Racism is one of the important subjects in this course. The three articles, Whiteness, Michelle Obama’s autobiography and South Bronx helped me to understand how and why racism works in society. While whiteness has long been forming the basis of systemic racism and its impacts can be seen in many parts of the social environment, I believe that the correct understanding of whiteness is effective in removing systemic racism from society.
To begin with, Michelle Obama’s perception of racism and diversity left a deep impression on me. In Michelle Obama’s autobiography, she experienced some racism when she was a college student. Yet she knew what she should prioritize, the study. On page 79, she says “I realized that they weren’t all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.” (“They” means the whtie male students.) I think this quote allows us to understand what she thought of racism in her college. She probably believed in the merit system, which the system of race-based determination cannot apply to. That is why she was trying to learn as much she could for the sake of the day when she would be fairly determined based on her ability, not her race. In addition, she uses an unique expression, “floating on an ancient tide of superiority.” It sounds like she thought of whiteness as a concept that should no longer exist in modern society. She also expresses what she, as an African-American female student, felt toward diversity in the college. She felt that “the burden of assimilation is put largely on the shoulders of minority students.” This quote made me think that society should discuss not only how to eliminate racism, but also how to build a bridge of communication that both people of color and white people can harmonize without any hesitation or psychological pressure. This is because even if people of color get the racial equality, such psychological pressure to get along with whtie people might build an invisible barrier between them, allowing whiteness to survive and eventually to generate the next bias in society.
The article about Whiteness and the South Bronx helped me to realize that whiteness still harms Americans of color in the shape of systemic racism. According to Lipsitz, the US history of colonialism, slavely, immigration restriction and segregation, etc. has been forming the concept that determines one’s value based on whether they are white or nonwhite. For example, the racial inequalities can be seen in housing. Lipsitz explains that lenders are likely to be more permissive about white people’s discredit in their economic records than that of Black applicants (Lipsitz 12). Moreover, since the mid 1990s, lenders started recommending more risky loans for people of color than white people (Lipsitz 13). What these examples reveal is that collective individual prejudice toward people of color play a significant role as a part of systemic racism. Such systemic racism creates a disadvantageous environment for marginalized people. In Tolchin’s article, it is well documented that the South Bronx in the late 20th century, where Puerto Ricans occupied 65% of the town’s population and Hispanics and Blacks occupied the rest of the percentage, faced extremely concentrated poverty and crimes. Tolchin states that “city, state and Federal agencies now seem to be abandoning much of their efforts to reclaim the South Bronx.” I think abandoning the town consisted of nonwhite people can be said to be a type of systemic racism because those living in the area were not able to have the same access to quality education, healthcare, the guarantee of safety and so on as people living in other cities had. Such an environment further creates racial inequality in health conditions. According to Lipsitz, race-based housing segregation and urban redevelopment generated a toxic environment where mostly nonwhite people live (Lipsitz 10). It is clear that environmental problems such as the exposure to toxic waste, the air quality, the water security, the weak access to healthcare, etc. allows a lot of potential pathways in such an environment to lead the community into chronic unhealthiness. Although I do not have any evidence, it is possible that the unjust social environment results in the concentration of COVID-19 nowadays, andI think the connection between this unhealthy environment and COVID-19 will be analyzed in a few years. In short, systemic racism is the way some white people try to protect their privilege of being white, therefore I believe whiteness is contributing to the racial inequalities in various aspects of the social structure.
Since whiteness has a long history in the United States, there are of course other viewpoints to it. What I found interesting in Lipsitz’s article was the result of the study. It reported that “a majority of whites actually believed that they face more discrimination for being white than African Americans face for being Black” (Lipsitz 17). I think this idea is also affected by whiteness, which has been too common to some white people. In the era seeking the racial equality in the US, the privilege of being white has been disappearing while people of color have been gradually acquiring an equal social status. Personally, that argument reported in the study misunderstands what people of color truly want to achieve. The purpose of pursuing racial equality is not meant to blame white people. Importantly, what we should be aware of is that people of color desire whiteness itself to fade away.
To sum up, systemic racism rooted in whiteness has been limiting opportunities that people of color should be given and creating a racial inequalities in a social environment. Furthermore, the words Michelle Obama allowed me to notice that achieving diversity needs to be done in cooperation with everyone in the country. These ideas lead me to a conclusion; the correct understanding of the problem of whiteness will take a great step forward to eliminate both whiteness and racial equality.
(1000 words)