause” assault, especially when it’s acknowledged in the next breath that they “create an environment where such acts are tolerated or condoned”? The difference between “causing” something and “creating an environment” in which it is tolerated and condoned seems semantic at best. I can only hope that the filmmaker was anticipating critical responses from the unenlightened, but even so, in the context of a conference about privilege the facilitator had no business repeating such meaningless drivel.

Resources:

I’ve read or seen, and recommend, those items marked with an asterisk.

Books
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Joy Leary
Can’t Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne*
Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel*
Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity by Robert Jensen
The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege by Robert Jensen*
The Gender Knot by Allan Johnson
Privilege, Power and Difference by Allan Johnson*
Race, Class and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study by Paula Rothenberg
Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras by Gloria Anzaldúa
Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldúa
White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism by Paula Rothenberg
Beyond Borders: Thinking Critically About Global Issues by Paula Rothenberg*
Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class and Gender by Paula Rothenberg
Hatreds: Racialized and Sexualized Conflicts in the 21st Century by Zillah Eisenstein

Films

Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible*
Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video*
Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women*
Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies, and Alcohol
Deadly Persuasion: The Advertising of Alcohol and Tobacco
Slim Hopes: Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness
The Killing Screens: Media and the Culture of Violence
Pack of Lies: The Advertising of Tobacco
Color of Fear
Jesus Camp
Race: Power of an Illusion
American Tongues
Last Chance for Eden
The Way Home
Blue Eyed (and other films by Jane Elliott)*
People Like Us
Rich World Poor Women
Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity*
Ethnic Notions
Twilight LA
What Makes Me White by Aimee Sands

Filed under: activism/organizing, racism, white privilege by Amy's Brain Today