Solidarity and White Privilege
I was recently at a student chapel of a well known Midwestern Christian college; sponsored by a student group called ‘Solidarity’. It is my sense that Solidarity desired to expose the student body (majority of which is white, European descent) to an ugly residual racism that still lingers in the shadows, not only in the world, but also in the US and more to their point— even just beneath the Christian surface on their very campus. It wasn’t a blatant anger of class or race. That would be easy to identify and to ferret out. This was far more subtle. They labeled it ‘white privilege’ but that also is far too simplistic and unnecessarily offensive. Better, it is the residue of composite unresolved historic people-upon-people injustice left by our go-to strategy of ‘amnesia’.
In his excellent book, ‘The Healing of Nations’, Mark Amstutz says that one of the key strategies that governments take to deal with their tragic histories of people-upon-people crimes is ‘amnesia’. He writes,
‘Amnesia is based on neglect and even denial. Although forgetting is seldom defended as an official governmental policy, nations, like individuals, can only stand so much truth. Indeed states, like people, are not eager to acknowledge their errors, sins and shortcomings. Thus, while truth telling is important, some periodic forgetting may also be essential if a people are to be freed from captivity of the past.’ (19)
He gives as an example Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland’s first democratically elected prime minister who, in a speech to the Polish parliament in 1990 said,
“We draw a thick line between ourselves and the past.”(19)
I think that what Solidarity is struggling to describe is this awkward oppressive-lite ‘thick line’ that is supposed to cover over all of the residual hurtful aspects of our corporate narrative—but it doesn’t. They are trying to connect with the souls of victims and descendents of victims who are implicitly being asked to accept the strategy of ‘amnesia’ because it is the right thing to do.
It is not just ‘white privilege’.
It is my sense that this labeling is derogatory and hardly moves us the needed direction for healing. So let me come alongside of them and try to give a better description to the beast. See more