·jellCe of an individuaL ult of conditions, ract

t the motives of indi­

·c think about identit :es l rom an oppressive we become capable 0

t" less fearful, less judg­os of us. Then we can

vith fear. It is respee tackling racial bound­

. P. P. Root. ed., Racial/r

de." In M. P. l~ Root. cd ..

rCollins.

. Race and Idelltity. Ne\'

III in the Lives of Bla

Prtll' licc. Westport. Conn.

,rids or the End of th 'IiiI' in America. Newbury

e Gaps between African ~ . 169-79. iracial Individuals." ID

"11 mzd therapy. New YorJ....

cds .. \I\Tomen of Colo! rd .

al.es." In S. Gregory an

.111bles, tr. A. Sherida IJ ­

rait Characteristics." In . ~~ age.

._, : Some Examples from a llenge for the Twenty ­talc University of Ne

Moving Beyond White Guilt 127

18

Amy Edgington

I/orm ation: The more I learn about racism, the less I tend to see it as an individual roblem and the fewer mistakes I make as an individual. The more I learn about the less work people of color have to do to explain to me how they experience the

he more I learn about the ethic of domination the more I understand what I ain by living in a world free of supremacist blinders, capable of respecting differ­

dnd filled with true self-respect that does not demand submissive gestures from

om ethiny: The strongest antidote to guilt is action. The less I do about racism, Iller I feel. White supremacy is built largely on the complicity and inaction of white

'he simplest thing, such as interrupting a racist joke or writing a letter to the edi­lut police brutality is a significant break with the image of white solidarity that depends on. Racism is so huge that all my acts seem small in comparison, but it is iy this kind of lifelong chipping-away that we must commit ourselves to doing.

ten: When a person of color says, "That's racist," it's time to take a deep breath, y mouth, sit down and listen, because school is in session. I'm in the first grade

and it's gonna take a lot of study to move on to the next class. I try to put my feel­the back burner. I tell myself that if I have hurt someone, even inadvertently, she

10 be taken care of first. I try not to expect instant forgiveness or restoration of must follow through on any commitment I make to change.

11 lake care of my guilt later by breaking it down into pieces. What do I feel remorse . What am I scared of? Why do I feel resentment? What changes do I need to make? Jo I need to know? Who can help me? How can I help other white people change?

l k: Undoing racism cannot be done alone. It's important for me to find other white who share the same goals. We must also seek converts, to try to turn the souls of

white people from the racism's cynical fear, mean-spiritedness, narrowness and rence, to the kind of love for self and others that values diversity and feels no need

.. in ate. This is how white people can practice what Cornel West calls the ;'politics of

re are clearly many white people who are deeply committed to white supremacy; re unlikely to be swayed. It's important to let them know that they face white resist­to tell them, in effect, "If I cannot change your mind, I will put my body in your We should measure our commitment to fighting racism not by how many people

lOr we count as friends (or lovers), but by how many white people we are willing to to about racism.

128 Racism

Back to the Past

Finally, I cannot talk about white guilt without talking about the collective guilt our ra, bears for atrocities such as slavery and the genocide of Indian peoples. History threat, to crash down on us whenever we are confronted with our individual racist behavior the here and now. Collective guilt is like a herd of elephants in the living room that wb:. people have been trained to ignore, and we tend to get freaked out when someone ca the dung to our attention.

Slavery and genocide are part of every aspect of contemporary white racism. All wlL privileges have their roots in these historical outrages. Americans, particularly \J..,h.. Americans, are allergic to looking at the past; we glorify the endless frontier of the fu tu We have been taught that this is a land where people can put aside their past and bee whatever they wish to be. This dream is only attainable for white people, however; pe of color are never allowed to leave their ancestry behind them.

White people often protest, in anger or frustration, that there is nothing we can d change history. But in fact, history is collective memory. ... Our first duty to history r

know it, to look deeply and unflinchingly at the successive enslavements of India Africans, at the forced labor of the Chinese who built our railroads, at the massa imprisonment and broken treaties Indians have suffered, at lynching and segrega (the evil step-twins of slavery), at the incarceration of Japanese Americans and the Semitic immigration policies that helped condemn Jews to Hitler's gas chambers.

