Hello friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Toni Morrison about the situation in the US: “In this country, American means white, Everyone else has to hyphenate." It came to mind again when Mitch McConnell said: “if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans”. In other words, among many whiteness is the presumed default for American-ness.

Defaulting to Whiteness

The situation is much the same in the UK, where Britishness is often presumed to be synonymous with whiteness. The number of times I’ve seen a look of surprise when I say I was born in Streatham, London, is just one example.

(To be fair, in Black majority countries in the Caribbean, it’s the paler people who get the qualifier, but the nuance is different, because they are still the people with the financial power. In global minority spaces, the primacy of whiteness comes with real consequences and dangers to those being oppressed, from lack of opportunity all the way up to death.)

How Black People are Often Perceived

Getting back to global minority spaces, to be other than white can be met with underestimation of one’s capabilities and over-estimation of one’s threat level. For example, former British MP Nusrat Ghani says her “Muslimness” is the reason she was sacked.

I probably don’t need to tell you, especially if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, that this is all about white supremacy. There’s a not-so-hidden bias towards whiteness as the norm and the default, which shows up not just in the political sphere, but in other aspects of everyday life.

In what Michelle MiJung Kim (see my review of her excellent book “The Wake Up”) the criminal punishment system, it’s the reason Black boys with toy guns are treated differently than white boys with real guns (no, I’ll never get over that!). It’s the reason people of the same age are treated as misguided boys or threatening men depending on the color of their skin.

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In shops, it shows up as who’s automatically followed around stores and who’s not presumed to have the wherewithal to buy expensive items. (Hint, they tend to look like me.) In the workplace, it shows up as who’s seen as professional and capable despite mediocrity, and who’s seen as not a team player and not up to standard despite excellence. Again, the latter tend to look like me.

Not only is whiteness the presumed default, but society is set up to accept what comes from whiteness as good and worthy, even if it clearly isn’t.

Now, Black people could, with some justification, make assumptions about what happens whenever they (we) come into contact with whiteness. After all, it hasn’t gone that well from the very beginning. But honestly, whiteness has no justification for discounting the Black people whose ancestors were enslaved and brutalized, other than in the service of maintaining whiteness.

What Allies Can Do

As allies, it’s important that you recognize when you’re operating out of whiteness and stop doing it. The excuse of unconscious bias can only be used for so long. We know it happens, so it’s time to bring it to our awareness, check ourselves, and do better. Because if we’re going to move forward, humanity (which we all share), rather than whiteness, has to become the default.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Thanks for reading,

Sharon

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Cover photo courtesy of Getty Images. Image credit: Maksim Prasolenko

I am an anti-racism writer, a professional B2B writer and blogger, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast. If you value my perspective, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.