There are not enough places in our communities where we have the opportunity to seriously engage the issues that plague our American reality and help us to further understand ourselves. I want to begin by therefore acknowledging the advantage I have of being on a campus where the difficult conversations around race and privilege are taking place in ways that have drawn us all in. I mostly thank NC State students for that, despite the sometimes-awkward efforts.

I believe, however, that the discussions of privilege, race and racism have suffered from definitional clarity. The fact that we live in a country built on the social construct of race, and the institutionalization of that construct into the very fabric of our everyday lives, puts us all at risk of being complicit in its perpetuation.

So, while it is commonly assumed that black people cannot be racist because they don’t benefit from doing so, that is a misunderstanding of how racism works. So yes, people of African descent can contribute to the negative effects of a racist system as easily as anyone else.

Let’s take the example of how athletic ability is privileged over academic achievement for black males in too many of our educational systems, from birth through college. That is a function of a racist system. The degree to which any of us supports and promotes that reality makes us complicit with it, no matter the color of your skin.

To call someone racist, however, is therefore often a moot and counterproductive point, since intent does not matter. What matters are the outcomes in which people of color continue to suffer the greatest negative consequences of a racialized society that touches every part of their lives. These public policy and economic realities must therefore be directly confronted to change the meaning and impact of race.

Similarly, the reality of privilege, whether earned or unearned, acknowledged or unacknowledged, must also be directly confronted. Pointing out someone’s privilege is not automatically intended to ascribe guilt. If guilt or shame is assumed, that is as much because of what is in the head of the accused than it was in the intent of the accuser.

Privilege gives an individual or group power and opportunity over those who don’t have it.  Every human being, of course, tries to obtain some level of privilege that improves their chances in life. But not all privilege is the same.

The privilege of obtaining a higher education degree (earned and sometimes unearned) will come with the power and opportunity that affords an advantage over those who do not have that degree. The privilege that comes from the racial designation of being white (unearned) gives power and opportunity over those who are non-white. Few would argue that obtaining a college degree is something that should not be done because of the privilege it ascribes. Similarly, being white — a status that cannot be avoided — must simply be accepted.

So, it is not the privilege itself that is the problem, but what we do with our acknowledgment of the fact that it too often affords an inequitable and often unjust advantage over those who have been denied that privilege. In other words, the problem lies in not acknowledging the inequalities embedded within whatever privilege you have, or refusing to call it exactly what it is.

If all of this seems particularly complex, that’s because it is. To not honestly confront and refute the idea of race and the reality of racism is to perpetuate racism, which results in keeping us confused, angry, bitter and divided.  To not humbly confront and acknowledge the realities of the privileges that we all have is to also perpetuate these same feelings.

So what do we do? 

Acknowledgment requires us to work toward minimizing, if not eliminating, the inequalities and injustices that privilege affords. What many students are doing, and some of us educators try to do in our classrooms and elsewhere, is to confront these uncomfortable, often taboo and sometimes dangerous issues as directly, honestly and humbly as we can.

What many of us who are most negatively affected by all of this understand quite well is that living with the discomfort and danger is, as James Baldwin’s writings can be summarized, the price we must pay in order to get beyond the negative impact it has on all our lives. Thus, we must collectively continue to not just struggle with these discussions, but to work toward changing our communities and the institutions that perpetuate the madness.

To not do that, particularly after one leaves the relatively safe confines of the university, would indeed be a cause for shame.