Why White People Are Afraid (written by a white person)

[Black Samson]

Why White People Are Afraid
By Robert Jensen, AlterNet
Posted on June 7, 2006, Printed on June 12, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/36892/

It may seem self-indulgent to talk about the fears of white people in a white-supremacist
society. After all, what do white people really have to be afraid of in a world structured on
white privilege? It may be self-indulgent, but it's critical to understand because these fears
are part of what keeps many white people from confronting ourselves and the system.

The first, and perhaps most crucial, fear is that of facing the fact that some of what we
white people have is unearned. It's a truism that we don't really make it on our own; we all
have plenty of help to achieve whatever we achieve. That means that some of what we
have is the product of the work of others, distributed unevenly across society, over which
we may have little or no control individually. No matter how hard we work or how smart
we are, we all know -- when we are honest with ourselves -- that we did not get where we
are by merit alone. And many white people are afraid of that fact.

A second fear is crasser: White people's fear of losing what we have -- literally the fear of
losing things we own if at some point the economic, political, and social systems in which
we live become more just and equitable. That fear is not completely irrational; if white
privilege -- along with the other kinds of privilege many of us have living in the middle
class and above in an imperialist country that dominates much of the rest of the world --
were to evaporate, the distribution of resources in the United States and in the world
would change, and that would be a good thing. We would have less. That redistribution of
wealth would be fairer and more just. But in a world in which people have become used to
affluence and material comfort, that possibility can be scary.

A third fear involves a slightly different scenario -- a world in which non-white people
might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized.
One hears this constantly in the conversation about immigration, the lingering fear that
somehow "they" (meaning not just Mexican-Americans and Latinos more generally, but
any non-white immigrants) are going to keep moving to this country and at some point
become the majority demographically.

Even though whites likely can maintain a disproportionate share of wealth, those numbers
will eventually translate into political, economic, and cultural power. And then what? Many
whites fear that the result won't be a system that is more just, but a system in which white
people become the minority and could be treated as whites have long treated non-whites.
This is perhaps the deepest fear that lives in the heart of whiteness. It is not really a fear
of non-white people. It's a fear of the depravity that lives in our own hearts: Are non-white
people capable of doing to us the barbaric things we have done to them?

A final fear has probably always haunted white people but has become more powerful
since the society has formally rejected overt racism: The fear of being seen, and seen-
through, by non-white people. Virtually every white person I know, including white people
fighting for racial justice and including myself, carries some level of racism in our minds
and hearts and bodies. In our heads, we can pretend to eliminate it, but most of us know it
is there. And because we are all supposed to be appropriately anti-racist, we carry that
lingering racism with a new kind of fear: What if non-white people look at us and can see
it? What if they can see through us? What if they can look past our anti-racist vocabulary
and sense that we still don't really know how to treat them as equals? What if they know
about us what we don't dare know about ourselves? What if they can see what we can't
even voice?

I work in a large university with a stated commitment to racial justice. All of my faculty
colleagues, even the most reactionary, have a stated commitment to racial justice. And yet
the fear is palpable.

It is a fear I have struggled with, and I remember the first time I ever articulated that fear
in public. I was on a panel with several other professors at the University of Texas
discussing race and politics in the O.J. Simpson case. Next to me was an African American
professor. I was talking about media; he was talking about the culture's treatment of the
sexuality of black men. As we talked, I paid attention to what was happening in me as I sat
next to him. I felt uneasy. I had no reason to be uncomfortable around him, but I wasn't
completely comfortable. During the question-and-answer period -- I don't remember
what question sparked my comment -- I turned to him and said something like, "It's
important to talk about what really goes on between black and white people in this
country. For instance, why am I feeling afraid of you? I know I have no reason to be afraid,
but I am. Why is that?"

My reaction wasn't a crude physical fear, not some remnant of being taught that black
men are dangerous (though I have had such reactions to black men on the street in certain
circumstances). Instead, I think it was that fear of being seen through by non-white
people, especially when we are talking about race. In that particular moment, for a white
academic on an O.J. panel, my fear was of being exposed as a fraud or some kind of closet
racist.

