Good White Racist?

Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice

Kerry Connelly

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780664265748
• eBook ISBN: 9781611649901
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

"A no-nonsense call to action for all those willing to confront their complicity, Good White Racist? promises 'This is going to be hard, and you are going to be uncomfortable. But it will be worth it.'" – Foreword Reviews

\ good · white · racist \ noun

• A well-intentioned person of European descent who is nonetheless complicit in a culture of systemic racism
• A white person who would rather stay comfortable than do the work of antiracism

When it comes to race, most white Americans are obsessed with two things: defending our own inherent goodness and maintaining our own comfort levels. Too often, this means white people assume that to be racist, one has to be openly hateful and willfully discriminatory—you know, a bad person. And we know we're good, Christian people, right? But you don't have to be wearing a white hood or shouting racial epithets to be complicit in America's racist history and its ongoing systemic inequality.

In Good White Racist?, Kerry Connelly exposes the ways white people participate in, benefit from, and unknowingly perpetuate racism—despite their best "good person" intentions. Good White Racist? unpacks the systems that maintain the status quo, keep white people comfortable and complicit, and perpetuate racism in the United States and elsewhere. Combining scholarly research with her trademark New Jersey snark, Connelly shows us that even though it may not be our fault or choice to participate in a racist system, we all do, and it's our responsibility to do something about it.

Chapter One

The Good Nation of America

(Or, We’re Good, but Not as Good as We Think)

The books always smelled a little funny; even the dust that perpetually covered them seemed old and wise. I would flip through the pages and stare at hollowed-out eyes, protruding rib cages, and piles of shoes and eyeglasses. I would gaze into the ancient and wizened eyes of the American soldiers, shell-shocked and dazed, helmet straps loosened and hanging down by their chins. Faces dirtied by war, they appeared haunted by their witness of the purest evil. They were the unlucky few, the reluctant heroes, the ones who won the war and freed the Jews from the terrors of the Holocaust, from the horrors of Dachau and Mauthausen.

These Americans—they were good.

My father’s old books proved it. There it was, captured in strangely faded pictures on pages that smelled a little funny and held the dust of the ages, and told in the stories of how the Americans swooped in to save the Jews, and the day.¹

It’s practically biblical, right?

The images of these American soldiers who freed the Holocaust survivors—happy, youthful couples dancing in the streets of New York, where joyful sailor boys kissed their lady folk in Times Square in celebration of a well-won victory² are embedded in our collective subconscious as a country. Americans are the heroes—the good guys, the proverbial knights in shining armor. We dance in the street while everyone else deals with the cold, harsh reality of what happens when people lose touch with their human side. We get to be shiny-toothed and gleaming. We get to be bright-eyed and optimistic, safe in the land of plenty. And all is as it should be.

Or is it?

It’s almost as though we could follow a shiny, gleaming timeline that traces our own goodness. It could start with those first—well, let’s call them settlers for now—the idealistic underdogs desperate for religious freedom and committed to creating freedom and justice for all (or at least, all white, land-owning men) while they forged a new territory with uncompromised ruggedness and neophyte American grit. I mean, I can practically feel the prairie dust under my fingernails. Fast-forward through the Civil War, and you’ll see where America finally came to its moral senses, freed the slaves, and allegedly restored justice, the whole slavery thing being just an unfortunate blip on our otherwise spotless record. We can speed through the idealized suburbia and white-toothed, lobotomized commercials of the midcentury, flash through the uncomfortable discord of the 1960s, and head right to the fall of evil communism, to that day our movie-star president exclaimed, “Mr. Gorbachev, take down that wall!” and the fear of a Red Dawn was mitigated.

This has always been our collective identity as Americans. We are good, and our enemy is evil. To suggest otherwise is a sort of national heresy the likes of which can get you banned from any sports bar worth its salt. This is the history we teach in our schools, where kindergarteners celebrate that big ole party where the “Pilgrims and Indians” sat down together for a big turkey dinner. We maybe chastise Christopher Columbus for his shrewdness—but just a little—in the way he swindled the tribal chiefs out of their land for some pretty beads (but really, those silly, naive Indians should have known those beads were worthless, chuckle, chuckle). We don’t mention the blankets laced with smallpox or the Trail of Tears. These things remain in the educational netherworld, truths to be discovered with the breaking of our own identities as we grow into our personhood as adults. For so many of us educated in the twentieth century—and perhaps even now—this is like discovering that Santa Claus isn’t real, that our parents are human, that teachers have first names.

