Last month, a clip of Tim Wise speaking on “guilt versus responsibility” for racism appeared on both Sociological Images and Womanist Musings, where it drew diametrically opposed reactions. Sociological Images posted it without comment from the bloggers, but reader comments were strongly positive, apart from one obvious white-supremacist troll. By contrast, Renee at Womanist Musings was scathing:
Isn’t that nice? No guilt, only responsibility. I think the problem with this little speech is that from the moment that White people are born, they do take advantage of every single ounce of privilege that is bestowed upon them. They don’t have to feel guilty about slavery, or Jim Crow, but they should sure as hell feel guilty for the perpetuation of Whiteness. Tim may have gone to multicultural daycare, but his Whiteness made that an option, rather than a necessity. When he was streamed into university courses and the teachers worked hard to ensure that Blacks were not, he didn’t feel the need to question.
Here’s the clip, so you can judge for yourself.
(Click here if you can’t view the clip.)
The discussion on Renee’s post made the important and valid point that white people shouldn’t dominate our conversations about race. Ultimately, a person who has grown up white needs to make the effort to read what people of color have written and listen to what they have to say. They can’t just listen to Time Wise and stop there.
But I would take issue with some of the other criticisms that Renee makes. First, Renee says that Wise should feel guilty about the unearned privileges he enjoys – about advantages he did not personally choose or seek. He should feel guilty about his daycare experiences? Really? How is he culpable for choices his parents made? Should he have foregone college, just because black and Latino boys are funneled away from it (and often into prison instead)?
Fighting privilege – or even “renouncing privilege” – shouldn’t mean voluntary abjection. Privilege comes in two basic forms. The first relies on power over others; it’s a zero-sum game. An example of this type of privilege would be the tendency of many audiences to take white middle-class male speakers more seriously than speakers from a marginalized group. (See, for instance, some conservative pundits’ dismissive comments on the Native American blessing given at the Tucson memorial service last week.) The second form of privilege need not entail the degradation of marginalized groups. Attending college falls into this category. These privileges shouldn’t be abolished but should be made so widely available that they cease to be privileges. (That doesn’t mean that every kid should attend college, or that colleges couldn’t be selective about admissions; instead, we would need to mitigate poverty, substandard K-12 school, dangerous neighborhoods, etc. until the racial makeup of colleges – including highly selective ones – looks very much like the demographics of the U.S. in general.)
More basically, I do not think guilt is a helpful emotion. Guilt paralyzes. It focuses attention right back on the feelings of the white person. It leads to inaction. It can even help perpetuate white privilege. As long as I wallow in guilt, I may have the illusion that I’m achieving solidarity with people of color. But that’s bullshit. Guilt is solipsistic. It’s a natural reaction, but if it’s more than transient, it’s toxic.
When I reject guilt, am I just shoring up my own privilege? After all, I’m a white woman who grew up in a practically all-white farm town in the overwhelmingly white state of North Dakota, dimly aware as a child that the civil rights and black power movements were taking place somewhere else.
So please consider, instead, the words of Audre Lorde:
Guilt and defensiveness are brick in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures. … (124)
Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness. …
I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees. (130)
(Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, pp. 124, 130)
In fact, Lorde saw guilt as an obstacle to white women acknowledging difference, which in turn stopped them recognizing their own role in perpetuating racism.
In my teaching about racism, I’ve consistently tried to reframe the discussion as about responsibility rather than guilt. I try to show how racism is structural and systematic, rather than limited to outright bigotry. Most of my students are white, with backgrounds varying from rural poverty to suburban affluence, from highly integrated schools to all-white gated enclaves.
This past week I used the Tim Wise clip in my intro to Women’s and Gender Studies, and I thought it was very effective. More effective, in fact, than my teaching alone. Does it trouble me that may have Wise resonated with some of my white male students in part because he can draw on male privilege? A little. But I’m also pragmatic enough to see the value in male allies in anti-sexism. If Wise’s analogy of the manager who can’t ignore the debt side of the ledger makes some students more receptive to Patricia Hill Collins and bells hooks, then that’s a good starting place.
