Here is the sticky part….. I grant all animals all the rights of man.

So if I am a hardened animal rights activist can I possibly be a racist?

I have come to this conclusion by simple experience in a rodant infested multicultural society. I hate the view I have but to view things other wise is to check my brain at the door.

The girl in my class went on to a PhD program at Michigan State, by the way. It’s still an uncomfortable topic for me, but I feel lucky there are resources out there to find, and people who are willing to talk about it. Thanks!

http://eco-health.blogspot.com/2009/03/privilege-us-vegan-movement-whiteness_8877.html

@jeannie – thanks! glad you found the links helpful, and it’s always good to see that people are reading and listening to the folks over at the voc blog. And you are right, we need to also listen to the poc in other parts of our lives, and I think especially we need to pay attention to the things they might not say… I also think that we have opportunities in our lives to help our white friends to see white privilege for itself. It’s a long learning process, no doubt about that, but we all have to start somewhere!

@johanna – I remember you expressing frustration about the public discourse never moving past 101. I also just started reading “”Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity”, which I got a while back based on your recommendation in the VOC post I linked in. I didn’t start reading it until last night, and was struck by the fact that one of the first things she talked about (in the intros) was that many people are uncomfortable talking about racism, and yet it is something we need to talk about in order to see any progress! It’s an amazing book so far. I’m so happy that there is a VOC blog and for the bloggers who write there…you aren’t writing to educate white people, but it helps educate us anyway.

@marji – I agree on it being painful at times, and eye-opening in a big way. Being willing to be open and to let the defensiveness go is harder than it sounds like it would be, but we’ll all benefit from it. I figure it is a learning process that will go on forever; there is definitely no quick fix or a clif notes version!

@kelly – thanks for that link, and that’s such a great point about the comment threads!

@Al – I think awake makes perfect sense! The Tamara K. Nopper essay had a similar effect on me, and I especially liked that she flat out said something like that it wasn’t her concern, as a woman of color, to make white people comfortable with the issues that impact her directly. Glad you got something from the links. You would probably also get a lot out of the book (if you haven’t already read it) “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity, which I just started reading, and which is one of those books I’m going to end up convincing as many people in my life to read as possible!

Humbled doesn’t quite capture what I feel right now. More like unnerved and … awake? Does that make sense? I mean, I’ve always had a generic sense of what white privilege is and how I benefit from it (being a white man and all). But what I’ve read today (especially that Tamara K. Nopper essay) has caused me to rethink pretty much everything I thought I knew.

Haven’t really felt that way since I first considered going vegan. It’s a neat feeling. So again, thanks.

And just to reiterate what everyone else has said, shut up, listen – really listen – and lurk for awhile before chiming in. This is the polite thing to do when joining an established community online, of course, but doubly so when that community is meant as a safe space for a group to which you do not belong.

Oh, and always read the comments. You can learn a ton about how not to act from the comment threads.

I too read VOC and continue to learn, to shed my defensive coils and just freaking listen. It’s been both eye opening and painful (and I don’t write that in a “woe is me” fashion, just an honest reflection of what it means for me, a white woman, to realize how arrogant and ignorant I’ve been).