"White Privilege and coming to grips with it" / Andy Dickson
My first car was a 1980 Mark II Ford Escort. Silver with brown bucket seats. The special edition with square headlights instead of round ones and the little knob on the inside so you could adjust the mirror without winding the window. I opened it with 17 different keys…and a stone! Its gutless 1.3L engine meant that an ascent that began at 100 often ended at 30!
At that time, in the late 90’s, it was the boy-racer car of choice. Bear in mind I had a 1.3L engine with no modifications. It would have been more fitting for a cautious granny than a boy-racer. However, I used to get “randomly” pulled over for checks and breath tests. Regularly. No infringements. Just “random” tests.
In fact, once I was breath tested three times in a night, yet I didn’t drink!
I sold that car 20 years ago and have never been “randomly” pulled over or breath tested since. Not once!
Discrimination. It happens all the time. Consciously or subconsciously we all make judgements about people for many different reasons. The thing about the discrimination I faced was that I could sell my car and my problem was gone. But what if the discrimination comes because of something people have no choice over, like skin colour or ethnicity?
I have friends - well dressed, well groomed, well-spoken Māori and Pasifika friends - who are regularly followed around stores by retail staff. Not retail staff wanting to know if they need help. No, retail staff who are clearly keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t take anything. I have exactly zero white friends who have this same experience (side note, more has been taken from Māori in this country than by them. Their land, for example!).
I heard of a girl who had just been asked in a job interview what made her “want to become a kiwi”, she had a Chinese name, you see. Yet her family has lived in New Zealand for five generations longer than mine. I have never experienced this and neither have any of my white friends.
And the thing is that the people asking these questions, or following my friends around stores, often aren’t horrible people. In fact, they are often very nice people. They are people who would say that discrimination is bad, and that racism is terrible and needs to be stopped.
They are people like me.
That’s the thing that’s really hit home to me over the last few years. By continuing life without seeing the inequality there is in our country I unwittingly perpetuate the issue. You see the majority voice rarely sees the privileges it awards itself.
Oooo there’s that word ‘privilege’. It’s a word that evokes all sorts of emotion for people, sometimes bringing out defiance in white folk like me. We don’t want to think that we are bad in any way. We certainly don’t want to be linked to racism or discrimination. We want to be seen as good people.
But to acknowledge privilege isn’t a moral judgement. It’s just being honest about how life is. About the fact that inequality exists. And about the fact that some of us fall on the beneficial side of that inequality. Let me share some ways that I’ve noticed this privilege working out.
I can treat racism like an academic topic to engage with when it suits me. I am, after all, not the object of the racism. Some friends of mine don’t have that privilege because that are navigating a world where they experience racism and discrimination daily.
I have to work hard for what I have. I have obstacles I have to overcome. The colour of my skin is just not one of those obstacles. Yet statistics show that people of colour get lower wages than white peers in equivalent positions, and get heavier penalties compared to white people who have committed the same crimes. And there are many more stats that show that trend. Skin colour is, statistically, an obstacle for some that I don’t have.
I realised a while back that I expect Māori to be able to operate in a western framework/English language setting, but I couldn’t do the same in a te ao Māori context where te reo Māori was being spoken. So effectively, I am expecting Māori to work harder for the same outcome, or to let go of their culture and adopt mine.
Some would say I’m creating “us and them”, particularly in relation to Māori and Pākehā. And I get it. I used to be passionate about oneness, “let’s all be one” and all that. But I’ve come to realise that, unless we’re prepared to be one within a Māori/indigenous framework, then we’re asking Māori to work within a Pākehā/western framework. But oneness and unity are different. Oneness requires assimilation. Unity celebrates difference and partnership, getting the best of both worlds.
For me to head towards unity means listening, learning, and sharing. Listening to those who aren’t like me and really hearing their perspectives and stories without trying to impose my own perspectives or dismiss their experiences. Learning about the causes of inequality including how and why systems were put in place. Inequality for Māori didn’t just happen. It was legislated very intentionally and the damage from that has never truly been undone. And sharing with others like me about what I’m hearing and learning. The sad reality is that many white folks will take what I have to say more seriously than if someone with darker skin said it. Yet my goal is always to share in ways that point back to the indigenous voices and stories that are shaping me.
And then this pattern is repeated over and over. Race, gender, sexuality, disability, economics, all require me to listen, learn and share. To do whatever I can to disrupt these systems of power imbalance and challenge the status quo.
Because I truly believe a more equitable world is better for us all.
Andy is a husband, a father of three, a poet, writer, and business owner. A former pastor he now hosts the Down to Earth Conversations podcast, interviewing ordinary people who are helping to bring a bit of heaven Down to Earth.
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