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Witnessing Whiteness Quotes
Witnessing Whiteness: First Steps Toward an Antiracist Practice and Culture
by
Shelly Tochluk467 ratings, 3.91 average rating, 72 reviews
Witnessing Whiteness Quotes
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“regardless of the false nature of racial categories, the concept of race holds great social force. Our society uses race in spite of some people’s disavowal and often treats us differentially as a result. Race has truly gotten under our skin, into our psyche, and lingers within the layers of our unconscious. To begin honestly, we must discuss what may be the most challenging aspect of any discussion of race. We must deal with the terms racist, racism, and systemic white supremacy. We must also confront the fact that some people might ask us to associate those words with our speech and actions.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
“Unfortunately, so many whites have trampled people of color as we ran away from our whiteness that many people of color are highly suspect when whites demonstrate an interest in their culture and participate in traditional ceremonies and practices or wear their cultural symbols and dress.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
“To those I spoke with whiteness can be associated with isolation, dissections, and disconnections.
Amanda: Well, my first husband was half-Irish and I lived with his family . . . So I got to see how they raised their children and I’ve been in prison and was raised with white girls there too. So I got to see a lot of pictures from poor whites to affluent whites. So I’ve seen that there is a disconnection. I mean, feelings are covered. Michael: One of the ways of sustaining cultural whiteness is isolation, like old Descartes. It’s not a plot, just the resonance of bad ideas. Isolate the individual rather than see the individual as the contributor back to the collective. And the carpool lane is empty and there are four lanes filled with one person in each car and that’s white culture pouring down the road, each isolated inside and hearing the news that reinforces the ideas of isolation and whiteness. Cayce: And white people for the most part have kind of isolated themselves . . . there is like a boundary around white people that a lot of times people of color drop when they are together and white people don’t always drop when they are with other white people. There’s not this sense of community.
I would love to say that the above characterizations do not reflect my life, family, white friends, and their families. Unfortunately, there is a lot of it that seems right on. True, on some level these descriptions might reflect the general trend toward decreased social engagement.10 Yet over the past decade, I have spent a lot more time around people from different cultural and racial backgrounds. I am very sad to say that this sense of white people as being less emotionally connected, more isolated, and more guarded even when we are with other people resonates. The pain that comes with admitting this is all the more intense because this is something that I have known deep down for quite some time. The patterns are so ingrained that serious effort is required to break out of habits that keep me alone when in pain and nervous about sharing difficulty with family and friends. I wish that this did not characterize a broader struggle. Unfortunately, there are too many white people who exemplify these characteristics. The significant numbers of whites who seriously battle depression and a sense of aloneness in the midst of seemingly comfortable lives and intact, loving families are too great. It bears repeating that, of course, white people are not the only ones who face these issues. But that does not mean that it is not a pattern characteristic of white people worthy of honest investigation.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
Amanda: Well, my first husband was half-Irish and I lived with his family . . . So I got to see how they raised their children and I’ve been in prison and was raised with white girls there too. So I got to see a lot of pictures from poor whites to affluent whites. So I’ve seen that there is a disconnection. I mean, feelings are covered. Michael: One of the ways of sustaining cultural whiteness is isolation, like old Descartes. It’s not a plot, just the resonance of bad ideas. Isolate the individual rather than see the individual as the contributor back to the collective. And the carpool lane is empty and there are four lanes filled with one person in each car and that’s white culture pouring down the road, each isolated inside and hearing the news that reinforces the ideas of isolation and whiteness. Cayce: And white people for the most part have kind of isolated themselves . . . there is like a boundary around white people that a lot of times people of color drop when they are together and white people don’t always drop when they are with other white people. There’s not this sense of community.
I would love to say that the above characterizations do not reflect my life, family, white friends, and their families. Unfortunately, there is a lot of it that seems right on. True, on some level these descriptions might reflect the general trend toward decreased social engagement.10 Yet over the past decade, I have spent a lot more time around people from different cultural and racial backgrounds. I am very sad to say that this sense of white people as being less emotionally connected, more isolated, and more guarded even when we are with other people resonates. The pain that comes with admitting this is all the more intense because this is something that I have known deep down for quite some time. The patterns are so ingrained that serious effort is required to break out of habits that keep me alone when in pain and nervous about sharing difficulty with family and friends. I wish that this did not characterize a broader struggle. Unfortunately, there are too many white people who exemplify these characteristics. The significant numbers of whites who seriously battle depression and a sense of aloneness in the midst of seemingly comfortable lives and intact, loving families are too great. It bears repeating that, of course, white people are not the only ones who face these issues. But that does not mean that it is not a pattern characteristic of white people worthy of honest investigation.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
“Cayce also links the ideas of being disconnected and superficial with the way white people deal with our U.S. history.
My theory about why we’re this way in America is, how can you possibly live in a country where for 200 years you’re enslaving a huge portion of your population and not have some kind of emotion? You have to put a lid on it. Otherwise, you couldn’t be human and stand it, right? So I think that in this country we’ve learned to cover the bad things with really pretty things and that we don’t show it when we fall apart.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
My theory about why we’re this way in America is, how can you possibly live in a country where for 200 years you’re enslaving a huge portion of your population and not have some kind of emotion? You have to put a lid on it. Otherwise, you couldn’t be human and stand it, right? So I think that in this country we’ve learned to cover the bad things with really pretty things and that we don’t show it when we fall apart.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
“Roediger goes on to describe how although some might explicitly avoid speaking of race, there are those who make wordless racial appeals and offer coded messages by linking nonracially identified ideas with visually racial representations. This effectively denigrates people of color and links them with issues such as welfare reform, job-training programs, criminality, and sexual promiscuity.17 For example, a US News & World Report cover once used a picture of seven women to illustrate its article on welfare. Six of the seven women were women of color, most were”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
“because of our dominant racial position. We do not see our lives impacted by racism, and therefore we are usually less sensitive. By and large, however, people of color see these injustices, recognize their linkage to a long history of maltreatment, abuse, and neglect, and are justifiably angered. Several years ago, I sat with Dr. Shirley Better and invited her to participate in my investigation of cross-race friendships. We talked at length about what I wanted to do and my approach.”
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
― Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It