Many of the commenters on Renee’s post seemed to assume that Wise’s voice is crowding out the voices of people of color. I can understand why people of color would resent his earning an income as an anti-racist educator. I agree he has a responsibility to promote the voices of people of color, and I honestly don’t feel qualified to judge whether he does this adequately or not. From my perch here in Appalachia, I think Wise could do better in understanding the nuances of white poverty (in this otherwise useful piece, for example.) Overall, though, Tim Wise is helping to challenge young white people, especially, to see anti-racism as a cause that should matter to them.
Allies don’t have to be perfect. They/we need to be willing to listen. They/we need to be willing to speak up. They/we need to be willing to examine their own privilege. We’re all a work in progress. We all have opportunities to be allies. We’re all called to engage constructively with potential allies. Guilt doesn’t advance any of these processes. But a sense of responsibility sure does.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
What a great post! Powerful, passionate, and convincing. I agree with you completely. When I first read Renee’s discussion of the subject, I had the same concerns as you did. So thanks for voicing them in such a great way.
Thank you, Clarissa. It’s always a bit dicey wading into such subjects as a white person, but I really do think there’s value in Tim Wise’s work, and I especially think that guilt is ultimately self-indugent.
I was just catching up on blog reading (after a week mostly away from it) and saw you’d been very ill. Scary! I’m glad you seem to be recovering, and I’m *really* glad you got diagnosed before real damage could be done. Take care of yourself.
Oy, I hope this doesn’t double-post, but my last attempt got swallowed up without a trace…
I do agree with you that guilt on the part of the privileged is counterproductive.
And yet, there is legit critique to be had of Tim Wise.
Look, I’ll put it in terms of my own marginalization as a trans woman. Suppose there’s some cis het dude going around making rousing speeches to institutions and corporations about the harms of cisheterosupremacy? And suppose, like Tim Wise, said dude charged 4-digit speaking fees, essentually making a career out of anti-cisheterosupremacist work. This is how I’d feel:
* I’d be worried that said speaker was more worried about maintaining their Cis Het Ally Of Trans Women brand than doing the hard work of having the backs of trans women.
* I’d be worried that said speaker was speaking over us (trans women) and for us, thus silencing our voices.
* I’d be upset that said speaker was doing the above while trans women continue to experience obscene rates of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness, and that by invisibilizing us in favor of his own very expensive voice, he would be denying trans woman an avenue to earning a survivable income (because Lord knows that we’d never be able to command four-figure speaking fees, but he’s made it difficult for us to even sell zines for a couple bucks a piece, because who needs our words when they have his?)
* I’d be upset that the cis-dominated and controlled institutions and corporations that hired him get to pat themselves on the back that they’ve “done something for trans women” while avoiding being made uncomfortable by our angry harpy man-in-ewe’s-clothing big hands takes-up-space voices.
I mean, I understand that there’s a balance here: We don’t want to make the marginalized responsible for educating the privileged. But neither do I feel comfortable with the idea that Tim Wise is making a lucrative career out of Brand Anti-Racist™ while people of color still aren’t being heard.
First, my apologies for WordPress booting your comments into the spam filter, and then hiding this one after I fished it out. It came out of limbo and appeared in my mod queue, and now I’m even more confused than before.
I agree that there’s a real danger of institutions making a token gesture toward “diversity” by offering a workshop or bringing in a speaker, and then calling it done. The link you provide shows how that works in practice. I think Wise is useful as a sort of “wedge” – which opens a space for formerly kneejerk defensive white people to see that they occupy a certain privileged space in society. But the critique of racism and white privilege needs to *begin* and not end there! For instance, once people are less defensive, it becomes possible to talk about racism as composed of power plus privilege – as Renee Martin often puts it – without white students quickly countering, “But [members of group XYZ] are racist, too!”
