White privilege is the other side of the coin of racial oppression. Therefore, it should not be surprising to see that the culture of white privilege is a mirror image of the culture of racial oppression.
1. White culture perpetuates the ideology that white people are morally and intellectually superior to people of color. For example, many suburban white women and men think they get into college because they are "more intelligent" than Chicanos, Native Americans or African Americans; when, in fact, they get into college because their high schools prepare them more effectively for college boards than do most high schools in urban areas.
2. White culture stereotypes figures and behavior of white people. A common method is to take some cultural attribute which is the result of hundreds of years of institutionalized white privilege in the United States, and projecting this attribute as solely the result of the person's individual, heroic efforts.
For example, the son or daughter of a European immigrant is portrayed as having risen to wealth and power from initial poverty solely as a result of moral fortitude and hard work. But, in fact, European immigrants historically have both worked hard and received privileges from the U.S. government that people of color (whether they were immigrants, indigenous or kidnaped) have been historically denied at different times.
European immigrants (differentially for men and women) had the right to become citizens, the right to own land, the right to bring and to live with a family, the right to travel in search of work, the right to vote, the right to practice their own language and religion without interference, the right to organize mutual self--help societies and small businesses without being broken up by white mobs, the right to a public school education, the right to bring suit and testify in court, and the right to hold public office.
3. By defining reality as white, and convincing white people that it is their reality, the culture of white supremacy is portrayed as universal, applying to all humankind.
For example, a "History of Western Civilization" begins with Greece, then moves to Rome, then Europe, ending with the United States. But this is a course on Europe, (which is fine provided the course begins with the contributions of Kemet to Greece), but it is not a course on "western civilization." Another example: ABC network tells its reporter covering the elections in South Africa to put an "Americans in South Africa" spin on the story, otherwise U.S. readers will not be interested in the story!
Or, white feminists create brilliant analyses of patriarchy coming from their European cultural experience, and then try to generalize this analysis to the relationships between men and women whose ancestral cultures originate in Africa, the Americas, Asia or Arabic world. And, we call the white women's movement, "the women's movement."
4. White culture provides a normative standard of behavior for one living in a system of white privilege.
These norms are usually manifested in the arrogance of white entitlement ---- an assumption of how a white person expects to be treated in the world.
Some examples: Getting angry when we have to wait in a line too long; speaking with authority, as if we are sure of correctness; talking as long as we wish, often interrupting others; getting outraged when our First Amendment rights to peacefully gather and protest are violated by police (when police violate similar rights by people of color every night, just for gathering in a group). Note: white feminists often call these forms of behavior 'white male arrogance,' but I believe it's a feature of white culture which white women, now that we have more 'equality' with white men, practice often.
5. White culture creates white bonding, that is, the cross class allegiance and sense of commonality that non--ruling class oppressed white men and women have with the white ruling class, on the basis of "white skin" and European ancestry.
White bonding covers up the class exploitation of poor, working and middle class whites by the ruling class, by deflecting the problems of oppressed whites from the ruling class to people of color. White bonding prevents white women from using the potential power of their vote as women because they usually support the interests of middle class and rich white men more than the interests of men and women of color.
White bonding is at the core of the Christian right's 'family values' ideology. It evokes an image of a white nuclear family in a 1950's suburb: a suburb that practiced legal residential apartheid. White bonding is the cultural basis of racist jokes and language; it assumes of the white listener, "You know who I mean."
White bonding is at the core of the attacks on multi--culturalism. It assumes that the only culture that should be taught in schools is white culture. White bonding calls the U.S. "America," a term which properly applies to all the nation--states on this continent.
White bonding is one of the bases of the current anti--immigrant racism sweeping California. The bonding is a reaction to the terror that most white people feel at the prospect that the majority of California residents will soon be people of color. I doubt that anti--immigrant ideologists would be using the phrase, "drowning in a sea of immigrants" if the immigrants were coming from Canada.
In my opinion, white bonding is the most significant cultural barrier preventing oppressed whites from challenging the interrelated systems of oppression in the U.S.
THE CULTURE OF WHITE NATIONALISM
The culture of white nationalism is the expression of the historical fact that the "founding fathers" intended this nation to be one of, for and by white people; and that the struggle to make it a nation "of, for and the people" goes on to this day.