Even if I thought I knew what I was talking about and was being appropriately anti-racist in
my analysis, I was afraid that some lingering trace of racism would show through, and that
my black colleague would identify it for all in the room to see. After I publicly recognized
the fear, I think I started to let go of some of it. Like anything, it's a struggle. I can see
ways in which I have made progress. I can see that in many situations I speak more freely
and honestly as I let go of the fear. I make mistakes, but as I become less terrified of
making mistakes I find that I can trust my instincts more and be more open to critique
when my instincts are wrong.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the
author of, most recently, The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White
Privilege (City Lights Books), from which this essay is excerpted.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36892/

[Julian Pembroke Steptoe]

Dear Robert,

What you refer to as fear describes to me as anxiety. Fear is more focused and specific, its subject clear and terrifying. Anxiety, however, has a vague nemesis. Indeed, it is more characterized as apprehension about being discovered and chastised than it is about being harmed. Fear rose in the African and American-indigenous population when assaulted by European colonial interest. Anxiety rises in the "white" population as the realization of its error becomes prominent.
White supremacy comes from the assertion that "white" people have a divine source separate from and superior to "blacks", and are a more advanced, pure, and adequate version of humanity. Being untrue, but full of self-gratification to "whites", it became imperative to force the opinion, by eliminating and distracting from contrary evidence, and promoting "miracles" (deceits) of confirmation. So, Jesus became "white", the Asiento blessed the slave trade and slave traders, and on the back of "white" patriarchy, white supremacy took form. The violence and deceit of the vain, arrogant, conceit, hypocritically engaged in a democratic society, continues in full flower though its shackles and whips take different forms. Like a lie cannot fully contain truth, white cannot fully contain black. Indeed, truth and black are foundational and in their original mass, all diversity exists.
Blacks have always recognized whites by the family instinct. The anxiety whites feel is the reawakening of the family instinct towards blacks, the most oppressed and taboo of white energies, for it will render the contraband culture that "whites" enjoy back into the hands from which it was stolen. The form of justice to prevail will not be a "white" decision, and that is the ultimate capitulation to humanity, and to equality, but will restore the possibility that America can live out its creed.
Thanks for your posting. The immediate solution is to quit identifying as "white" and "black" in cultural terms. White is a grouping shaded by intact, autonomous, interelated and interopposed cultures, but distinct ethnic cultures and national identities. Stick to these humanism developed identifications, and allow such to grow and speak within the black community that has been stripped, for your Euro-profit, of those very elements, by which we operate at a, without corrective measures, permanent disadvantage to every immigrant group. Recognize that black Americans are indeed the most indigenous Americans, as the native population carries forth in its own sovereignties. Invest in black cultural solutions and enterprises under the direction of black people. Recognize that, though white is not a culture, Black is--the cultural response to oppressions that left us, and targeted, only our blackness. It is the culture of the immigrant from chattel slavery, distinct from, but related and similar to those of our ancestral origin and African cousins. Learn to bear with us and identify us by our sub-cultural categories as we invent, practice, and revise the paths of our expression and revival. Support the cause and study the plan of reparations, with humble input.
It is as a slave that I respond, for I respond in your Euro-language, rather than within my own, but as a master you will recognize that all languages stem from African roots, passions, and explorations, so, if you are sincere, you will resign subjection, give, apologize, give, learn, and apologize.

[ooggooles]

Udjahee

Blacks have a fear that what has happened is going ot happen again. This fear stems from the very methodology of how blacks came to be place in the bottom of every social ladder and the self image of the black people was stolen. This leads to the present anxiety that perplexes the black population today, especially in the Americas but also within the entire planet.

Black civilization predated all other civilizations. Black civilization nutures and educated the civilizations that gave rise to every present civilization in the world today. In turn black civilization expected a cultural exchange and recieved it. During this cultural exchange something went wrong. The vast majority of black people some how were lead, or came to believe that they possessd no civilization. They were lead to believe or came to the beleif that their civilization came after the white civilization.

Black civilizations and black people were pitted against each other. How was this achieved? Individual blacks were befriended and later individual black peoples were befriended. Blacks who retained information about their civilizational begins and blacks who were mislead became entangled in a struggle for supremacy. It was the classic devide and conquer routine. What followered was dispersement of the black people, enslavement, colonization, oppression. The black population was subject to conventional warfare and psychological warefare.

We now find the black pouplation at yet another crossroad. We find ourselves at another cultural exchange and at another befriending of sorts. We find the black population facing anxiety anf fear once again. To each his own. Like minded peoples to like minded peoples. No one has ever been able to save everyone and neither will I.

Bouneith

Today we find ourselve on the verge of another Great black civilization.