(Published originally on Medium)
I attended 2017 AWP conference in February, and checked out the panel, In Praise of Junot Diaz and Claudia Rankine: Furthering the MFA vs. POC and AWP 2016 Keynote Conversations. The speakers were Allen Gee, David Mura, Faith Adele, Christine Hyung-Oak Lee and Marcus Burke. From where I sat in a large conference room, it seemed white folks outnumbered POC — what implies maybe that whites are interested in these discussions, and want see changes in the MFA landscape also.
Yet, inevitably, a hand was raised, the microphone passed, and the question asked: How do I write about, and deconstruct, my whiteness? I’ll admit I rolled my eyes listening to this young, white woman’s question. While race was certainly the topic, to pose this question as a white person to a panel of POC felt reminiscent of a supremacist power dynamic in which she needs only to snap her fingers to get what she wants — without self-diagnosing the work she needs to do. Or to over-quote Audre Lorde:
Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. (Lorde, Sister Outsider)
Yet the question stayed with me, and my teacher-mind invariably teased out suggestions for unraveling this thing called whiteness with reflective writing prompts. These suggestions are informed by the practice of empathy and compassion, what I emphasize to my undergraduates students as absolute necessities in creative writing. To imagine walking in the shoes of others is not just a practice of empathy and compassion because it brings us psychically closer to their experiences; it also heightens our sensitivity to what we experience and the role of invisible forces like whiteness in our lives. Indeed unpacking my own whiteness as a biracial person has informed the points I’ve made below.
Note: these suggestions are intended expressly for the white writer who wants to address, deconstruct and ideally dismantle white privilege, either directly or indirectly in their written work.
1. Don’t step back and listen. Or rather, don’t just step back and listen passively. Engage and listen actively. In pedagogy, Active Reading is a basic learning approach meant to engage critical thinking through taking notes, marking and responding to a text. What I’m calling Active Listening would engage critical thinking similarly.
Listen to what a POC has to say and listen internally to what bubbles up inside of you. Take note of that, and perhaps make note of it by responding to it in writing. Take the temperature of your immediate and visceral reactions, and the more measured tact you might take afterwards. Do you agree with everything being said by a POC? Do you have questions or doubts? If you don’t agree, why? Are you disagreeing with a POC’s testimony? Do you think it’s an exaggeration? Where does that doubt come from? Who do you believe is the arbiter of facts? Who gets to decide if someone is being subjective or objective? Who or what defines objective truth — and why? There are moments when we are critical and other moments when we turn that analytical mind off; think about when that happens, who is speaking and what the topic is.
2. Write about that uncle. Write about that stereotype.
I write memoir, which as the art of self-interrogation, is a relentless questioning of the most unsightly, unrefined, half-baked or close-minded parts of my thinking and assumptions I make consciously, semi-consciously or completely unconsciously. This self-interrogation has been fruitful for examining my own internalized and externalized racism. I’ve explored a lot in my writing why I thought my white half was better than my brown or Asian half. Nailing down those moments when I caught myself in the act of thinking or acting on that sentiment, or from where I came by such thinking, has been transformational.
Write about that time when you believed the stereotype about a POC. How did you unravel that? Or are there parts that remain undigested, that you don’t know how to explain — a space of cognitive dissonance? In creative writing, tension leads to a climatic breakthrough. Likewise, tension and discomfort in deconstructing whiteness contain the most potential for growth, shift and expansion. Don’t be afraid of the scary, racist and white supremacist parts of your thinking and psyche; we are all products of the racist and xenophobic world. Don’t look away and pretend it isn’t there — engage it!
Likewise, don’t be afraid of the scary and racist family, or background you might come from. Instead, figure out how you learned to think for yourself and write about that. Write about the part of you that wants to love and protect family members who are stuck in close-mindedness; write about what that does not only to you, but your family, neighborhood and community. If any of these family members have influence over anything — be they board members, voters, store keepers, little league baseball coaches, gas station attendants, volunteers, etc.–- recognize the potential of racism to infect and change the outcome of things big and small. What are you going to about that? If you’re unwilling to do anything about that — perhaps you feel powerless? — explore in your writing why.
3. Deconstruct with white folks; Reconstruct with POC authors and writers.
The panel replied to the white woman’s question, and said, in essence, read these books: Albert Murray’s The Omni-Americans: Black Experience And American Culture and Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Darkness. Just google Whiteness to get an idea of what to read and where to start also. That’s better than directing questions a POC because you need their validation; it’s tokenizing to expect a POC to speak for other POC or entire communities. Instead engage other white people who either have done that work, or want to do that work. Learn to be each other’s supporters but also relentless bullshit detectors, and consider starting a writers group or a book club with them. Even better if you can get people on board who are resistant to the work of deconstructing whiteness — you probably have a better chance at it than a POC.
4. A few warnings about publishing
Discern what writing you are doing for your own personal processing and deconstruction of whiteness, and what should be published. If you’re interested in publishing, seek out not to write about race in general, but specific to whiteness. The point is that whiteness is still misunderstood in its socio-political terminology; you will most likely have to define and explain what it is. That’s good — and now you get an idea of what POC have to do all the time in terms of educating people unfamiliar with their lives! Outlets who have never ran a story on whiteness could be great, especially if their audience tends towards white people.
But also be mindful of potentially taking away an opportunity or platform from a POC. Your privilege can get in the way. Are your saying or repeating what POC has said? Then maybe that’s not the best place for you to contribute. Write from experience: being white in a world that is set up to reward you and treat you like the default human being, at the expense or erasure of others — even more so if you’re cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied and male.
Important note: if you want to refer to POC’s work or experience, use direct quotes instead of paraphrasing with their full name and where to find more of their writing and work. Another note to file under How to be an ally: if you have insider access to some great outlets and know a few POC needing a platform, see if you can make that connection for them.
Huge note of caution: not only could you take away a publishing opportunity from a POC writing also on race, but many will see a white person writing on this topic as click-traffic mana from heaven. People dedicate entire lifetimes trolling for anything on race as a chance to make the comment section melt into a digressive, orgiastic mosh pit of sucker punches to the writer and anyone else in their path. For that reason, editors may take your piece and rewrite the title for something more incendiary simply to feed both trolls and click-bate advertising. It is entirely possible that your work could get butchered beyond recognition, and taking up a facile, racist position you never intended. If you’re trying for something more nuanced and complex, be forewarned, and research for places to pitch that want the same.
5. The iceberg is always greater than what’s visible: The panel made the final, important point that doing the work should become self-evident, even if subtly, in your writing. You may never get the chance to bake the deconstruction of your whiteness wholesale into a plot, or find the right place to quote all the authors or writers inspiring you. But have faith in the transformative and perspective shift that must happen if you want your writing to convey racial complexity, historical honesty, accountability and compassion in your essays, stanzas, characters, plots and dialogue.
H'RINA DETROY 