Identities: Race -- Undermining the Overclass

I was planning on doing something about sexuality next, but I've read some really good articles lately speaking specifically to white privilege and so I would like to work through some of my own thoughts about the matter.  This is something I have difficulty speaking to, so I'm outside my comfort zone and I would really appreciate some critique if anyone cares to address what I'm saying here.

I am socially identified as a 'white' person.  It's not a label I want, nor one I embrace.  In fact, it's kind of a ridiculous thing to call me; my skin is not even a particularly pale shade of pink.  Frankly, I would love to actually have white skin.  I regularly coat my face in corpse-pale makeup, not as an embrace of 'whiteness' but in part as an explicit rejection of the fact that I am part of any kyriarchal overclass whatsoever, a deliberate mockery of the term 'white' as applied to people with a low degree of melanin present in their skin.

Of course, I am fully aware that 'white' is not an identity that I can disown.  I am socially identified as being a member of the 'white race'.  That is a social fact as real and irrevocable as the physical facts that many generations of all of my ancestors lived in the geographical area of Europe and that I have inherited appearance-markers and a cultural legacy that clearly indicates this to others; that the state governments of this area engaged in centuries of concerted abuse and exploitation of the indigenous populations of various other geographical areas, and that as a result our society suffers from an ingrained material and social deficit which uses as its boundary marker the perceived colour of a person's skin (and to a somewhat lesser extent the shape of their facial features and ethno-cultural markers such as names, accents and the like).

Much as I may dislike it, I can never forget nor relinquish my status as a member of the overclass.  No matter what indignities I may suffer for my sexuality, gender identity, disabilities, neurotype, or religious affiliation, I will still be seen by others as white and treated as such.  I am granted a myriad of social privileges by the vast majority of other people who have been socially identified as white in the vast majority of situations.  Without even bothering to consult the appropriate list, I can think of more than a few offhand: my name, physical appearance and accent do not cause immediate reactions of suspicion, fear, distrust or hostility in the majority of people who have power over me in various situations.  For the most part, the cultural traditions associated with my ethnic heritage are largely intact, were not deliberately suppressed, and are not generally thought of as 'quaint' or 'backwards' or portrayed in a way that is grossly stereotyped.  All of my ancestors of living memory were considered full citizens of their country of origin with all the associated rights and responsibilities, and most of my distant ancestors did not have their ancestral homeland unilaterally appropriated, their governments reduced to the status of less than vassal states, or their populations subject to the twin indignities of cultural assimilation and civil infantlization.  (This did happen to some of my ancestors, but it is not something that has had a direct impact on my own social situation and so the occasions when it is brought to my attention, though regular, are little more than an annoyance to me.)  I had the advantage of growing up in an environment where I was pretty much assured that the basic necessities of life such as housing, medical care and running water would be adequately provided, that I would receive a thorough and rigorous education provided by competent teachers, that any violence which was occurring in my community would be cause for swift police intervention, that there would be sufficient economic activity to provide me and my family with employment; and if any of these factors were thought to be lacking, the problems would be taken seriously and addressed promptly by all appropriate levels of government.  Perhaps mostly, that I have never really been required to think about any of these privileges; that my awareness of them is entirely voluntary, as I would suffer little or no consequence from simply ignoring them and others' attempts to educate me about them and going on with my life.

I vividly remember an episode from my childhood: I came home from school one day and repeated a joke one of my classmates had told me, but my generally calm and easygoing leftist-hippie parents became infuriated and started shouting at me before I even got halfway through it.  I had no understanding of why they were so angry with me.  Even when it was explained that the joke was racist and that it picked on native people, I still thought it was unfair of them to shout at me like that.  In fact if anything, I felt like it was more unfair.  After all, I didn't know that what I was saying was racist.  How could I?  I was just a little kid!  Looking back, of course, I understand that the fact that I didn't know was what was really unfair.  It was my first experience of understanding racism; and my first experience of what I think of as 'but-I'm-not-racist!' syndrome, the instinctive defensiveness and indignation of a member of the overclass when directly confronted with evidence of their own complicity in the subjugation of others.  On the whole, I'm glad now that my parents reacted the way they did, even if their response was a tad on the harsh side -- given that a lot of white people don't have the experience of being directly challenged about racial privilege until they're much older, and so take that much longer and have to work that much harder to get past I'm-not-racist syndrome (assuming they ever do).  Not that I'm immune.  On the contrary, my first reaction to a lot anti-racist dialogue is to try mentally to divorce myself from the 'white people' that are being written about.  I have to remind myself, often, that it's not necessarily about me as a white person, but that like it or not I am enmeshed in the system of privileges and race-policing that perpetuates the continuing oppression of large populations of other people.  And I have to remind myself that every time I have unconsciously drawn away when passing a native on the street, or repeated a racist joke or laughed at one, or failed to even try to confront other white people when they said racist things, I have willingly been a part of that system and benefited from it -- and that even when I do none of these things, I still benefit from the system, and no matter what I do I will never be able to set aside those benefits.  Not until the racial kyriarchy is permanently dismantled and so far in the past that it effects no longer have any relevance to anyone's lives, anyway.  (And as much as I hope and plan to live long enough to see it happen, I'm not going to hold my breath.)