Speaking from experience, race can be a challenging and uncomfortable topic for a white person such as myself. It can also be healing, hilarious and in some cases absolutely necessary. So, how do we best go about having these conversation and who do we have them with?
First, I have come to understand that it’s important to center my own identity when having a conversation about race. As I mentioned before, I am a white person. Despite my Portuguese ancestors having olive skin, in the late 1800s they were classified as ‘white’ by the US government. Thus, they were given all the institutional privileges that came with this binary classification, but did not necessarily experience the social privileges that come with appearing white. These came later as my Portuguese ancestors mixed with my British and Irish ones.
For all purposes, I grew up white on colonized land, and was almost completely ignorant of my privilege. I say almost because growing up in the most recently colonized state, there was plenty of fresh (and justified) anger at they ways in which folks not native to the islands were continuing to dominate and extinguish the local culture. I didn’t understand what was occurring at the time, but as an adult I am taking a more active role in my education. Today, Japanese and Portuguese culture are so integral to the islands that it is difficult to separate them.
I thought about race very fearfully for a long time. I remembered the confusing resentment of community members growing up and I wondered when I would be discovered as a…bad person. During my masters program I learned that counseling, just like most of the systems we exist within, is culturally insensitive. Once aware of my own race, I experienced some debilitating guilt for being white. Frozen in fear, I wanted a single answer for how I could continue being, what I had hoped I had been: an ethical citizen of the world.
Sorry to break the bad news (other whities), there is no Answer. Mostly I have had to experience life, put myself in situations where I’m the minority race, talk to others, and be uncomfortable in order to gain a better understanding of first my own race and second a bit of context about how others may or may not experience theirs. More recently, I have entered a legal partnership with a black person. Through the evolution and safety of our relationship, I have had so many interesting, funny, and painful conversations as well as private thoughts about the experience of being in a multi-racial connection.
The world gains a new sheen when we get the opportunity to be close enough to someone else to experience it through their eyes. It can be both beautiful and horrible. The political and the personal are impacted. White family members who are outspoken about American politics, suddenly become more intentional about what they say. Or they just shift their fear onto another minority group.
My desire is to never stop having uncomfortable conversations when they are appropriate, to continue exercising my mind in order to be a mindful citizen of the world, and to do my part in creating an accessible mental health system.
Image provided by Vonecia Carswell through http://www.unsplash.com
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