Lonely at the Top

"To define yourself by what you're not is a pathetic and heartbreaking thing. It is to stand bare before a culture that has stolen your birthright, or rather, convinced you to give it up; and the costs are formidable, beginning with the emptiness whites often feel when confronted by multiculturalism and the connectedness of people of color to their heritage" (Wise 180).

Tim Wise addresses the "dependency upon privilege". It's an interesting concept to grapple with-- the notion that an entire culture could circulate around the idea of "not" being this and "not" being that.

In Jean Rhys's novel, Voyage in the Dark, the protagonist Anna (who was a white minority during her childhood, growing up in the Dominican Republic) expresses her feelings explicitly: "Being black is warm and gay, being white is cold and sad" (Rhys #). She connotes envy of black culture, the love she received from her black nanny.  Minority culture, like Wise says, is marked by pride and connection to heritage. Many whites (read: Irish, Italian, Jewish immigrants etc.) relinquished their culture--sacrificed their heritage in order to assimilate into the United States of white normality. The power structure that would become white privilege was contingent upon "viewing the tradition of resistance with suspicion and contempt" (180). Whites on top, alienated from everyone else, and as Wise puts it, apparently each other as well.

These differences are worth examining. Are white people jealous of non-whites? Why is drug use and addiction more prevalent among whites in our country? There are legacies, traditions and structures that come with being historical oppressors. This is also true for the historically oppressed. Are whites miserable (intentional overstatement) because we are paying the cosmic toll for our oppressive actions? Is self-alienation an inherent part of our historical, cultural makeup?

A friend of mine once joked that every time something bad happens to her, or if she feels depressed it's because she's "paying for the Holocaust". It's silly, and trivializing to the magnitude of such a large scale atrocity...but there's something to be said for acknowledging the potential ramifications of lingering collective guilt (no matter how unconscious).  

I'm not saying that problems and consequences of alienation among whites can be linked to their historical role as oppressor, but I'm not saying they can't be either. Cultures of resistance have to be strong, and survival, as an oppressed person necessitates identifying with, bonding with, and forming alliances with others who are oppressed.