I Played With An Addy Doll

First, and most importantly, I would like to set a few ground rules:

• To my non-white friends and family, please know that all are welcome to read this article. However, because of the overt, covert, micro-aggression racist acts that are described herein, I wish to provide a content warning. I know persons of color experience these types of acts daily, and do not need a white girl to remind them of them. White people, however, often lack awareness of the racism inherent in the day to day words, actions. I am hoping to aid my community in developing awareness which I feel is pivotal to change.

• To my non-white friends and loved ones--I see you. I stand with you. You have challenged me to act in my sphere of influence, and I commit to doing that. I hope that this article is the first of many actions I can take to help change what I see; to use my privilege to bring about change.

• This is neither an apology nor an attempt at absolution. Not that I am not sorry for these deeds. But that I do not believe an apology is enough, and will never be enough. Action is the only thing that matters.

I Played with an Addy Doll

I was twenty-three the first time a non-white person tried to explain to me that I had White Privilege. 

I responded from a place of ignorance and misplaced pride. To me, privilege was always the Other White People I grew up around: three story houses, yearly vacations to Cabo and Florida, summer lake cabins, sixteenth birthday sports cars, cell phones and AOL, and brand new everything every Christmas.

My family wasn’t poor. But I was also very aware that there was a difference between my life and those of most of my friends. I am immensely grateful for everything my parents have provided for me. We lived in an apartment, not a house, but we had exquisite home-cooked meals. We didn’t have tropical vacations, but we had canoeing trips--after Labor Day when cabin rentals were cut in half--that are some of the best memories I have from my childhood. My first car was a gift, and even though it was almost as old as I was and missing a letter on the decal, I loved that Pontiac boat.

To me, privilege was a commodity. If you had things, you were privileged; if you didn’t, you were not. So when I was told that White Privilege was a thing, I scoffed. Laughed even. I hadn’t had it so easy. 

It would take me another few years to process what my white privilege meant, and that the privilege that I have as a white woman is more deeply ingrained in everything that I have whether or not I vacationed in Cabo. While I studied hard in college, that hard work was never exacerbated or inhibited by living in a multi-family household. While I worked 30+ hours throughout college, the job I had didn’t demand late nights and was in a safe, white neighborhood. When I got pulled over for a burnt out taillight, the cop pulled up beside me, gave me a verbal warning, and smiled as he drove off. While I have felt fear for my safety walking alone at night, my story is more likely to be believed and my assailant pursued if I were attacked. While I have worked hard to gain advancement in the workplace, the way I speak, act, and look advantageously positions me before my achievements are ever considered. 

I didn’t choose those realities, and I didn’t make decisions one way or another to consciously take advantage of those realities, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And it doesn’t mean that my ignorance is excusable.

But just realizing that I have privilege is only a first, very small step. And I want to take this discussion a bit deeper.

I think when a white person hears about racism, their first reaction is “Not me!” Because who wants to be racist? It makes you look really bad. But that’s because we immediately think of overt racism: lynching, slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws. The things we are taught in History class as though they are shadows of a distant past we have overcome instead of the building blocks of the atrocities we ought to be exploring in Current Events. 

To illustrate the reality of on-going racism in America, we must continually turn the spotlight around the stage of our life to see what might be lurking in the wings--or perhaps giving monologues in leading roles. 

Let me set the scene: I lived in the inner-city for the first five years of my life at which time my mom moved us to the suburbs. I was raised as an evangelical Christian; we are all God’s creations. I was highly active in my church, participating in missions trips to LA and Mexico. I worked various jobs from the age of fourteen to pay for things I wanted. I graduated highschool and then attended University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where I earned a degree in Literary Critique. All around a very average white, midwestern girl who loves the Packers, cheese curds, and polka. 

My American Girl Doll of choice was Addy, and if you were to ask eight-year-old me why that was, I would answer “because her struggle was the hardest.” I saw Mississippi Burning when I was pretty young and to this day would consider it one of my favorite films. I’ve also watched A Time to Kill countless times and have always been struck in the heartstrings in the end when Mathew McConaughey delivers that chilling closing argument where he describes a young, black girl being beaten and raped by a gang of white assailants and finishes with “Now imagine if she was white.” I took a Post-Colonialism literature course taught by a South African man and read Zora Neal Hurston and Chinua Achebe. 

I couldn’t possibly be racist, right?

White Saviour Complex. When I was sixteen, as part of a school project about racism, I made a trip into the city with a friend. Our goal was to take photos of what life in black neighborhoods looked like. We found a park with some kids running about. They seemed curious about what these two white girls were doing. They let us take pictures of them. I even asked one of them if she would hold her hands out, cupped--as though she were asking for something. Another one of the kids knew what I was about--a boy; her older brother? “They want you to look like you’re begging.” We left after that.

White Silence. When I was nineteen, I was at a state semi-final basketball game at one of the inner city highschools, sitting in the near empty stands of our team, predominantly white boys from the suburbs. The game had just finished, our team the victor. The other team, all black, were visibly upset out on the court. Some were sitting, some had knocked over water bottles and chairs, a few had even disappeared to the locker rooms not to return. I sat and listened while the mothers of our team discussed the “appalling” behaviour of the black boys.

