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I know, but if you're afraid that your neighbor is a member
of an Al-Queda sleeper cell, you're probably barking up
the wrong tree and that's not a logical, rational fear.
But a rational fear of what inequality and white privilege
is going to do to the planet, that one makes sense to me.
And I'll speak to that one this evening.
But if anybody else wants to chime in on the fear issue,
whether it's fear of difference, fear of change, maybe classroom
experiences that you've had that confirm that, or your own
experiences and how you work with it and how you speak to it,
that would be great.
(Maurice Tracey). Hello.
Can you hear me now?
Hello?
Okay, my name is Maurice Tracey, I'm a grad student here,
and my question is, I write for the Daily Eastern News,
I write a column that runs twice a month.
And I get a lot of flak about it, and it's more of a two-part
question because I also saw your thing on 20/20, and the thing
I found most interesting about this, which goes along with my
question, is, out of all the segments, it was called,
Privilege in America, and they conceded with every single
segment that there is, privilege until it came to your segment,
and that's when they did bring out Shelby Steele to say it's
not about white privilege, it's about black, and therefore
minority responsibility.
And I wrote a column a couple of weeks back about
this Facebook group called One Million White Students.
And I'm wondering, like, how do you confront that when you
do bring up to somebody that there is such a thing
as white privilege and they don't want to hear it.
And then on the other hand, in one of my graduate classes
the other night, we were discussing the canon,
because I'm a literature student.
And most of the people in my class are liberals,
but the thing that really struck me was just like this
blind liberal type of racism.
So how do you deal with those two things, especially when
I voice and I'm automatically accused of, you're just being
the black gay person that's all you care about basically.
So how do you deal with that?
(Tim). Okay, you've got a couple
of things in there.
The first thing, let me speak to the 20/20, the only segment
where they really did any effort to debunk the notion was
the white privilege segment.
Although, I will tell you, I was actually very pleased with
the segment as it came out, and I'll tell you why.
Because, I knew going in, that this was John Stossel
and Stossel is horrible on these issues.
He considers himself a libertarian, but libertarian
views on race and racism tend to be that it's not really
a problem, and if it is, then free market can solve it,
and all this sort of nonsense.
So, I knew going in that there was risk, but the producer
assured me that they would do it fairly, and although I wish they
hadn't given Shelby Steele the last word, and I gave them
12 minutes of rebuttal to Shelby Steele in the interview,
none of which they used.
Because it was ABC, because it was John Stossel, the fact that
the first five minutes, before they even got to Shelby was,
well, Chris Rock doing his bit, which was cool, and then me,
and then they talked about the three or four studies they
had done themselves which had confirmed white privilege.
So the first five minutes is basically, yep,
this definitely exists.
Then they went to Shelby, but the good thing about it was at
the end what Stossel said, and for him,
this was monumental, right?
The last, going away line is, "So, white privilege exists,
but maybe it's not the whole story."
Okay, fine, that's fine, I'm okay with that.
If that's all I can get out of John Stossel, I'm happy with it.
Because if you watch the actual segment, you would definitely
know the data, the evidence was clear, and what Shelby Steele
was speaking to has nothing to do with white privilege.
This is what I tried to tell Stossel, he wanted me to get in
an argument over whether black people were responsible enough.
I said, you know, we can spend hours on it, and I think he's
wrong, but even if I thought Shelby Steele were right,
what does it have to do with my responsibility to deal
with white privilege?
Especially if Shelby Steele is going to be the apostle
of personal responsibility or Bill Cosby is going to be, or
if Thomas Sowell is going to be, or if other black conservatives
are going to say, we need to take personal responsibility,
cool, where does that leave me?
What am I responsible for?
Oktoberfest and the St. Patty's Day parade?
What the hell?
Like, personal responsibility means white folks have to deal
with our two dimes and the quarter, so to speak.
And for us to sit back and say, yes, black people,
do what Shelby Steele says.
That's not personal responsibility,
that's other responsibility.
So, it seemed to me it wasn't relevant and I think that came
across to most of the viewers whom I've talked to who saw it.
That it wasn't really a rebuttal of what I was saying, it might
be true, it might not be true, but it's an independent point.