1. The culture of white nationalism provides an identity, purpose, orientation and sense of belonging for people who immigrate to the United States from Europe. The term for this process is usually called assimilation. What it means is that a person of European descent agrees, consciously or unconsciously, to give up parts of her/his European ethnic heritage in exchange for becoming white, that is, accepting and expecting white privileges, and a sense of superiority over peoples of color, especially African Americans.
This assimilation process began in the 17th century, when the European colonial elite in Virginia began to call European indentured servants "white," instead of "Christian" or "Englishmen" or "Irishmen," in order to give them a sense of distinction and separation from servants of African ancestry. Each subsequent generation of European immigrants has gained acceptance into the white mainstream when they have begun to act in accordance with white bonding, and the majority of their organized ethnic sector have consented, by silence or action, to the oppression of peoples of color.
(For example, see David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. Verso Press, London, 1991., Chap. 7 "Irish American Workers and White Racial Formation in the Antebellum United States.")
2. White culture appropriates elements of European ethnic cultures in order to increase the ethnic grouping's sense of assimilation. For example, pasta became "spaghetti" and is now available in your local super market.
3. The culture of white nationalism has transformed pride and love of country (patriotism) into a glorification of the military conquest of nations of color. Historically, this military conquest has always been justified by religion: Pilgrims took the land from the "heathens." It was "manifest destiny" for the U.S. to conquer Mexico in 1848. It was "God's will" to make the world "safe" for democracy. God was on the side of the "smart bombs" that obliterated a hundred thousand Iraqis.
4. Under the guise of the imperial we, white nationalism assumes that the United States can interfere in every nation of color in t,he world, and that somehow that intervention will be beneficial to the residents of that nation. The current justification for this national arrogance is "bringing democracy" or the "free enterprise system" (i.e. capitalism) to the invaded nation.
(* The term "white nationalism" is used by the noted African American historian John Henrik Clarke. I first heard it in an interview by Dr. Kwaku Person--Lynn taped in 1991, and aired during KPFA's African Mental Liberation Weekend of May 17, 1992.)
THE CULTURE OF WHITE HISTORY
U.S. "history" is based on a lie. Neither children's nor adult textbooks tell us that the United States was created by invasion, conquest, land theft, genocide and slavery: that, in its foundations, it is a white supremacy state. Instead, history writers fabricate an "America" as a land embodying the Declaration of Independence: a nation based on freedom, justice and equality for all its peoples.
The historians also ignore, or trivilialize, the continuous history of resistance by peoples of color against this unjust foundation. Young people learning about the African American freedom struggle of the 1960's are taught that it all rested on Martin Luther King having a dream, and not the massive organization of millions of African American people and their allies.
Without a thorough understanding of the U.S. past, there is no way we can adequately understand how white supremacy works today, or to plan strategies to challenge it. Our political vision gets framed in a thirty second sound bite.
DENIAL OF RESPONSIBILITY
Absence and falsification of a nation's historical memory fosters a personal and collective denial of responsibility for racial injustice and oppression, past and present. White people say, "I didn't own any slaves," as if living in a system whose wealth was created by enslaved African labor did not directly benefit their ancestors. Liberal whites assert, "I don't see color; I just see people;" a statement of unwillingness to look at reality. Whites of conscience justify their unwillingness to protest racial injustice by complaining that, "I have no power," when any accurate reading of history indicates that organized protest creates the power to effectively challenge racial injustice.
Denial of responsibility for racial injustice takes many forms. Among the most common are: + Blaming people of color, the targets of racial injustice, for the effects of that injustice; + Promoting "equal responsibility" theories for addressing the effects of racial oppression; + Hiding the centrality of institutional promotion and perpetuation of racial injustice (the 'one bad apple' mythology); + Focusing "blame" on one individual's behavior, rather than looking at the institutional and cultural context for that behavior; + Tokenism: the effort to overturn racism in a white institution by hiring one person of color in a leadership position, while leaving the racist politics, practice and power intact; + Judging racial oppression by the intent of the oppressor rather than effect on the oppressed; + Speaking and writing with racially color--coded terms, such as "criminal," "illegal alien," "welfare mother," "drug dealer," "gang," etc., instead of the racial epithets that were common before the end of legal apartheid in the 1960's.
How can you tell when a white person is denying personal responsibility for racial injustice? Listen for the "but." "I'm not a racist, but..."
How can you tell when a white person is denying collective responsibility of white people and white institutions for racial injustice? Look for the passive or inactive voice in the verbs. Such as, "The indigenous people died of many diseases." or "The young man was made homeless..."