Photo from flickr user Steffern239 used under creative commons. Cropped from original.
Wasp
I am a WASP, a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male. I also happen to be heterosexual, able-bodied, and from an upper middle class family. In addition to these characteristics I inherited at birth, I also have a bachelors and masters degree, a car that is completely paid off, a house that is about 10 years from being paid off, and only $6k in student debt. All of this is to say that I am better than you, or at least that is what our society has led some to believe. If I’m entirely honest, I too have sometimes been led to believe this whether consciously or subconsciously. The reality is that because of predetermined factors at birth I have privileges others do not.
I cannot think of a single minority category into which I fall. This has meant that never once have I wondered if I was given, or not given, an opportunity based on my race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Growing up I was one to deny that racism, sexism, heterosexism and nearly any other type of oppression still existed in America. To be fair, until I left for college I never saw any of that, or at least I wasn’t looking for it. The more I have stepped outside on my little WASP box and interacted with my brothers and sisters who are different from me the more I have learned how far our society really is from giving everyone equal opportunity.
If you do not believe that racism and oppression are still prevalent in our society then there is little I can do in a blog post to make you believe any different. Instead I would encourage you to read some James Cone, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, or watch one of the many TED talks about discrimination in our nation and in our world. More importantly I would encourage you to talk to a friend or acquaintance that is different from you. Sit down with someone who fits a minority population to which you do not belong and ask how they’ve experienced discrimination in their lives. Go out and find someone from an earlier generation. Ask them about the civil rights movement, about the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and John F. Kennedy. Listen to their stories of pain, of struggle, and of fighting for liberty and freedom.
I full heartedly admit that I write this post out of ignorance. As I have already made clear, I don’t know what it’s like to experience discrimination. I believe, however, among people like me that admission is the first step in bringing about justice and equality. Those of us who are in privileged positions must daily live with that realization if we ever want to live in a society where neither oppression nor privilege exists. If we ignore our advantages then we too are ignoring the disadvantages that others experience. The very act of pretending that racism, sexism, heterosexism, and the like do not exist is something only afforded to those in privilege. Meanwhile, those who experience oppression must live with that reality everyday.
For this reason we cannot afford to use terms like “color-blindness” or “reverse-racism”. These are terms used by those in power in efforts to maintain and strengthen their power. If this were not such a serious matter it would be laughable that those terms have even entered into our vocabulary. No, instead we must bring to light the inequality that exists in our society. We must be willing to speak out when we see others mistreated or barred from certain rights or privileges because of the demographic they were born into.
How are we going to bring about full equality? I don’t know. I once believed that I could bring about equality. I figured since I am in such a position of privilege and power I ought to use that so that I can get ahead. After all, it would be better for a WASP who knows he’s a WASP to be in power than one who is unaware of his own privilege, right? The more I listen to my brothers and sisters who are different from me I learn how wrong I truly was, and am. Change is not going to come from white males in power talking with a bunch of other white males about how it’s wrong that only white males are in power. In speaking against the phrase “the end justifies the means” Martin Luther King Jr. said in The Trumpet of Conscience, “the ends are not cut off from the means… because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.”
King was speaking against using violence to achieve peace but the reasoning holds true with bringing about equality. The tree of equality as an end can only come from the seed of equality as the means. By this I mean that we cannot wield the power of WASPs to bring about equality but rather we must yield the power of WASPs to bring about equality. I once thought that I could help the fight for equality by infiltrating places dominated by white males in order to say that we needed more women and minorities in these places. I now realize that perhaps the greatest statement would be to turn away those opportunities until a more just and equal system was in place.
Perhaps this very post is an exercise in hypocrisy. UMCLEAD has a great diversity of bloggers yet here I am as a white male writing a post on oppression and diversity. I welcome your accountability, your comments, and your suggestions. I welcome my brothers and sisters who are Black, Asian, Latino, gay, bi, trans, female, poor, disabled, or of any other population to which I do not belong to chime in and offer your thoughts. I may not know exactly how we’re going to bring about equality and the end of oppression but I am certain that silence and inaction will never bring it about.
The Rev. Brandon Lazarus is a recent graduate of Perkins School of Theology and a Licensed Local Pastor in the South Carolina Annual Conference. He serves as the Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Clover, SC.