Blog Post 1

As I sat on Sunday morning reading this week’s articles on whiteness, I was struck by how similar the narrative was to a long conversation I took part in just a day earlier (as did three other people in this class, so my blog may not be the only mention of this). As a Teach for America Corps Member, I am required to attend professional developments throughout the month where we always have “DEI” or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, sessions. Yesterday’s DEI session focused on something called “detours,” which are attitudes, behaviors, and actions that occur when dealing with conversations around race due to white guilt, denial, or defensiveness. The term detour is used because people “detour” conversations about race to focus on things less uncomfortable or difficult.

In the Picower reading, the section Tools of Whiteness list several statements or sentiments the participants conveyed to ease their white guilt or reassure themselves or others that they were not racist. One participant suggested that if we were all just nicer to one other, everything would be ok. This is an example of detouring called “instant solutions” in which white folks oversimplify the issue but choosing and pushing single solutions to racism, which completely avoids the much deeper roots of the issue. Another participant noted that she too had faced discrimination despite her whiteness because she was Jewish. This form of detouring is referred to as “my privilege is not the only problem,” in which people refocus on other marginalized parts of their identity in an attempt to decrease the amount of privilege they have; they too have been oppressed, so they shouldn’t feel as guilty as another person.

We had a productive and positive conversation as a cohort on Saturday, where I very openly admitted both to myself and to others the types of detours I’m guilty of committing, e.g., bending over backwards and agreeing with everything a person of color has to say or believing I have a “certificate of innocence” because of my job or the fact that I recognize my white privilege. Ironically enough though as I was reading the Picower article, I found myself detouring! Another specific example we talked about was “white on white, and righteously so,” which is when a white person judges another white person for being racist, or simply feels better because they appear to “know more” about racism than other white people. And while reading this article, I couldn’t help but judge these women for their thoughts and feelings as if I was not also a white woman educating minority students. By calling out exactly what it means to detour, it makes it easier to check myself when I’m doing it. There is so much more to this idea and I’d love to bring the notes I have on detouring to class!