Findin Our Heroes and Sheroes

It's not just the racist past that's been buried. The long history of anti-racist work ' country has been buried as well. Some white people may know the names, if not the of some of the Black heroes and sheroes of abolition, thanks to the efforts of An Americans to educate us. But the abolition of slavery, the most hopeful event in tory of social justice, was due, in part, to the efforts of a significant minority of men and women. Did we learn their names in school?

How many Americans know that the hymn, ;'Amazing Grace," was written b~

trader, describing a religious conversion that led him to spend the rest of his life v to abolish the slave trade in Great Britain? It serves the interests of white suprem white people to forget both our frightful legacy of racism and those ancesto: opposed racism.

For me, the personal stories, fiction and poetry of those who experienced thest' ties, or whose ancestors did, are the most compelling kind of history. This is the 0

tory not written by "winners," and it's very different from what we read in schoo the power to open our eyes to the concrete details of oppression and to the interi of those we were trained not to see. This writing is full of hope and with desp courage; it colors in the blanks in our vision of what it means to be human.

'.+deliml,S Collective guilt might seem like an even bigger pit to fall into than individual listening to the past is the first step in turning collective guilt into collective acc! ty. The next step is collective responsibility: to look carefully at exactly how Vi

ence privilege today and yet are able for the most part to remain blissfully una\ in a society dominated by white people.

Most importantly, we can begin to turn collective guilt into collective action .

-live guilt our ra . History threate

- J racist behavior i: . ,g room that wbi hen someone cal

te racism. All whit ptlrticularly wlu l

- lutier of the future: ',r past and becom Ie. however; peop

llrung we can do ( duty to history is t 'ms of Indians an, . at the massacre. 19 and segregati can s and the am ­chambers.

I-racist work in t ('s , if not the live:"

efforts of African ­lui event in the hie:­minority of wh ir

,~ written by a slav L of his life workin

.,bite supremacy fo lise ancestors wb

,cnced these atroM­Th is is the only hi"­

. 'ad in school. rt h to the interior live. d with despair and

lan.

ndividual guilt. But ective accountabili­tly how we experi ­·f. ·lIy unaware of it

ne action, to tran, -

Linguicism 129

r overthrow institutions such as the racist educational system, media, courts. pris­d police that put the power behind white privilege. It's hard work and it's scary, els a whole lot better than wallowing in guilt.

19

ancy Schniedewind and Ellen Davidson

.lage is yet another way to categorize people and reinforce their dominant or subor­t: status. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (1988) has proposed the term "linguicism" to refer

rimination based particularly on language. Language oppression, often tied to dis­~ation based on race, ethnicity, and class, has become more visible to educators in :l years as varied groups of immigrant children with limited English proficiency school. Linguicism thwarts equality to the extent that these students are not pro­

. an education in a language they understand and in schools that respect their Iin­

..: and cultural backgrounds. guicism often reinforces the dominant culture and prevailing power relationships.

me situations students with limited English proficiency are encouraged to give up mother tongue, when in fact the more they improve in their native language the r they will learn English. Sometimes in the same school. English-speaking stu­are encouraged to learn a second language and become bilingual when Spanish­tng children, for example, must give up their language, learn English and lose their ualism. Such a situation not only presents a double standard but perpetuates power

dances among groups of people in our society. lW well does your school handle language differences? To what extent is the lan­e and culture of students who speak English as their first language considered supe­

to students whose first language is not English? Is a bilingual student's first language as an asset to the classroom and school, or a detriment? Are bilingual students uraged to use their language and teach it to their peers? Is there a difference in the of teacher interaction with those students who speak English and those who do not?

ack English, sometimes called African American Language, appreciated as a distinct 'uage that is legitimate for some types of writing in school?

the language and culture of students and parents whose first language is not English cted and included in all aspects of school life? Are signs and posters in the different

uages represented in your school? Are parents involved through programs like home­01 reading projects and bilingual events at school? If you have bilingual programs in

r district, has the district considered two-way bilingual programs? Some schools have gh ly effective programs which bring language majority and language minority stu­lS together in one setting where each group learns in the other's language for half of

~~~~~~~~~~~~