As far as how you deal with people who don't want to hear
about it or don't believe it is real.
The good thing is, I think what I've learned, and what I'm going
to do this evening in this larger community speech where
it's going to be a much different cross section
of people, lot of students, I hope, that maybe haven't been
initiated into this and might be among those who
are more resistant to the concept.
What I try and do is I start off by telling personal stories,
the reason that I wrote the book that I wrote, "White Like Me,"
which I'll be happy to sell you if you want one.
My little plug for my childrens' college education fund.
And in the book, what I tried to do, the whole point,
and what I'll do this evening, is start off by telling a story
about myself which demonstrates the way which white privilege
operates and how it helps people, even white people who
aren't wealthy, because I certainly wasn't, who don't have
money, because we certainly didn't, but how it nontheless
has shaped the very track that I have been on throughout my life,
and then talk about how that's been true for all.
And what I've found is that when you tell a personal story,
it actually is the best way to ease into this conversation.
It's one thing to just hit people with a bunch of data that
aren't ready for it, because folks will always dispute
your data.
Because they don't want to hear your data they can always say
you can make numbers say anything, actually, you can't,
two plus two is going to equal four every day, but, it's true
that statistics can be manipulated and so I'm sort of
glad that there is a cynicism about that.
So, I think if you tell a story that actually demonstrates how
that's worked in your own life, and you challenge other people
to think, how does that apply to you, or maybe it doesn't
but tell me about your life.
I have yet to meet the white person who, if I asked them
enough about their life where they're from, who their parents
are, what their folks did, where they went to school,
what jobs their parents had, I've yet to find a white person
who has been in this country for more than a second who I cannot
demonstrate as a receipient of white privilege.
I don't go out of my way to do that, it's not like I walk up
to people in the mall and give them a quiz, but I'm just saying
white folks who don't want to hear it, if you tell your own
story, sometimes it connects with them, instead of being
seen as a, well, here, you're an idiot, and here's all the data,
and here's all the facts.
Here's what happened with me, you tell me how your life
differs and then we can have a conversation about it,
and see if it applies or see if it doesn't.
I think storytelling is usually the best way to do that,
and I think question asking is the other way.
If people are blocking a conversation, asking them
questions to get them to the truth you want them to see.
It's usually a better mechanism for the uninitiated
and the unwilling than the didactic, here's what you need
to believe method.
(Penka Skachkova). Hi, I'm Penka Skachkova,
I'm the coordinator of the Women's Studies program
here on the campus.
And as probably many of you know, but just also for our
speaker, we are already starting an initiative to look at the
academic climate on the campus for minorities and for women.
And our way of doing that was by reading academic ***
mysteries, without suggesting that *** is the only way
to solve for racism, sexism, and all the other isms.
But at least we approached this very tense
and very controversial issues in a more entertaining way.
And you did mention about the fact that many campuses have
made efforts to diversify their campuses.
Their membership with the faculty and students from
diverse background, national origin included especially,
after September 11 for when many foreigners felt like strangers
not wanted in this country and expelled, fired, and deported.
However, despite bringing small numbers of women and minorities
to the campuses around all the whole country, one especially
important question, one that is missing, is the quality
of those numbers.
The question, are the numbers enough?
Is it important only to bring only 500 African-Americans
students or 500 women, or are we looking for what kind of groups
they represent or whether they really feel that they represent
the groups that they have been thought that
they're representing.
And quite often on a daily experience, we could feel that
there are token representatives that don't link to their groups
on the campuses.
Women's studies, ethnic studies, gay and lesbian communities,
and so forth, and then the numbers don't talk much.
They are very good statistical affirmative action
and all the other reports, but at the same time,
they don't bring any quality to the climate on the campus.
And so speaking of the climate on the campus, and speaking
something about what radical feminists, anti-racist activists
have been doing for so many years is not to quit,
not to go into exile, not to drop the university,
not to drop a class, if you disagree with the politics
of your professor not to leave the university, not to leave
the country, but to stay with it, but to stay within the
campus and try to develop alliances and try to do some
work that will make this place a much better place for people
from diverse backgrounds.