History, Racism, White Privilege, Culture, Everything

My experiences in Ghana, more than any other experience in my life, have led me to intense reflections on the history of racism and on my experience of white privilege.  Certainly, I have read and thought about these things a great deal and have made them the focus of my studies and my teaching.  But this trip brought me experiences that confirmed and deepened my understanding.

I have wanted to write about this for many months, but I have hesitated, partly because my experience there was, in some ways, so bound up with Bonnee's that I am afraid I might misrepresent or seem to be speaking for her.

I will try my best not to do that.

I was blessed to be paired with Bonnee, and we have many things in common--both high school teachers in urban schools, both active in our teachers unions, both feminist, many shared ideas about the role of race and racism in the U.S., both with a history of working with people in prison, both with a particular sort of openness to the experiences we had in Ghana.

And there are big differences, as well--differences in religion, sexuality, and, most visibly to all those we met, race.  Our racial difference means that, despite our similarities in education and politics, our experiences vary widely.  The history of racism in the U.S. has constructed my life as one of privilege, and one of those privileges is that, unless I remain vigilant and work at it, I don't even have to be aware of my privilege.

Bonnee spoke eloquently to the students we met about how racism continues to shape her own experiences in the U.S.  At one point she told students that she often finds herself the only person of color in the room at conferences or other educational meetings.  Later, a student said something to me about how my experience in Ghana must be like the experiences Bonnee described, since I was the only white person at APGGS while we were there, and only saw other white people two or three times during our week in Takoradi.

No, I said, and thought, and have been thinking over and over ever since.  It is not the same.  My experience in my brief time in Ghana was filled with feelings of warmth and welcome and hospitality and respect.  And those are not the experiences Bonnee was describing to the students when she talked about being the only person of color in the room.

Even at times among TGC fellows, I heard this over-simplified parallel drawn; white people going to countries populated mainly by people of color is compared to the experiences of people of color in the U.S. But my experience in Ghana confirmed at a visceral level what I have known intellectually for so long: Racism is not about majority and minority. Racism is complex and insidious and systemic.  My white privilege is tenacious and portable; it crosses oceans and borders.

The institutional racism that leads to things like only one person of color being part of our 12-person TGC group in Ghana also shapes the experiences of that group and of those it encounters. TGC, and other programs dedicated to fostering global education among teachers, need to begin to include critical race theory and a basic understanding of white privilege in their core curriculum.