Writing the Normal Narratives

      White privilege and racism are all around us. We live in a society that has shown a clear impact of white privilege. As a white male, I have experienced these privileges my whole life without even noticing or thinking twice about it. I can go to the mall without getting dirty looks. I can go get ice cream without being questioned if I can afford it. These are just a small example of the privileges I have with being white.

Part One: Normal Narratives

            Kohl’s Self story tells the story of becoming friends with a person of colour. He tells how at the time he is scared to reach out and help her. “I feel like part of me was worried about how others would now view me for being friends with her.” This is what goes through many people’s heads. Being friends with people of colour comes with dirty looks and people thinking of you differently. Losing our “status” with fellow peers sometimes makes us make non rational decisions. Kohl later states that he hasn’t learned much about other cultures.  “I lived a very sheltered life from other cultures, we never learned about them in school, I never learned about them at home.” This is the reality for many white people. We aren’t taught or told about any other cultures and at times other cultures are made fun or frowned upon in society. This is seen in shows and or movies directed towards a white audience.  Kohl’s story shows the sad reality for many of us white kids growing up. We are sheltered away from society and get to hide behind our skin colour.

            Curtis self story tells his school experience with people of colour. Curtis tells how he feels everyone was equal. “I went to was an amazing environment that welcomed anyone and everyone and made them apart of our family, or at least that’s how I saw it”. This is showing how white privilege can be.  This is what we are taught as white students, we are told things such as “everyone is equal” or “treat people the way we want to be treated” which is fine and dandy; however, it is missing the point. It is keeping us sheltered from the truth about racism and discrimination. As a society we hide behind the curtain and do not have these impactful conversations amongst students to realize the real problem that exists. Curtis highlights a really good example of textbooks not having pictures of coloured people.  “Even though it was a number of years ago, I remember the textbooks. More specifically how there was mainly white people in the textbooks.”  This is a prime example of white privilege as well as discrimination and how we do not even tend to notice. Even school textbooks do a good job of sheltering us from the reality of the world. Curtis’s story is a prime example of school experience for many of us.

            My story: it is similar to both of them. I also have been pretty sheltered my whole life and haven’t learned much about other cultures. I haven’t experienced much racism and when I did, it shocked me. Being a white male, I have never personally experienced discrimination or racism.  White privilege has been right in front of me the whole time and until this class I haven’t noticed it. A boy on the other team yelled at my line mate, “go back to the reserve”. This moment in my life made me realize how hurtful, judgmental and racist society can be. Racism is not just a couple people’s problem. These three stories reflect how far as a society we still need to go.

        Part Two:  

            Jerico’s Story: In Jerico’s story it shows his perspective of life at school as a person of colour. You can clearly see the difference in school experience. When Jerico was in grade one, he describes a story of being taken out of class because of the way he talks.  “I learned very quickly that the school wanted me to take part in “speech” classes.” We can already see Jerico’s experience with racism at such a young age. Jerico’s school experience has been totally different compared to Curtis, Kohl, and mine. At the young age of five, Jerico had already experienced something that none of us have in our entire lives. Just like Curtis stated in his story “everyone got along with each other”. This may be true; however, the fact of the matter lies in that racism has been all around it. It takes an understanding of racism to really understand the meaning of it.

            Being a white male has made me blind to racism. During school, looking back on it, I have seen racism firsthand, but until I reflected upon these situations, it just passed by. The problem within the school lies on the factor of white privilege. I never once was taken out of the classroom because of my speech and treatment towards me was beyond fair.  Another statement Jerico makes is the first time he realized his skin colour was different. “These weeds are the same colour as your skin!” This statement has no place in society. We can clearly see how comments like this easily shows that racism is still thriving in schools today.  The sad fact is that this comment flies over most of our heads because we do not think much of it; however, for Jerico, it a totally different ball game.

            In my story, I said I did not experience racism until grade six. Looking back on it, that is just not true. We see racism every day. The fact is we just do not recognize or care enough.  My grandma sometimes makes racist comments that do not have a place in society today. I have heard these comments my whole life; however, I did not even acknowledge them or do anything about it.  It is like its the norm, just get used to the old school mentality, which is totally unethical and wrong.  In an article written by the Huffington post, Dr. Robin DiAngelo makes a great comment about racial ignorance. “Most whites have a very limited understanding of racism because we have not been trained to think in complex ways about it and because it benefits white dominance not to do so.” This statement sums up the school systems. The problem is we are not trained to recognize racism, so we continue to believe things such as “racism is a thing of the past” or “I’m not racist”. If we continue down this path of denial, we will continue to see racism as a problem and white privilege prevalent in our society.