White Superiority. When I was twenty-four, I was listening to Juicy by Notorious B.I.G. with a group of friends. When the line came up with the “n-word” I sang it. My friends called me out on the usage and I vehemently defended myself. These are song lyrics. If I can listen to a song, I can sing whatever words in it that I want to. 

Cultural insensitivity. When I was thirty-two, I was checking in with an employee who was training a new-hire. Both men were black. I asked the trainer if he was “showing the new guy the ropes.” The trainer looked at me, all big smiles and said “Anj, you probably shouldn’t ask black people about showing them the ropes.” I stood in shock for a moment, and then he laughed, clapped me on the back and said it was “fine.” He actually went out of his way to save me from my white guilt for not understanding the ignorance of my words. 

Racial Profiling, Tone Policing, etc. I’ve listened to black people talk before and thought “what an eloquent black person.” I’ve stayed away from entire neighborhoods in a city that are known to be “black neighborhoods” because I fear that I might get hurt. I’ve felt my heart rate increase if I’m walking down a street and see a black person walking towards me. I either give the “white people smile” or turn my head down when I walk past black people. I’ve reached out and touched black people’s hair without a care in the world. I’ve gotten defensive and self-righteous when faced with the passionate expressions of a black woman. I’ve found myself “code-switching” the way I speak, completely out of nowhere, when I am around black people.

Racial Slurs, Racial Jokes. But the moment that will sit with me for the rest of my life happened when I was in fourth grade. I was a part of a unique bunch of kids who had been plucked out of the other three grade schools in the district to be among the first group of students to attend a newly reopened school. It was a special year because, unlike other fourth graders who were still going to the same school and had all the same best friends, all of us were the new kids. And in a somewhat surprising reality, all of the girls in my class got along. We were all of us friends, insofar as I can remember. 

I had been invited to a birthday sleepover party. I was one of six or seven girls. The birthday girl was my very best friend. We all had a blast! Played games, dress-up, watched movies--did we sleep? I have no idea. But I remember distinctly the next morning as we were all around the dining table having syrup filled pancakes and waiting for parents to come get us, the one black girl came up to me, all smiles, all kindness, and asked if I was finished. She was going to take my plate into the kitchen for me. Being the theatrical little goober I was, I put on the best english accent I could muster and what words should I utter from my mouth, “Yes! Take these dishes away, slave.”

“I don’t remember her name.”

I don’t remember her name. I don’t know if what I said upset her. I don’t remember if I got reprimanded or corrected. But I remember that moment. 

Recently, I’ve seen threads on social media where black people describe the first moment they experienced racism. For that girl, was I that moment? 

Had she been given “the conversation” that black parents give their children? The one where they teach you how not to die at the hands of a white person? Act this way and white people will like you. Dress this way and they won’t label you troublemaker or thug. Be polite. Don’t speak like that. And even after she had obeyed the words of her mother and father. After being kind and asking if she could help me. After all the effort, all the weight of pressure to be “good”--she was still met with insensitive language. She was still made into a joke by a white girl who played with an Addy doll.

For a long time I have held onto the idea that I am a “good white person.” But the work of dismantling systemic racism requires my observation of how I play a part in upholding those systems. My intention in sharing these moments with you is to hopefully normalize the discussion of racism and the many ways it shows up in America. Some of you may think these are innocent, innocuous, explainable, and forgivable. And maybe they are. But I’m not going to be the judge of that. 

I am going to be very clear: This is not an apology. Because while I am emphatically sorry for what I have done and do, apologies are not enough. This is not an action of shame. Because while I do feel shame, my shame is nothing compared to the shame black people who are made to feel as a result of white supremacy in America. This is not to clear my conscience. Because while I do feel a sense of freedom in my mind for stating these facts, I must pay the debt of racism that has afforded me privilege. No airing out of dirty laundry will fix the issue. Only Action Can Do That.

If you see, you can know. If you know, you have the choice to take action. For me, the first step of being anti-racist was to examine my life. This is a starting point for me. And will be a lifelong pursuit. The ways I engage with this movement will grow, adapt, and evolve as I continue to teach myself. If you are certain that you want to be anti-racist, but aren’t sure where to start--start here. Find the racism in your life because it is there. It’s uncomfortable to self-reflect in this way, but it’s the necessary work if you want to see change. 

Image from Temple University installation by Kara Springer, 2016.

And then take action. These are 3 actions you can do today :

1. Call, email, or text another white person in your life and tell them about ways you have been racist before. Discuss why these actions are acts of racism. Discuss how you can prevent yourself from doing them going forward, and how you might intervene if you see another white person do the same things.

2. Read 5 articles written by a non-white person about systemic racism in this country. Call, email, or text another white person and tell them the name of the articles you read and give them a brief description of the article. If they express interest, share the article.

3. Donate. Financially support to something you believe in can be a challenge, made even greater by a global pandemic. But I encourage you to find a way to manifest even $5 in your life. Sell something you no longer use in your house. Make something and sell it. Ask your community for donations.