Personal Voices: The Good White People

By Robert Jensen, AlterNet. Posted May 4, 2004.

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 Iand written more important books than I. 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.

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.

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