We hide from our own shadow side, unable to hold the paradox that as generally good people, we can do incredibly bad things. The truth is that if you look at the body of our work as a nation—the whole history, and not just the bits we like—there are two things that are true: First, America is gleaming. We are inherently idealistic, a beautiful experiment in human imagination and potential. Second, we are evil. We are a gluttonous machine of turning gears that mangle the souls of men, women, and children alike. And each one of us—every single one of us—is a participant in this absurdity.

What’s a Good White Racist, Anyway?

Before we go any further, it might be helpful to dive a little deeper into how I’m using certain words, because I know that these words tend to be intense and to elicit strong reactions in many of us. Let’s start with the big one: What is a good white racist, anyway?

Good

Americans have a sanitized version of goodness that often leaves little room for complexity or nuance. Our Sunday schools teach us that goodness is secured if we don’t drink, smoke, or have sex, that our righteousness is guaranteed with a simple prayer of salvation. We were raised on a snack food of “good guys versus bad guys,” with superheroes to save the day and villains with clearly defined low moral standards. Goodness doesn’t come in layers in the American psyche; you either are, or you aren’t—and once you aren’t, you aren’t forever. Good people, however, toe the line. They are nice and never disruptive, and they value peace and comfort and the status quo. Good people never make other people uncomfortable with their words. In fact, good people are fluent in the lexicon of niceness, where, for sure, no one ever mentions whiteness.

White

And whiteness? That’s an interesting concept. We’ll do a deep dive into the constructed identity that is whiteness in chapter 2, but it’s important to understand from the get-go that whiteness is a social construct, not a biological one. Should you happen to have been born into a body that has paler skin, you have been automatically granted certain benefits and privileges that people with more melanin simply don’t have. This is true even when you struggle to find a job or pay your bills or have to go to court or fail math class. White privilege means that even though your life may not be easy, the color of your skin does not provide additional obstacles to your success.

Because privilege is often invisible to those who have it, here’s a handy list of some of the ways white privilege may operate—in society, and yes, in your life too. Keep in mind that intersectionality is also at play here. That means that your gender or sexual identity, your class, and your physical ability and embodiment may also interact with your racial identity to impact the way these privileges operate in your life.

Economic privilege is the ability to build generational wealth and to easily access the basic requirements of life: food, housing, clothing, and so forth, as well as luxuries such as private transportation, rest from labor, and decent health care.

Spatial privilege is the ability to move through space safely, without fear of violence perpetrated on your body by individuals or the state.

Educational privilege is the ability to feel certain that public education will meet your needs and not prohibit you from obtaining a quality education through educational geographical gerrymandering, instructor or administrative bias, or the school-to-prison pipeline. It is the ability to know that any disabilities or struggles you have in school will receive medical or curative interventions rather than criminal or punitive interventions.

Intellectual privilege is the ability to be recognized for your intellectual accomplishments and not erased from the public narrative. In school and in the workplace, your intellect is never questioned. Additionally, recognition for your accomplishments is not relegated to a single month of the year or a special table in the back for “white authors.” Rather, your ideas are celebrated for their own right, alongside any other ideas of equal import.

Historical privilege is the ability to see members of your race accurately represented in history books and given credit for their contributions to society. The impact of social policies on your racial, ethnic, or gender group is portrayed appropriately. Your cultural practices throughout history are not diminished, considered “primitive” or less advanced.

Generational privilege is the ability to search for your roots and actually find them. It is the ability to know who your ancestors were.

Bodily privilege is the ability to move through society free from the judgment that your body’s natural state does not meet a certain standard, and from people claiming some sort of ownership and the right to touch you.

As white people, once we understand the different types of privilege we enjoy, we can fight for the right to these privileges for others.

People—especially people with power—will think differently about you than they will people of color. As a result, they will go easier on you, offer you assistance rather than police your body, and be more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when you mess up. In other words, people who have been assigned a white identity by society are often also presumed to be good and have to work really hard at proving otherwise. Meanwhile, good people of color are presumed automatically to be bad, often while they’re just moving through the world, just trying to exist. That reality is not merely the result of the prejudiced actions of some white people. Rather, it is evidence of a pervasive, all-encompassing culture of systemic racism.

Racist

Because I know the R-word freaks everybody out, let’s go about defining it too, because I mean something very specific when I use it. Racism refers to a system of hierarchy based on the belief that one race is superior to all others. Most often, and as is definitely the case in the United States, this manifests as both a collective social more and an individual belief. When combined with power—which is usually economic but can manifest in other ways—it becomes institutionalized.

