White Privilege and Knowledge of Self

Radical educator Paulo Freire argued that the purpose of education was humanization. By this he meant that any form of education must begin from the experience and knowledge of the oppressed, and that the oppressed and oppressors must enter into a community of learning.

It strikes me that the current white privilege discussion breaks almost all the rules of humanization. Privilege fundamentally erases the experiences and knowledge of the oppressors and dictates to them a knowledge that they must adopt in order to be considered members of the social justice community.

We must find ways to humanize both oppressors and the oppressed because both the oppressors and the oppressed are, in fact, human.

Before I get to my arguments about a way to call oppressors to a higher consciousness, I want to first credit the folks that I got this idea from, lest I be accused of appropriation. I am in conversation with a number of black nationalists/radicals. One of those who has had the most influence on me is Zone the Divine Mind, a spoken word artist and community organizer from Birmingham.

In contrast to many white "allies," Zone is about calling folks, mostly black, to a higher plane of consciousness and knowledge of self, meaning an understanding of black history and culture and of the way that government, culture, and economics place black folks within the societal hierarchy.  He is fundamentally positive in the belief that this form of consciousness is liberating and empowering.

What occurs to me is that WHITE PEOPLE NEED THIS TOO and that knowledge of self is the goal of the white privilege discussion, but in a dehumanizing way.

Thus, as opposed to privilege, educators need to talk to the oppressors in a way that calls them to consciousness and knowledge of self.

Instead of essentially telling sinners to repent (privilege), knowledge of self opens a conversation about who oppressors are as a people and how we're placed in society.

In contrast to the visceral anger elicited by the privilege discussion, the oppressors respond with curiosity and puzzlement, which is much more amenable to learning than anger.

The discussion can start something like this:

Person lacking knowledge of self: I am not racist; I treat everyone as a human being.
Educator: Only a white person with no knowledge of self would ever claim that they are not racist.

The accusatory tone is now gone and the person lacking knowledge of self is simply puzzled. They ask, implicitly, "why would being racist constitute knowledge of self?"

The next steps may be more difficult, but the educator must demonstrate that global white supremacy exists and that everyone is subject to it, though they may experience it in different and novel ways.

One way to do this is to provide an example. (This is predicated on dealing with people that actually care about racism; we shouldn't be even trying to educate those that do not.)

Person lacking knowledge of self: Global white supremacy may exist, but I don't support or participate in it.
Educator: How can you not participate?  Your tax dollars support the criminal justice system.

This shifts the terrain from individual racism to how global white supremacy constructs the white racial subject.

In essence, whites, though that may want to be non-racist, are forced through government to participate in global white supremacy through paying taxes, which demonstrates that every white is, in fact subject to, though not oppressed by, white supremacy.

This is the beginning of knowledge of self because it shows that whites are racist vis-a-vis their position in the system instead of their individual feelings or beliefs.

It seems that it is time for positivity in the conversation about white racism and this seems to be a better way to get at who white people are and why as opposed to just telling folks, "you're privileged."