Learning to See Clearly

When I first sat down to write this, I stared at a blank page for a long time. I had a few starts, but all of them felt convoluted and preachy, like I was explaining myself into a place where I could avoid taking responsibility for ever having gotten a moment wrong around issues of social justice, equity, or identity. Looking back on that first effort, though, the picture is more mundane than I had initially imagined: I simply couldn’t see clearly. It’s important to acknowledge that this not seeing is still a kind of avoidance of the truth, and although the lack of intention might make me less sinister, it does not make me any less responsible.

But responsible for what, exactly? 

I am white.  I was raised with the dangerously incomplete advice to be a good person, which I took as an injunction to do no harm, and to be kind to everyone. In the 1970s and ’80s, no white people I knew were talking about systemic racism, and so I thought I was doing my part to make the world a better place simply by doing no harm and being kind to everyone.  I’ll pause here to note two things in hindsight: first, that almost all the people I knew in the 1970s and ’80s were white; second, that even when I did make friends with folks who weren’t white, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to note the difference in our racialized identity. I’ll add to the list of things I didn’t (couldn’t) see: all that lack of perception was planned. Society is set up so that people with privilege can’t see it, and so I didn’t recognize the way things were set up in my favor. In fact, I’ll go one better: beyond not seeing, I was trained not to look, and so, like anything I don’t practice (such as ice skating, or balancing my checkbook), I didn’t develop the skill. Although I may not have been actively harming anyone, I was still failing to live up to Toni Morrison’s sage directive: “The function of freedom is to free someone else. 

I’m honestly scared to think how long my passive approach would have continued without an intervention. Thankfully, I played a game at the opening faculty meetings of a former school that helped open my eyes. It was a simple premise: the game imagined a society with three categories of people — I think it was circles, squares, and triangles — and each group was meant to trade with others to improve their position. Easy, right? Earnestly and (dare I say) innocently, I dove in. Games are disarming, because they’re structured and therefore relatively safe, and so it never occurred to me that the set-up might be rigged. It turned out that whichever group I was in — let’s say the triangles — had nothing that the squares or circles wanted, and so I couldn’t trade. The circles and the squares were following the rules, playing to win, and doing quite well. And the kicker was that they weren’t trying to do me harm, and so they could play the game and think of themselves as fair. It wasn’t their fault if I didn’t have the resources I needed to compete.

Even now I can remember how quickly I grew frustrated, and then infuriated, with the injustice of a game. Afterward, during the debriefing and processing discussion, I was horrified at the actual lesson. The game helped me — forced me — to see the world more clearly. And with that new vision, I saw myself, with all my good intentions and ignorance, in the complacent efforts of the squares and circles.  

That was almost 25 years ago, and I’ve been working ever since on improving my vision. So why did I struggle with writing this piece? At this point I need to acknowledge that I asked a friend for help: I wanted to “get it right,” after all. There are so many assumptions lumped into that request, not least that it’s OK for someone with privilege to solicit the help of someone with less privilege in order to succeed, particularly in a system that’s already more challenging for those with less privilege. I want to acknowledge here how kindly and humbly my friend Jenna delivered this feedback; I also want to recognize the impact of something Jenna wrote with Elizabeth Denevi that helped me find a way into this piece. In “‘Calling In’ Our White Male Colleagues,” they write, 

So much of what we experience [at our workshops] from white men doesn’t feel like it’s intended to improve our work; it feels like a challenge… or simply a reminder to stay in our place.

I had been raised to be a “good person,” and I’ve never wanted to impose limits, or to keep anyone “in their place.” However, what I’m learning — what I seem to keep needing to learn — is the danger of not examining my own place. What is my place? And the next logical question: Who established that place for me? And then, perhaps most importantly: What’s the cost of staying passively in that place, especially without examining it? Too often, when I hear some troubling news or read an article about an issue or event, I respond intellectually, and though in hindsight I can stand by the values I hold in such moments, I can’t accept not recognizing that for others, the situation is not an intellectual exercise — the danger is real and visceral. I need to see better, and in order to do that, I need to remember to look, and to look intentionally. 

