"I think we should all just be 'Americans'"

Privileged UCSD Students Say The Darndest Things

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I'm a Diversity Peer Educator at our Cross Cultural Center at UCSD, and this is what I've decided to do for my Self-Initiated Project. This is going to be a discussion of conversations or events, mostly at UCSD but other places aren't off limits, that demonstrate some unacknowledged privilege. Being an able-bodied, cisgendered white male from an upper class background, I have plenty of opportunities to ignore my various privileges. This is an attempt to call myself, and those who share these privileged identities, out. I'm also queer and Jewish, and while this may occasionally discuss the privileges that people have because they're straight or Christian, the focus will hopefully stay on privileges I myself embody.

The point of this is to encourage different forms of allyship and give people tools to become better allies. It's not to make people feel guilty for having privilege, or for publicly shaming anyone.

I'd also like to point out that, because I've learned all this stuff in college, it's a representation of my own privilege that I'm even able to talk like this and use this kind of language and terminology.

Please ask questions, repost, comment, discuss, and call me out on things that I end up perpetuating. This is supposed to be interactive; otherwise it's just me lecturing. Especially feel free to call me out; I'm hardly an authority, and I really do appreciate opportunities to learn more about how to check myself.

Visitors since April 12 2011 (when I started tracking it)

April 27, 2011

“I think we should all just be ‘Americans’”

This one’s a classic. Almost everyone I know who says this is talking about how they find identities like ‘Mexican American’ or 'African American’ or 'Asian American’ or 'Vietnamese American’ - combining a racial or ethnic or cultural identity with American nationality - to be unnecessary or even threatening. It’s easy for a white person to have this attitude; white people in America are viewed as not having a culture, and being devoid of ethnicity. Given this, it’s understandable for a white person to draw the conclusion “I don’t need a special culture or ethnic identity to describe myself; 'American’ is good enough for me. If it’s not good enough for them, they must want something special that I don’t have access to, and that’s just not fair.” I know I came to a similar conclusion at one point.

What I hadn’t been made aware of is how whiteness is viewed as the mainstream norm in America. It’s almost all white people that we get to learn about in school. The history books ignore the accomplishments of people of color in favor of talking about white accomplishments (1), and they ignore the exploitation and abuse of people of color by white people (2). Other ways our society is Eurocentric include our white standards of beauty, our ideas of what just counts as 'art’ or 'literature’ or 'food’ and what counts as 'ethnic’ or 'cultural’ art or literature or food, and what select societies or cultures we label as 'civilized.’ Given all that and more, it makes sense for a white person to feel like 'American’ describes much of their identity, while many people of color find it somewhat lacking. Understanding this involves understanding America’s imperfections; critiquing something as personal as nationality can be incredibly uncomfortable, especially without a previous framework for it. For anyone who doesn’t understand why 'just American’ just doesn’t work for some people, I hope you’re able to get to a place where you’re not too uncomfortable questioning these things. Ask me for more examples, or to elaborate (I’m trying to keep this short because people read these things on their iPhones), or for some other resources.

(1) Pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and Africa, and the Phoenician rounding of the Cape of Good Hope centuries before the Portuguese did it are good examples

(2) Columbus’ taking of wealth, land, and labor of the native Arawak of Haiti, and his introduction of the transatlantic slave trade, and the white people who dropped dynamite on a black ghetto out of an airplane during a riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, killing 75 people and destroying over 1,100 homes, are good examples. And yes, 1 and 2 are both from Lies My Teacher Told Me, which I’m currently reading.

6:19am | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZB-gox4f3Llz
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(Notes: 17)