Illusions of superiority
Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert Jensen 2004
posted on INTHEFRAY and Alternet, May 3, 2004.
by Robert Jensen
I stepped onto the speakers' platform at the Virginia Festival of Books in
Charlottesville with Newsday editor Les Payne to discuss our chapters in his
book When Race Becomes Real. Bernestine Singley, the other panelist, had edited
the book.
As I walked to my seat, I was well aware of Payne's impressive record. I had
read his work, and I know he is a more experienced journalist than I am. He's
won more prizes and written more important books than me. Payne has traveled
more widely and reported on more complex subjects. He is older than me, and has
done more in his life than I have. I also have heard Payne speak before, and
know that he is a more commanding and more forceful speaker than I am.
So, as I sat down at my seat, I did what came naturally; I felt superior to Les
Payne. If it seems odd that I would feel superior to someone I knew to be more
talented and accomplished than I am, then here is another relevant fact: Les
Payne is African American, and I am white.
I didn't recognize that feeling of superiority as I sat down, or as I made my
remarks on the panel. It wasn't until Payne started reading from a chapter in
his book and explaining how he came to write his essays that my feeling became
so painfully clear to me.
Payne talked about how, as a teenager born in the segregated South who attended
high school in the North, he had struggled to overcome the internalized sense of
inferiority which grew from the environment in which he had been raised. He
talked with a quiet passion and power, about how deep that sense of inherent
inferiority can appear in African Americans.
At some point, I made the obvious connection. Part of the reason that the
struggle Payne described is so hard for African Americans is because white
behavior is a constant expression of that feeling of superiority, expressed in a
fashion both subtle and overt. My mind raced immediately to that feeling of
superiority I felt as we had taken our seats. I had assumed, despite all that I
knew about Les Payne, his record, and his speaking ability, that I would be the
highlight of the panel. Why? It might be because I'm an egotistical white boy.
Maybe I'm a white boy with delusions of grandeur. The former is almost certainly
true. The latter may be an exaggeration. But whatever my own personal weaknesses
are, one factor is obvious: I am white and Payne is African American, and that
was the basis of my feeling.
The moment that particular feeling hit me, I was literally left speechless,
fighting back tears, with a profound sense of sadness. I struggled to keep
focused on Payne's words, but it was difficult to do as my mind raced to cope
with what I was feeling. Payne finished, and Ms. Singley started her reading.
When the speaking period ended, I was forced to engage in the ending, and I did
my best to answer a question asked of me. But I remained shaken.
One of the 'good' white people
Why all of this drama? It was because I fancied myself one of the
"good" white people, one of the anti-racist white people. I am
politically active, and have worked hard to incorporate an honest account of
race and racism into my school's teaching.
But in that moment, I had to confront that which I had not yet relinquished: the
basic psychological features of racism. As Payne talked honestly of struggling
with a sense of inferiority, I had to face that I had never really shaken a
sense of my superiority. As I write these words, the feeling of that moment of
sadness returns. Do not mistake this for superficial shame or guilt. Do not
describe me as a self-indulgent white liberal. The sadness I feel is not for me.
It is sadness about how deeply embedded in me is that fundamental reality of
racism; the assumption that white people are superior.
That doesn't mean I'm a racist. It doesn't mean my political work or efforts in
the classroom don't matter. Instead, it means that what I say to my students
about race -- that the dynamics of domination and subordination run deep,
affecting us in ways we don't always see clearly-is true not only in theory. It
is also true in my psyche.
I have long known that. On the platform with Payne that day, his words forced me
to feel it. That wasn't his intention; he was speaking to the audience -- which
was primarily African American -- not to me. Whatever the intent, he did me that
service. But I am most grateful to Payne not for that, but for something that
happened later. After the event, I was planning to drive to Washington, D.C.
When I mentioned that to Payne, he asked if he could ride with me and catch a
flight from D.C. back to New York. I jumped at the chance, in part because I
wanted to hear more about his research for his forthcoming book on Malcolm X,
but also because I wanted to talk to him about what had happened to me on stage.
In the few we drove together, I took advantage of Payne's experience in
journalism and asked his opinion about a range of issues, in addition to pumping
him for insights into Malcolm X's life. And, finally, I asked if I could tell
him about what had happened on stage.
It turned out, not surprisingly, that Les Payne is a gracious man. He listened
to my story, nodding throughout. Nothing I said seemed to shock him. He is,
after all an African American in the United States; I didn't expect that I would
shock him.