Institutionalized racism is the way that belief becomes ingrained and reinforced in societal organizations, such as government, education, the judicial system, economics, and media (just to name a few).

Individual racism is a set of personal conscious or unconscious beliefs that assume one race is superior to all others. It is important to note that individual racism can be held by both the dominant and the oppressed person, but only in relation to the oppressed person. In other words, in the United States, where whiteness is held as the highest rank on the hierarchical system, white people cannot be victims of racism. So-called reverse racism is just not a thing, people. However, people of color may hold internalized racist views about their own race, and they may hold hierarchically racist beliefs about members of other groups (i.e., prejudice).

Systemic racism is the ways in which these types of racism work together to directly impact BIPOC on a large scale and privilege whites in the United States.

These qualities converge to create good white racists. First, good white racists are people who have been assigned the racial identity of whiteness. Second, good white racists are people who benefit from that assignment in a social system that privileges whiteness. Third, good white racists are generally nice people who intellectually do not approve of racist behaviors but who practice them anyway. Fourth, good white racists are—for a time, at least—unaware of the ways they benefit from and perpetuate racist systems that privilege them. Finally, good white racists generally respond with defensiveness when they are confronted with their participation in racist systems, because they are more concerned (possibly obsessed) with two things: their own comfort and their own inherent goodness.

The First Time I Was White

I can’t say for sure that I didn’t already know that strange, invisible lines divided us. I can’t say for sure that I wasn’t already feeling that awkward, invisible thing, unspoken and insidious, that laid a weight on my back that I could not name and that created an odd disharmony between me and the Black people I met. And disharmony is, indeed, the right word. Whatever this thing was, it kept us from falling into a beautiful, easy polyphony together, from bringing the different notes of our beauty together in a gorgeous symphony or a simple fugue. We were, together, disharmonious. And I had no idea why, nor did I have language to describe it.

I do a little digging in the coffers of memory, and a free-flowing stream of images begins to percolate. It’s like old movies, or the faded pictures I found in an old box in my mother’s basement. The mind pictures are slightly yellowed with the burnt mustard shades so common to the time, but for me, this can’t conceal the whiteness that inserted itself into my psyche that day. There I am, probably no older than seven or eight, and my mother has agreed to babysit a young boy whose mother she had met in church. I was thrilled—a playmate for my lonely soul! My mother was the neighborhood extrovert, willing to talk to everyone, friendly and ready to shine a smile to everyone with equal exuberance. My mom never thought twice about babysitting the child, and that was part of the problem.

No. Let me not do that. My mother should have babysat the boy. She should not have had to think twice about babysitting the boy. My mother was not the problem—not entirely, anyway. The big problem was our next-door neighbor Rudy. And he was a problem because the little boy was Black.

Widowed for as long as I can remember, Rudy was a foul-mouthed, grumpy old man who would sit outside on his front steps in the summer months, smoking and occasionally yelling gruff instructions at the neighborhood kids, wearing only green work pants and a T-shirt stained yellow with sweat and tobacco. He was loud and a little scary, but generally he left us alone. Every once in a while, he would even offer me candy, but never without my mother there. Rudy was just as much a fixture of my summer days as the tall oak tree that stood sentry over my house and the green grass under my feet. Rudy was part of the neighborhood.

But something happened when Rudy saw that little boy, whom I only met that one time and whose name I don’t remember. Rudy’s voice got gruffer than normal. He said words I don’t remember now and didn’t understand then. And my mom said we couldn’t play outside anymore that day.

Later, when the boy’s mother came to get him, my mom sheepishly told her that she should no l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Advance Praise for Good White Racist?
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1.   The Good Nation of America (Or, We’re Good, but Not as Good as We Think)
• 2.   The White Empire (Or, You’re Not White—You Just Think You Are)
• 3.   Gaslit and Ghosted (Or, They’re Not Protesting the Flag—and You Know It)
• 4.   The Power of Language (Or, Are You Freaking Kidding Me? No, You Can’t Use the N-Word)
• 5.   The Mis-education of America (Or, Everything You Know about Being a Good White Racist You Probably Learned in Kindergarten)
• 6.   Justifying Ourselves (Or, “But Black People Owned Slaves!”)
• 7.   White People’s Posse (Or, You Just Think You Need to Call the Police)
• 8.   Unequal Justice (Or, Liberty and Justice for White People and White People Only)
• 9.   The Consumption of Bodies (Or, “Step Away from the Hair”)
• 10.   Shiny Happy People (Or, When Good White Racists Go to Church)
• 11.   In Full Color (Or, Where We Go from Here)
• Notes