Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Invisible Knapsack

Samuel D Chown 
b. April 11, 1853, 
d. Jan. 30, 1933
Did you know that in 1925, when the United Church was born, Rev. Samuel Dwight Chown, a Methodist minister and well-loved by many, gave up the position as the first moderator of the United Church?  He instead offered the position to Presbyterian minister, Rev. George C. Pidgeon, recognizing the struggle that some of the Presbyterian churches were having in joining the United Church and the minority position they held.  This sounds like a grace-filled person who put other’s needs and the church’s needs before his own.
Last week, I read a quote by Rev. Chown that shows a very different side.  He wrote, “The immigration question is the most vital one in Canada today, as it has to do with the purity of our national life-blood…It is foolish to dribble away the vitality of our own country in a vain endeavor to assimilate the world’s non-adjustable, profligate and indolent social parasites.”[1]  It’s a shocking quote for us to hear today.  This doesn’t mean though that Rev. Chown wasn’t still a grace-filled person, but that he wrote this from a very different time and is reflective of colonialism thoughts and practices of the time.
Last week, I was in Saskatoon for a course called, “Racism, Post-Colonialism, Canadian Identities, and Intercultural Ministries.”  This is quite a mouthful but the instructors find the title fits what they are trying to teach.  I had the opportunity to read some great work by people like Kwok Pui-lan, Gloria Anzaldua, Edward Said, and Robert Young and watched some powerful videos like “Between: Living Between the Hyphen” about being bi-racial, and “Whitewashed: Unmasking the World of Whiteness.” (Check them out on YouTube.)
One article by Peggy McIntosh called, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” offers some ways in which we might recognize the white privilege that many of us carry.  She writes, “whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work with will allow “them” to be more like “us.”
McIntosh tries to identify some of this white privilege and identifies 46 white privileges we carry in our knapsack, mostly without being aware they are even there.  Here are a few[2]:
·          I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
·          I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
·          I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
·          When I am told about our national heritage or about ‘civilization,’ I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
·          I did not have to educate our children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
·          I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
·          I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge” I will be facing a person of my race.
·          I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring the people of my race.
·          I can choose blemish color or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
Can you connect with any of these?  How does it make you feel to be carrying this invisible and seemingly weightless knapsack?  We live in a culture where white is the norm and everyone else is seen as different and foreign.  Even those who have been born and raised Canada and might be a third-generation Canadian get asked where they come from, who their parents are and how they came to be here.  For those of us who are white, we don’t have to think about racism and how it affects our lives.  For those of us who are not white, it can affect our whole lives. 
I don’t like to think of myself as racist.  In fact, when some people are accused of being racist or of saying or doing something racist, they get very defensive and angry.  The fact is that most of us carry some racial prejudice and the white race holds the power in our culture.  Being racist is a symptom of this problem.  The more aware we become, the more we can address this problem, but being non-racist could take generations. 



[1] “Blood: The Stuff of Life” by Lawrence Hill
[2] McIntosh, Peggy, from “Peace and Freedom,” July/August 1989

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