It was after I had finished that Payne did something for which I will always be
grateful: He didn't forgive me. That is, he made no attempt to make me feel
better. He didn't reassure me that I was, in fact, one of the "good"
white people. He simply acknowledged what I had told him, said he understood,
and continued our discussion about the politics of race in the United States.
Part of me probably wanted him to forgive me. Part of me probably wanted the
approval of African American person at that moment, to help eliminate the
discomfort, which I was still feeling. But what would that have accomplished for
him, for me, or for the world? Without knowing it, Payne during the panel had
given me the gift of feeling uncomfortable. In the car at this time, perhaps
with full knowledge of what he was doing, he gave me the gift of not letting me
off the hook.
When I dropped him at the airport, I had no illusions. The day had meant much
more to me than to him. He had been willing to teach me something, and then he
went on to other things. His personal struggle with internalized inferiority was
largely over; his chapter in the book made that clear, as did his interaction
with me. It was easy to tell by the way he spoke and carried himself that Payne
doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about whether white people are better than
him. But I was left with the unfinished project of dealing with my internalized
sense of superiority. And it was clear to both of us that such a project was my
responsibility, not his.
The gender question
The story of that day in Charlottesville can't end there, of course. On the
platform with us was Bernestine Singley, who is every bit as black as Les Payne,
and every bit as accomplished a lawyer and writer. Why am I focusing on him and
not her? Why did he spark this realization in me and not her?
In part it was because of what Payne talked about on stage; his remarks and his
chapter had pushed my buttons. Also, I have known Singley longer and have a more
established relationship with her. We live in different cities and are not
friends in a conventional sense, but I consider her (and I hope she considers
me) a trustworthy ally and comrade in the struggle, and a friend in that
context. Singley and I also have very different styles, and when we appear on
panels together we clearly are
not competing.
With all that said, it's also difficult to miss the fact that Singley is a woman
and Payne is a man. There was not only a race dynamic on stage, but a gender
dynamic. It's likely that I was, in classic male fashion, focusing on the
struggle for dominance with the other man on the panel. This perception of
myself also is hard to face; in addition to being a good white person, you see,
I'm also a good man. I'm one of the men who is on the right side. But I also am
one of the men who, whatever side he is on, constantly struggles with the
reality of living in a male-supremacist society that has taught me lessons about
how to vie for dominance.
Introspection on these matters is difficult; people in privileged positions
often are not in the best position to evaluate our own behavior. But looking
back on that day, it appears to me I walked onto that platform with an
assumption of my inherent superiority -- so deeply woven into me that I could
not in the moment see it -- that had something to do with race and gender.
From those assumptions, it is hard to reach a conclusion other than: I was a
fool.
I use that term consciously, because throughout history white people have often
cast blacks as the fool to shore up our sense of superiority. But in that game,
it is white people who are the fools, and it is difficult and painful to
confront that. Somehow, I had allowed myself to believe the story that a racist
and sexist society still tells. Yes, I know that Jim Crow segregation is gone
and the overt ideology that supported it is mostly gone. But in the struggle to
change the world, what matters is not only what law is, or what polite people
say in public. What matters just as much, if not more, is what we really are,
deep down.
All this matters not just because white people should learn to be better or
nicer, but because as long as we whites believe we are better, deep down in
places most of us have learned to hide, we will not feel compelled to change a
society in which black unemployment is twice the white rate. And in which, as a
recent study has found, a white man with a criminal record is more likely to
called back for a job interview than a black man with no record.
In the United States, the typical black family has 58 percent as much income as
a typical white family. And at the slow rate the black-white poverty gap has
been narrowing since 1968, it will take 150 years to close. At the current rate,
blacks and whites won't reach high school graduation parity until 2013, nearly
60 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. That is an ugly
society.
The first step for white people is to face that ugliness, to tell the truth
about the system we live in and tell the truth about ourselves. But that means
nothing if we do not commit to change, not just to change ourselves, but to
change the system. We have to face the ways in which white supremacy makes white
people foolish but forces others to pay a much greater price.
We have to stop playing the fool and start playing for keeps.
-----------------------------
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, a founding member of the Nowar Collective, http://www.nowarcollective.com/, and a member of the board of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center, http://thirdcoastactivist.org/. He is the author of Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights Books). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
BACK TO ROBERT W. JENSEN'S HOME PAGE
--------------------------------
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, a
founding member of the Nowar Collective, www.nowarcollective.com,
and a member of the board of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center,
thirdcoastactivist.org. He is the author of Citizens
of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights Books).
He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.