But there’s a twist. Even in writing this, I forgot to ask an essential question in my first draft. I focused on white privilege and complaisance, but didn’t focus on gender. How could I possibly miss the impact of gender on my privilege? I certainly know about male privilege and gender inequities, but it somehow slipped my mind in the early writing. But since considering gender was literally in the question that prompted this essay, I have to think there’s something else going on, something (else) I’ve been trained not to see. 

This year, as school started, and I was working with classes on building community, I asked students to share a great moment in their education, so that we could name what we’re all after, and so work intentionally to bring it about in our own learning community. Next, we talked about bad moments, things we wanted to avoid, and someone mentioned that we never wanted to ask someone to speak for everyone who shares one component of their identity. It’s an important component of making the classroom space safe for everyone, of course. But in that moment, it floored me to realize that that has never happened to me, not even in a women’s literature course in college when I was one of three male-identified folks in a class of 30.

I’ve always been allowed to be myself, and to stand only for myself, and that’s 100% about privilege. It has enabled me far too often to forget that many people — especially women and people of color — have a very different experience. In this instance, it was upsetting to know that I could play attention to the question of race and privilege, but not see the intersectionality with gender — even when that was the point of the exercise. Of course, now it has come back into sharp focus.

Another example from the start of this school year: In my duties as part of my school’s residential faculty, I was called to talk to the local fire department. It was time for fire drills, and I had to show up and admit that the school wasn’t ready. Our security guy was out for the night, and I didn’t know the process, and so I had to let them know that we had wasted their time. They were incredibly gracious, even as I was admitting I was unprepared, my worth was never questioned, and I’ll never know whether that’s because I’m a middle-aged white guy, carrying around the privilege that goes with that identity. In the moment, though, I didn’t see it: I just showed up, feeling bad while at the same time confident that I was not going to be judged for it. From what I’ve heard (from my wife, and friends, and colleagues, and even students), many women know exactly when they’re being judged, or measured, in terms of the competence and even their physical worth (remember the discussions about Hillary’s outfits, and the lack of discussion about Bernie’s hair?).

So why don’t I see it? Maybe it’s because I’m not doubted: even when I’m showing up with nothing, I’m allowed and assumed to be a legitimate ambassador of the school.

Part of me feels like I’m reading too much into this episode, but when another part of me zooms out to see it in perspective, it helps me see how much I miss; and that part of me is looking for an explanation — and a solution. I suspect that solution will have something to do with doubt — or if not doubt, then at least skepticism: I need to make a habit of being skeptical of my own first impressions. Perhaps that can be a starting point.

 What is clear is that, being white and male, it’s easy to see neither element on any given day. And while it's a gift to be able to be only one's self, in my experience that can lead to the kind of blurry vision which results in forgetting that others don’t have that same luxury. Perhaps this is why so many white men resist engagement in workshops on race. As for me, I want to learn to see my own identity clearly, and I want to remember to ask the questions that help me see other experiences and perspectives. I want to remember to lean into the confusion and anger of the world — not to live in that anger, but to experience every situation so I can feel engaged and motivated. My privilege is clearly unearned and beyond my control, but what I do with it is not. Instead of merely having values, I need to learn to live them. I’m calling on myself to learn to look more actively at the way others live in the world, and so to see the world more fully, so that I can serve all my students well and know more clearly what I can do to work for real change.

Ayres Stiles-Hall teaches in Concord, Massachusetts.

White Men Respond — Additional Reading

·       White Men Respond, by TWW Staff

·       Understanding the Atmospheric Nature of White Supremacy and Patriarchy, by Nick Hiebert

·       Manning Up? An Open Letter, by Ryan Virden

·       Listening to Lucy: Why I’m Involved in Diversity Work, by Michael Brosnan

·       Planting the Seeds of Self-Reflection, by Maurice Werner