Megan Roush Roush is a third-year
American literature and culture student who loves to hear from
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I used to think that racism no longer existed. I used to think
that there was such a thing as reverse discrimination. I used to
think that affirmative action was unfair. Now I realize that I was
wrong in every case.
When people look at me, I assume they think I am white. I
identify as white. But unlike some people, I have an understanding
of the power that “whiteness” brings in our country.
Because I have that understanding, I think it’s necessary to
explain it to other people, in the hopes that they might recognize
the horrible social situation we face today at our university and
in the United States.
I think a lot of white people fail to recognize that they have
inherent privileges because others identify them as white.
“Whiteness” can be considered a kind of property that
merits special privileges in America. If you are familiar with
Plessy v. Ferguson, then you understand to what I am alluding.
Plessy v. Ferguson attempted to challenge the idea that a person
can be easily identified as black or white simply based on his or
her appearance, and the Jim Crow or segregation laws of the south
that mandated whites and blacks be separated in public places.
Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Plessy, a man who could
“pass” for white, was arrested after he sat in the
“whites only” section of a train, but only after he
identified himself as black. If Plessy had not identified himself
as legally black, his white identity might not have been
questioned. His privilege to sit in the “whites only”
section would not have been questioned either. The court upheld the
constitutionality of the segregation laws, thus beginning a long
history of white privilege held up by the legislation of our
country.
Sometimes I wonder if the way I am treated is due to people
identifying me as white. Not only that, but I wonder if my life and
the opportunities I have had are the result of my privileges as a
white person.
You may be thinking, “Even if that is the case, it’s
not your fault. You can’t help being white.” Maybe not,
but it doesn’t stop me from doubting how much I really
deserve all of my opportunities. I see my education, my healthy
physical and emotional upbringing and my material possessions all
as products of white privilege.
I’ve heard many people argue that affirmative action is
wrong because it discriminates against whites who have
“earned their way” to attaining a particular position
or success in general, particularly in the case of acceptance to
universities.
While you might have excelled in high school, I don’t
think you’ve necessarily “earned” much at all.
You were able to get a good education because your parents were
educated well and your parents had money to support you. Whites and
non-whites are simply not on a level playing field, and the
advantages that some white people claim to have
“earned” have all been supported by a network of racist
laws and systems. Your success is not always your doing.
I choose to accept that non-whites might hate me. I don’t
feel I have the right to stop their hatred, because I cannot give
up the privileges that society gives me without my asking because I
appear white. It would be wrong of me to deny the history of this
country in which non-whites were enslaved and oppressed, and
although I nor my immediate relatives may have been directly
responsible for it, the legacy of slavery and racial oppression
lives on.
The legacy lives on in the middle class suburb where I grew up.
In my hometown, will you rarely see someone who doesn’t
appear white, and rarely will you see signs of poverty. I am
ashamed that the community where I grew up constantly fights to
keep affordable housing and apartment development in the outskirts
of the city.
The city’s residents claim that high-rise apartment
buildings will be an eyesore to the quaint town, when it is
perfectly clear that the residents fear that affordable housing
will bring different kinds of people into the community ““
mainly those who are neither middle class nor white.
White people live in the suburbs to escape the dirt and traffic
of urban life because they have the financial resources to do so.
Suburbs enforce a kind of modern-day segregation because housing is
purposely too expensive for non-white families to live in.
When non-white families start to move into a neighborhood, white
families move out. Consequently, the San Fernando Valley has an
apparent racial rift that separates older communities where white
families once lived and the newly developed communities where
whites now live.
White people are reluctant to relinquish the privileges they
receive, such as access to education and jobs, because they feel
they have earned these things. They claim that because their family
established themselves in America such a long time ago (how many
white people have told you they had a relative come over on the
Mayflower?), they have earned their piece of the American dream,
and that illegal immigrants, blacks and other “people of
color” will just have to do the same.
When white people say these kinds of things, I feel steam coming
out of my ears. How can someone be so ignorant as to say that
opportunities are equal among races, and that the eras of
segregation and racial prejudice and discrimination are over? How
can he or she even entertain the possibility that all non-white
families could ever achieve the wealth and socioeconomic power of
white families under the current conditions?
Slavery may have been abolished, but as I have said, the legacy
lives on. How do you account for the passage of Propositions 209
and 21 in California, or UCLA’s dwindling minority
population? You must answer these questions with these simple
answers: whiteness as property, and white privilege.
If you need a visual, visit any rest room on our campus while
it’s being cleaned. I guarantee you will not find a white
person cleaning your toilet.