I also share your ambivalence about Tim Wise getting four-figure fees for a campus visit. I feel that way about any highly-paid person on the lecture circuit. I don’t think most institutions should be spending their $$$$ on big names as opposed to substantive day-to-day work with their students. When some lecturers are commanding FIVE figures, the market is surely out of whack. Yes, people should be compensated fairly for their time and expertise, and I really believe in bringing outside speakers onto campus. But for the price of one famous person, several equally interesting but less famous folks could be brought in. Oddly enough, that less-famous group would skew much harder toward marginalized people …
Thank you so much for that. The triumph of compassionate rationality over hysteria.
I appreciate the thanks, Reg – but I just for the record, I definitely don’t want to characterize differing opinions as hysteria! Having read Renee’s blog, I would certainly say she has reasons rooted in her experience that make anger and mistrust of white people’s motives quite understandable … not that it is my place to judge, anyway.
I think that people have to be careful about telling another group of people how they should feel when they don’t know their background. Renee is using generalizations about an entire group of people, when I’m sure she would reject such generalizations about a group she belongs to. I am not a child of privilege; I come from a middle class background and my parents sacrificed so that my siblings and I didn’t have to go without. My parents could not afford to pay for all of my tuition, so now at 42, I’m working on my MPA after I finished my BA. I will be paying for all of this myself. I’m a single parent; while my children don’t go without, they are not children of privilege. I say the same thing about those who make generalizations about people who receive Welfare and other government assistance; they aren’t lazy and stupid; the majority are working poor and are doing the best they can. Every group has acceptions that meet the stereotypes but the majority is usually silent.
Thanks for your comment, Cheri, and for sharing your experiences. As I white person, I do enjoy unearned privilege. For instance, on the highly white campus where I teach, there are few faculty of color. (That’s true on most campuses, but even more so on my campus, which is historically very white.) I have a comfort level that comes automatically with being in the majority group. However, there are a lot of poor white people living in my area, especially in the county but also in my little college town. They may still have some minimal degree of privilege that comes with white skin (e.g., they are part of the majority group, see people who look like them reading the news on TV, aren’t as readily suspected by security guards in stores, etc.) but they also have just heaps of disadvantage. Their poverty plays out somewhat differently than for people of color who are poor, but overall their position in society is very weak.
The whole point of intersectional analysis is to avoid overgeneralization, and to realize that there’s a complex interplay between race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, dis/ability, and other factors. There’s also a fair amount of individual variation as to how hard individuals are hit by systemic oppressive forces in their lives. For instance, a strong family or dedicated mentor can make a real difference in how much people internalize the “isms” that are arrayed against them.
Cheri, I really appreciate your comment on people receiving welfare. Even before welfare reform (which I continue to regard very skeptically), studies showed that the majority of recipients were on it temporarily, often using it to gain education or training that would allow them to make a sustainable living as opposed to just struggling through life on minimum wage.
I tend to think that guilt is only useful to people want to invoke it for their own nefarious purposes. Namely saying that someone should feel is simply a cover for two motives. First to make that person feel ashamed in order to make the person invoking it feel better about themselves. Second it can, depending on whether someone is made to feel sufficiently guilty, cause an endless loop of blame. Make them feel bad to the point where they clamp up and don’t help and then try to make them feel bad for clamming up and not helping. And in the event they get angry you can just push them back down by saying they are only angry because they are scared of losing their privileges. Pretty pointless at best and damaging at worst loop right?
While I’m not white I am male and have certainly felt this vibe from women’s advocates. They seem to think that me wallowing in some pool of male guilt is going to help. It doesn’t. What does help is trying to work on helping people out and trying to make this a better world for everyone (in my case a major part of that is building a better masculinity).
Hey! I was just going to point you to that puddle of guilt over there. Really, it will make you a better man!
Seriously, all sarcasm aside, I think it’s exactly right that “building a better masculinity” will help. Probably ought to make that plural – “masculinities” – since it already is inflected by race, class, sexual orientation, and a whole host of other factors, including subcultures. Today I was thinking about how Hell’s Angels have their own distinctive masculinity that draws on a lot of stereotypical masculine stuff but adds up to their own particular take on masculinity.
