The Shame of Privilege

i think one

of the most pathological

things i have ever seen

is

stabbing

someone

and

then telling them that

their

pain and anger

over being stabbed

is

making you sad.

--- white guilt

Extracted from Salt by Nayyirah Waheed

These words seem to pulsate on the page in front of me. Pulsate with rage. Pulsate with pain. There is an uncomfortable weight in my belly. I feel a little unwell. The words, staggered across the paper, get under my skin and keep going, squirreling their way into the dark recesses of my heart and mind. These hidden places where my embarrassment hides, shy away from the light of self-reflection. My embarrassment at my identity and what it represents to so many.

I am South African. And I am white.

It is a part of me that remains a source of conflict. In most areas of my life, I see myself as my own person. I don’t often consider those who came before me, preferring to define myself by my own actions and experiences. But the reality of where I was born clings to my conscience and refuses to let go. People like me built a country around the idea that they were better than the black and coloured kids that I went to school with. They built a country designed to give me every opportunity to succeed; for me to reach great heights, propped up on the backs of those oppressed. My privilege was made possible by stripping the humanity from generations of African hearts.

I never saw apartheid in its legislative form. I never experienced it as an enforced policy. It was always referred to in the same tone as the dark ages were, by parents and teachers and in news reports. A time of massacres and dystopic political control a time ended by the bravery and humanity of freedom fighters. There was an atmosphere of rebirth in South Africa throughout my childhood. South Africa could now stand united and strong. Yet through a child’s innocent eyes, the deep scars left by generations of racial oppression were glaringly obvious. My country felt like a train carriage full of people trying desperately not to stare at the glossy disfigurements of a burn victim, simultaneously hypnotised by their wounds and doing everything in their power to avoid acknowledging their existence. In no way did this remove the existence of the problem.

Pressures in the white community to remain positive about the new South Africa allowed many to pretend that the damage was relegated to the past, along with the regime itself. Young and oblivious to these pressures, I entered primary school and instantly noticed that things were different. Looking back, I am surprised by the detailed observations that I still remember, perhaps the consequence of a curious child confronted by things he didn’t understand. When my third-grade teacher announced that we would be doing swimming for PE that term, I couldn’t be more excited.

I had been going to swimming lessons since I was five years old and had a swimming pool in my backyard. Sitting on the side of the pool, watching others attempt to swim laps, I was given my first reality check; most of the black kids in my class had not been given the same opportunities as me. I didn’t understand it at the time. Why hadn’t their parents sent them to Tanya down the road to learn how to do backstroke? For the first time, I began to understand that I was privileged.

 If I had been swimming with my classmates 15 years earlier, half of them would not be allowed in the same pool as I was and most likely wouldn’t be my classmates at all. The massacres may have been a thing of the past, but I walked into my school every day many steps ahead of my black peers. I had new school shoes, I watched educational TV shows, and my parents were highly educated and helped me with my homework. I had a maid who made me lunch and a gardener who looked after my expansive backyard. Both black. Regardless of the arguments for job creation, there was an established hierarchy whereby grown adults had to serve me, an eight-year-old because I was born to have an easier path through life. Not because I worked harder or was more deserving. But because of what my predecessors had done. Because I am white.

With this history acting as the kettle to the steam of my achievements, how can I go on without seeing a stain discolouring my identity? How can I feel proud of who I am and what I have achieved? My privilege breeds discontent in what I have and what I see. All of my life I have not been able to escape its cloying, sour taste. As I grew up, I realised I have accepted it, I have begun to see it as a reality of life. Content in my discontentedness.

Because that is what guilt is. It is the least productive of any human emotion. I feel guilty for my privilege and that benefits no one. It does not reduce the harm those of my race have inflicted on others. It does not lift up those who were born with darker skin. It is an act of recognition and nothing more. There is nothing progressive in this guilt— it simply sits and festers in my mind, uncomfortably twisting my stomach when I am confronted by inequalities and others abusing their privilege. It is a feeling that can easily leave me paralysed, aware of my advantage and impunity but at a loss as to what to do about it.

I hesitate to come out as a crusader for racial equality, as the idea that I have any knowledge of the pain or struggles or even the best way forward for any person of colour feels like, a perpetuation of my privilege. The expression of my feelings of guilt seems like a distraction from the issue at hand. Positioning myself as the victim of an uncomfortable reality inevitably engages a comparison of pain with those who are truly suffering at the hands of an inherently prejudiced society.

It once again centres the focus on the feelings of a white person in a dialogue that should have nothing to do with pandering to people like me. If we become a non-racial society like so many white allies claim they want to achieve, will it serve as  absolution for the past actions of the white community? Are the efforts of well-meaning white people to undo the structural bias merely an act of penance? If so, is it really the best I can do?

Fighting for equality as a result of my white guilt feels like a service to my pride rather than any disadvantaged community. What does that leave as an alternative? Resting easy on the immense freedom afforded to me because of the colour of my skin? The white community is making no effort to offer a hand up to the people it has held down for so long. I  have yet again found myself in the shadow of an excuse for inaction. While the argument for cultural autonomy is a valid one, it is not a means to wash our hands of responsibility and ignore the work required to achieve an equal society.

