I was listening to a segment on public radio as I was driving to get dinner yesterday and heard an interesting bit on “white privilege“. A white rapper sung and wrote about supporting a black protest. In his solidarity with non-whites, he questions his own credibility as a white supporter with his white privilege. (Read more)
I’ve been familiar with the term “white privilege” since the 1980’s. The term has actually been around since about 1935, but race or privilege wasn’t discussed in my family growing up. The only societal label that stuck to me was “poor white trash“…. And it was used to describe my family.
“Poor white trash” is a euphemism for lower social status white people usually in the rural south. Other equally derided terms may be “redneck”, “Okie”, “hillbilly”, or “cracker”. White trash, as a slur, has been around since about 1835. Harriet Beecher Stowe even included a chapter about white trash in A Key to Uncle Toms Cabin.
I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be black or brown in America. I can only be grateful that I didn’t turn out to be what my dads expected from me …. “You’ll wind up dead or in prison” He frequently predicted prison before I was 30.
My dad was a violent man. He was a World War II veteran and had scars on his arms from shrapnel wounds. He never spoke of his experience. I found out he was an Army infantryman in Europe for 4 years, during the thick of war.
He’d grown up in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina where he had a hardscrabble life. His mother was a “working girl” and his dad was a “john”. She lived in the city and tried to raise him for a while. At about age 8 my dad was sent back to the hills where he was used as labor for familial friends. There was no schooling for hillbillies in that area then. Completing the third grade was a triumph compared to some of his contemporaries.
He learned to fend for himself. He fought off sexual attacks, sometimes winning and sometimes losing. He fought for food. He fought for a place to sleep. His world was truly survival of the fittest. Some of the things he never outgrew…. As a kid, I remember him placing his wallet in his pillowcase while he slept. Old habits die hard, I guess.
He suffered in that hellhole from 1927 until about 1937. The Great Depression was in full swing. He stole his uncle’s truck and left when he was 17. Times were tough for everybody…. Particularly an uneducated, unsophisticated teenager with no skills and no prospects.
He lied about his age and joined the National Guard in 1938 to avoid being drafted into the war. In 1939 his unit was activated and he served on active duty until 1946. He made Corporal and Sergeant three times. Of course he got busted three times.
After the war he worked several laborer jobs. In the mid 1950’s he became a commercial baker. He moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and tried to re-connect with his mother. She’d settled into her life and was working at the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. She was acquainted with my mother’s dad who worked at the same place.
My mom was just returning from Texas (with a two year old child) and no husband. She was 19. Her dad told her she needed to get some stability and knew a guy who she may be interested in. They married when she was 21 and he was 40. And I was the progeny of that union.
Life was not idyllic. My dad wasn’t the stability he was purported to be. He was violent, moody, and changed jobs often. Usually his job changes came because of physical confrontations with management. He worked as a laborer in textile manufacturing, a box factory, a jelly production plant, a fiberglass manufacturer, and a janitor in food service.
He was not a man to be trifled with. He meant exactly what he said. If he said “Stop it” he meant “Stop it”. He didn’t say it twice. He didn’t give idle threats. Whatever he demanded, he could back up. I saw it frequently.
When he told me “I’ll put you in the ground and make another one that looks just like you” I believed he meant it. I saw him shoot our family dog, who loved my dad more than anybody else. Dad showed zero remorse…. Just “boom, boom” of the shotgun and “yelp”. Lucky was dead.
From about age 11 until I was 15 I took a beating from him about every other week. I don’t mean a spanking or a paddling. I mean a beating. Fists, belts, sticks… whatever could inflict damage.
When he said I was “white trash” I believed it. The “poor” was never in question. I got my first job at age 12 to pitch in (and have been employed since). I was earning huge at 65 cents an hour. There weren’t many extras in our household. I never remember our family never ate at a restaurant together until I was in high school. My sister tells me we did.
There is a moral toll that comes with being labeled as a small child. That early self-image is hard to shake. I don’t know where my desire to prove him wrong came from. But I was determined to show my dad that I was more than “poor white trash”.
I was 18 when he dropped me off at college (I earned a full-ride scholarship for academics). It was the first time he ever said “I love you” to me. In fact, that’s the only time I ever remember him telling me that.
Eight years later I flew him out to Texas to see me commissioned as an Air Force Lieutenant. He never told me he was proud of me. I found out later he told anybody who would listen about his “military officer son”.
All this brings me here:
This week, in a leadership class (developed and delivered by my department), we had a discussion about bias. I know I have them, but I didn’t realize this one until I heard the NPR report.
My newest bias is a distaste for you if you assume you know me because of my skin color. I can’t reject “white privilege” because I know as a society it exists. But when I heard the radio commentary about “white privilege” I cringed.
While I may have enjoyed “white privilege”, I certainly have never felt it. If anything, I still work against feeling like “poor white trash”.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
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