I also don’t like finger-pointing. That’s almost never helpful. I think that’s a major part of the loop you describe.
Probably ought to make that plural – “masculinities” – since it already is inflected by race, class, sexual orientation, and a whole host of other factors, including subcultures.
I often push the point that there is no one “right” masculinity. I mostly meant that singular for myself and I’m just sharing my experiences with anyone that wants to read/listen. You correct that everyone that practices masculinity should be free to practice it as they wish (as long as it doesn’t harm others of course).
There’s been some other issues about Tim Wise too such as how he kind of profits from other African American scholars ideas without crediting them:
http://afrospear.com/2010/04/29/tim-wise-and-the-privilege-of-white-guilt/
http://www.depravedmindset.com/2010/06/why-i-do-not-identify-myself-as-white.html
That said, I like your post.
Thanks so much for the links, Jenny. I am familiar with the second blog (she posts at Renee’s quite regularly). The first one I didn’t know; he really rejects the idea that white people can be allies.
If white people listen to Tim Wise and then decide to form little white anti-racist enclaves, that is of course fucked up. I would rather see his work used as a wedge where it seems necessary, tactically. I’ve found it helpful in getting some white students to look beyond a fantasy of living in a post-racial colorblind society, which seems to be a popular idea among those who are generally well meaning but not well informed.
I can easily see how POC would feel it is galling that Tim Wise gets paid money to work against racism when most POC will never have such an opportunity. Peggy MacIntosh also is paid for anti-racist work. People do have to earn a living, and if your work is traveling around to deliver seminars and training sessions, you can only do it if you’re paid. There are some people of color who command high speakers’ fees (Cornel West was at my college a couple of years ago – great speaker – and I’m sure he was paid more for it than I used to get for a whole quarter’s class, back when I was an adjunct). But given the millions of POC who can testify to their experiences of racism, I can understand why some would feel anger at whites seems to profit in any way from anti-racist work.
Wow. I guess I shouldn’t be amazed that people are criticizing Tim Wise’s rational, respectable, and, yes, responsible position, but I still am. How will we ever fight injustice if we look for enemies among our own allies? I wonder what some would have Wise do — take a vow of poverty and live on the street while he makes speeches? Would that prove his bona fides? Or perhaps he should just keep quiet altogether since he’s not black? That makes about as much sense as carping at men who are strong feminists simply because they’re men.
Hi Lisa. Sometimes I think people do mean just that when they talk about “renouncing privilege.” Wise cannot negate the advantages he enjoyed as a white kid who apparently grew up with the usual white middle-class advantages. Instead of renouncing those privileges, he’s subverting them to push people from similar backgrounds to greater awareness.
Since I’ve been talking about Audre Lorde, I should maybe mention that she challenged white feminists to learn and talk and teach about race. She asked us to cut out the ignorance and to stop expecting WOC to do all the work – but she also said that white women need to join the fight against racism.
The analogy to men in feminism is one that is really powerful and meaningful to me. And when I do hear a male feminist (or pro-feminist, or ally – pick your term) say something I think is really wrong, I will talk to him about it. Not “call him out.” Not publicly shame him. But have a two-way conversation.
I have a lot of respect for Renee, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered to comment on her position (which I initially did at her blog). I read her and learn from her.
I got a comment this morning, though, that was just plain nasty – described in the follow-up post to this one.
Oh, and one more thing – to say Tim Wise is basically doing good work is not to exempt him from criticism, anymore than the rest of us are exempt! In addition to his lack of awareness of rural poverty (which I linked above), Wise published a piece after the midterm election which didn’t just say that white privilege is demographically doomed (which it is) but also, in my view, crossed over into expressing ageist attitudes.
We can be critical of these substantive issues without attacking him for being born into privilege, a fact over which he had no influence.
…I will talk to him about it. Not “call him out.” Not publicly shame him. But have a two-way conversation.
Good to know. And thank you for knowing the difference. There are too many people in this world that either do the former think they are too good for the latter or even do the former and try to pass it off as the latter.