If you’re white, you have to own it. None of this I’m-not- white, I’m-beyond-it-and-I’m-Norwegian stuff. White people have to see race according to the terms they actually benefit from. Not that whiteness is a monolith, any more than nonwhiteness is. As Mab Segrest writes: “Women are less white than men, gay people are less white than straight people, poor people less white than rich people, Jews than Christians, and so forth.” But what might matter, what should matter, is that whiteness is a real force that you’ve personally benefited from in one way or another if you’re white.
Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk Awkwardly About Race by Jen Graves - Seattle Features - The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper http://bit.ly/pihviL (via theycallmezorawalker)