My drive to understand this deep-set discomfort in my relationship with the world is very much rooted in my own family history. My mum has told me stories since I was very young of my grandparents’ efforts during apartheid. Their work has always inspired me to question my own actions. After starting and working with the Young Christian Workers (YCW) in South Africa, my grandfather and grandmother got involved in the beginnings of the black trade union movement in South Africa. The YCW was an organisation that believed in the fundamental equality of all people, and Eric and Jean Tyacke contributed to improving conditions for black African workers throughout the country. This involved travelling to townships such as Soweto, where white people were not known to go, working within those communities to educate workers about their rights and providing support in the early battles against employers for basic work and human rights. This work was illegal and both of them were banned from doing it by the government. This meant that they had to leave their work immediately by order of the Security Police; they weren’t allowed to be involved in the publication of any material, were not allowed in any educational institution and were not allowed to be in the company of any other banned person.

Being a married couple, however, the government had to make a rare concession to allow them to be in each-others’ company. As the power of the regime weakened over time by sanctions and dwindling public support, black trade unions were legalised, and my grandfather returned to work with the YCW for the rest of his career.

My mother’s childhood was shaped by their attitudes, and my childhood was littered with stories about them and how her school friends were shocked walking into their house and seeing whites and blacks sitting together, drinking tea and chatting. “What was unusual about my parents, particularly my father,” she says, “is that he really had black friends. He always had a black social group, which was unusual even for those working against apartheid.” It was something that was completely opposite to the propaganda of the government at the time, but my grandparents didn’t care. They did not let themselves become indoctrinated. They engaged with everyone as an equal. My late grandfather was a man unfazed by the questions that I am battling with. He saw people being treated badly and he found a way to contribute to the fight for a better world.

My family has nurtured me and my sister with these values as we grew into adults. Whether it was stories or actions, the value of empathy and service was an enduring theme. After I graduated from high school, I decided to take a year off to live in Cambodia, before going on to university.. As a newly recognised adult and free from the structure of school, I was enamoured with the idea of going somewhere a little wild and passing on the knowledge that I had gained by teaching English in a small village. I was aware of how lucky I was to have received the private school education that I had, and I was eager to share it with those less advantaged than me. I arrived in Cambodia with optimism and a simple goal: to try and help those who needed it.

A first, everything seemed great. My classes were engaging and enriching, and my students had a desire to learn that I had never seen in an Australian school. I felt like I was genuinely making a difference to people’s lives, and my own life was so much better for it. But there were also inherent issues that I had to confront. The international volunteers, myself included, lived in a compound above the school, separate from the village. It was a situation that garnered a white saviour complex in the volunteers. Sure, we were there to help the community but removing ourselves from it created an inescapable superiority., As if the gates were unlocked for  students to come and benefit from the generous souls who had come all this way to bestow knowledge  on the peasants.

I and one of the other Australian volunteers fought hard to be allowed to live in the village and successfully organised a simple room above the house of a family. It was when I was actually living in the village, using their language to the best of my ability, cooking their food, and living their lifestyle, that I realised that majority of our interactions with the local community were based on the ideology of white supremacy.

 The Westernisation of the world has reduced the value of their culture in our eyes. The idea that learning a language from an 18-year-old with no formal teaching training could enhance your chances of being ‘successful’ sounds absurd in theory but is the driving force behind volunteer projects such as the one I was involved in. Fluency in English has become an undeserving and inaccurate, but nonetheless prevalent measure of intelligence and potential. Because of  language, this emphasis inevitably elevates the perceived intellect of white people and led to my whiteness turning me into some form of celebrity in the village when I first arrived. People wanted to take photos with me. I was asked to go to the front of the queue when buying groceries and eyes would follow me through the streets as I made my way to class.

I was again faced with the reality that I was part of a system that perpetuated white dominance and privilege, one that positioned the advantages and successes that I have benefitted from as something to aspire to. Even in the world of charity, white and Western supremacy is the foundation of the artificial hierarchy of power.

Throughout my life, I have seen the far-reaching, entrenched effects of the white power dynamics that have shaped much of history. So much of the comfort I have enjoyed has been a result of the advantages afforded to me for the skin I was born with. The burning shame that washed over me when I first read Nayyirah Waheed’s words is not something I should work to dispel. This is not a burden that should weigh me down, but instead motivate me to never stop questioning  the world and my attitudes towards it.

I came back from Cambodia and enrolled in the University of Sydney, and there I found an entire microcosm of culture and politics. I met passionate advocates and activists for the equality and rights of Indigenous Australians and their perspective was always one of action. In a conversation I had with Akala Newman, a proud Aboriginal Australian student at the university and my friend, she expressed the need for the community to come together as one to support each other in this fight.

“It needs to be a collective effort with respect given to the voices of the people who it actually effects,” she says, “it is important to know when to be quiet, you listen and you learn, and then you can go and talk to those who don’t understand because as a white person, you have a voice and people will listen. We need to stop crying because it is still happening. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder and fight to get justice.”

Ultimately, I am a white man and I have freedom that some can only dream of. I will be listened to and, like my grandfather, I can use my freedom to empower those who do not have my privilege. I cannot speak for those who have suffered or decide what is best for them, but I have immense privilege and the power to change the world around me. I will probably  never have definitive answers to my questions and discomfort.

Societies from around the world have come a long way but there is still so far to go. In order to keep moving towards our ideals of equality, we must recognise our own prejudices and privileges. I will never stop learning if I never stop questioning. With each new thing I learn, I can help challenge and educate those perpetuating the biases. There will always be a divide and I will never be able to change the world on my own.

But together we can face up the uncertainties and discomforts and create a more cohesive and uplifting community. Perhaps, one day this generation and future generations of Cambodians, Africans, Indigenous Australians, and other marginalised people can employ their own agency and freedom to reshape and rebuild their world.

A world of their own imagination, not that of a white man’s.