I am white.
I have a penis.
I like women, specifically one woman, my wife.
These three traits-skin color, gender, sexuality-make me arguably the second most powerful force in human history (I’ll talk about this more in later sections). Before we continue, let me just add that these arbitrarily assigned characteristics shouldn’t make me more or less influential than anyone else. People, specifically those who look like me, twisted nature to their advantage in a centuries-long pursuit of power and influence.
Okay, back to what I was saying. The only thing keeping me from the top spot is money. I’m middle-class. If this sounds like I’m complaining, let me assure you I’m not. Life for this heterosexual, middle-aged white guy is pretty good overall. I’m married, have two awesome kids, a beagle, a house, a car and a job I mostly enjoy. I also have health insurance and a retirement plan. I’d love to make more, mostly so I could pay off my student loans and put more away for our boys, but I don’t need or necessarily want extravagance. I’d just like a little more cushion.
My life isn’t exactly stressful nor is it comfortable. Daycare is expensive, as is the mortgage. Still, my family can afford to get a Starbucks and even go out for dinner but that likely means we’ll need to get creative at the end of the month. Before you right me off as a tone-deaf douche, let me just say that my wife and I know we shouldn’t spend that money. However, we don’t really make big ticket purchases. I know others in my demographic who buy boats or big screen televisions. We financially hurt ourselves with a thousand nicks as opposed to a few slashes.
Oh, and we live on a public golf course.
So, what’s my point? Well, to be blunt, I’m an idiot. Now, I’m not as clueless as I once was, but unlearning a reality takes willful effort and time. I’m happy to say I’m a lot less clueless than I was a decade ago and yet I have a long way to go. These essays are an attempt to contextualize how I got to be so daft when it comes to questions of race. These writings are also the story of the events that got me to question the reality I was taught and mindlessly occupied for so long.
Let me back up a bit and try to give you the short version of the long view. I’m originally from Olympia, Washington. At age six, my mom, stepdad and I moved down to San Diego where we lived in military housing (my stepdad was in the Navy). We stayed there for three years before moving to Phoenix for three years then back to San Diego for about a year. We moved back to Olympia after my stepdad had a heart attack and had to retire from the military.
I spent a large part of my formative years around people who didn’t look like me. I had white friends, but I also had black and brown friends. In San Diego, the neighbors on either side of us were Filipino-Americans. This wasn’t some idyllic colorblind utopia where everyone got along all the time. I once got in a fight with a black girl named Tamu. I called her a bitch. She hit me with my skateboard. I don’t remember which of these things happened first. My stepdad once had to break up a front yard brawl involving one of those Filipino-American neighbors and what I believe was a mistress. Shit happened but shit happens everywhere.
Then we moved back to Washington. We ended up in a small town called Shelton which was (is) mostly white. I went to Tumwater High School, which was mostly white at the time. Afterwards, I went to a mostly white community college then to the mostly white Washington State University. After college I moved to the mostly white Portland, Oregon. A few years later I moved to the mostly white state of Iowa to pursue a master’s degree. I returned to the mostly white Shelton, Washington near the end of my time in graduate school.
I didn’t stop to think about this history until a few years ago when I got a job at the University of Washington Tacoma. The campus sits in the middle of Downtown Tacoma. The student body is a healthy mix of people from different backgrounds and different lived experiences. I hadn’t seen this kind of diversity since leaving San Diego at age 14. I was in my mid-thirties when I started at the university. By this time, I had no black or brown friends. Zero. How was this possible?
I lived a segregated life for more than 20 years. I don’t remember what my 14-year-old self thought about returning to Washington. I don’t know if I took one look around and said, ‘where is everyone?’ That kid was nervous and tired. I cringed at the thought of being the new kid again. My stepdad’s heart attack and my own insecurities left me blind to the rest of the world. I was insular and mostly concerned with being a stranger among friends who’d known each other since elementary school. I had braces, acne and a scrawny body made of knees and elbows. I didn’t think much about the world at large. I just wanted to get through high school.
So, maybe I don’t know what I thought, but I don’t think that matters. My high school was pretty white as was the community I called home. My early childhood got lost in a Caucasian sea. It’s easy not to reflect on race when you’re surrounded on all sides by people who look like you. That’s not to say there weren’t differences. The school I attended and the town I lived in were divided, not by race, but by class. Some folks had money, others didn’t but most of the people in either group were white.
There are larger issues at play here, such as why were there so few people of color around? I suspect there are historical forces at play that could provide answers, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What I’m curious to understand is whether that cushion of familiarity impacted my choice of colleges or where I decided to live? Did I get so used to being around other white people that it became a kind of filter?
The answer again, is, I don’t know. It’s a disturbing thought. I’d like to give a resounding “hell no” but, how can I? I spent two decades with very little meaningful contact or conversation with anyone who wasn’t white. That last line makes me shutter, especially considering how I lived from aged 6 to 14.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that my whiteness was borne from isolation. By whiteness, I mean the idea that I could live comfortably unaware for so long. This island building set me apart even if I wasn’t aware that’s what was happening. On this island I didn’t have to question the world or how it worked because it didn’t impact me. Worse, I grew up in a world that pushed back on those issues. For instance, when the topic of Affirmative Action came up, someone I knew would inevitably say something like, ‘there aren’t any scholarships just for white kids.’ I’ll return to this last sentence at a later date. For now, let me end this section by saying that UW Tacoma popped that bubble. My experience at the university combined with a mental breakdown, my wife and a hellish commute broke down the walls of my comfort zone and helped me remember what I’d forgotten and learn what I never knew.
