WAHS Wisdom

  Understanding   my   white   privilege:  10   lessons   learned   I am a white male who explores racial issues from an intellectual perspective. For me understanding racism and whiteness is often something I examine for a period of time--when discussing anti-racism, for example--and then I move on. It is not central to my day-to-day life or my survival. My whiteness is often invisible. To grow up and exist as a white person, race is usually about somebody else. Each us is always a member of a race or races and we are often granted or denied opportunities because we belong to one of the favored groups. My whiteness has come--and will continue to afford--me advantages that are not shared by many people of color. For most of my life--and I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood--I did not see race; I saw racism as an individual act by one person or group against another person or group. I was blind to the invisible systems that ensure racial domina...

  Code-Switching One of my favorite podcasts is NPR’s Code-Switch. Code-switching means to assume the cultural norms or practice the hidden rules of a different culture to be more accepted. As a white male, I know I cannot ever know what it means to code-switch daily. Nor can I ever understand the tremendous energy it must involve and how exhausting constantly code-switching must be.   I went to a boarding school and several of my best friends were Puerto Rican. Whenever I was hanging out with them, I remember trying to use Spanish slang when telling stories. I remember them struggling to understand my family dynamics whenever they visited my house for a weekend.  After a three-day weekend at my home, I remember Jaime saying, “Man, your house is crazy different. That was insane.” My niece, who spent the first years of her life in Switzerland, spoke French at her school and on a vacation in San Diego, she tied a rope around her waist and pretended to repel down the stairs....