Reconceptualizing Whiteness

1. Reconceptualizing Whiteness Presentation by: Paul Madden – Paulemadden@gmail.com Susan Naimark – Susan@naimark.org COMMUNITY CHANGE, INC. Promoting Racial Justice and Equity Since 1968 Reconceptualizing Whiteness by Paul E Madden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2. Agenda

3. Introductions • Name • Why you chose this session • 1 word that comes to mind when you hear the phrase “white culture”

4. Starting Assumptions • Racism is systemic. • Race is not biologically real but race really effects people. • Cultures at their core can change. • European culture is particularistic, not universal. • We are not here to present an universal “master plan.” There is no single right way to transform white culture.

5. Framing the Discussion • Define Culture • European Culture, at it’s core • Describe Nascent European Culture • Show homeostasis of European Culture • Overview Comparison of European Culture to Asian, African, and Native American Culture. • Linking European Culture to Racism • Implications of Not Changing European Culture • Seeds of Change

6. Defining Culture • “…the combination of motor and mental behavior patterns arising from the encounters of man with nature and with his fellow man…”6– Franz Fanon • “A process which gives people a general design for living and patterns for interpreting their reality.”4 –Wade Nobles

7. Nascent European Culture: Nature and Neighbor “ European behavior toward other racial/cultural groups is a result of the early experience of the Northern Cradle, since a people’s collective personality is determined in their first intense experience as a group, much as a child’s personality is determined in its first, formative years. The personality type persists even when conditions and geographical locations change.”1 Encounters with Nature • “The environment of the Northern Cradle was harsh, cold, and relatively infertile, lacking in opportunities for agriculture”1 • “Here nature left no illusions of kindliness. he must learn to rely on himself alone…he would conjure up deities maleficent and cruel, jealous and spiteful…all the people of the area whether white or yellow were instinctively to love conquest because of a desire to escape from hostile surroundings.1 • “They forced these early Aryans into a nomadic existence in which women and children were regarded as liabilities, since in the absence of agriculture, their contribution to material survival was extremely limited.”

8. Nascent European Culture: Nature and Neighbor Encounters with Neighbors • The lack of agriculture and of other survival resources severely limited the opportunities for cooperation as a model for social organization; instead these meager resources encouraged a competitive, aggressive attitude toward one’s neighbor, i.e., a fierce individualistic battle over the little that existed”1 • “Survival in this circumstance rested more on the ability to view others with suspicion than as potential allies.”1

9. The Core of European Culture: Ever Expanding Power and Control European’s experience with their environment and neighbors resulted in an ever expanding desire for increased power and control.

10. European Culture, Whole and Homeostatic? • “In marked contrast to all the other great civilizations of the ancient world, the Greek economy was not completely dependent on agriculture. The Greek ecology conspired against an agrarian base, consisting as it does mostly of mountains descending to the sea. This sort of ecology was more suited to herding and fishing than to large-scale agriculture. The sense of personal agency that characterized Greeks could have been the natural response to the genuine freedom that they experienced in their less socially complex society.”5 When in Rome…do as the Greeks do? • British philosopher Whitehead (1861–1947) once stated that all occidental philosophy after Plato (427–347 B.C.) were nothing else than a sequence of ‘‘footnotes’’ to Plato.7 European Culture Seems Diverse and Divergent but, not at It’s Core • “In all these [thought, ethics, literature, music, painting] facets of culture the development was European, but not national. There never was a lasting national isolation within Europe with respect to any of these facets.”7

12. Linking European Culture and Racism • Racism functions ideologically and systemically to rationalize and maintain European’s Power and Control over people of color and their homelands.

13. No Cultural Change  Racism Forever • As long as European culture, at its cultural core, seeks ever expanding power and control, Europeans will not forfeit the power and control afforded to them by the system of racism.

14. What if Racism Ends Without Cultural Change? • Again, as long as European culture, at its cultural core, seeks ever expanding power and control, Europeans will not forfeit any system that affords them ever expanding power and control unless another, more effective system takes its place. • This system will be as bad if not worse than systemic racism, if you can imagine that…

15. Example Implications of Not Changing European Culture at its Core • Racism continues to adjust as it is never put on a “terminal path,” or is replaced by something worse. • The uni-linear ideology of progress that positions indigenous people as inferior prevents us from looking at other possible ways of living that would be more harmonious with the environment and other peoples.

16. Seeds of Change • Recognition of Ecological Devastation • Interpersonal Racism is Seen as Bad • Revitalization of indigenous cultures in the US and worldwide • Increase in Interracial marriages (Pew Research Center) • 15% of all new marriages in 2010 • Of the 15%, Over 69% included a white partner and a person of color

17. Citations 1 - Ani, Marimba, Yurugu: An African Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994. 2 - Allen, Cheikh Anta Diop's Two Cradle Theory : Revisited, Journal of Black Studies, http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/38/6/813, March 20, 2008. 3 - Deloria and Wildcat, Power and Place: Indian Education in America, Golden: Fulcrum Publishing, 2001. 5 - Nisbett et al. – Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic Versus Analytic Cognition, Psychological Review, Vol 108, No 2, pgs 291-310, American Physiological Association, 2001. 6 - Hord and Lee, I am Because We Are: Readings in Black Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995. 7 - Muller-Merbach, The Cultural Roots Linking Europe, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol 140, pgs 212-224, 2002.

18. Question 1 • What might a transformed European-American culture be like?

19. Q1: Discussion Questions • A) White people w/ ethnic identity: What core aspects or practices of your own ethnic identity deviate from white culture and match other majority world cultures? • B) White people not choosing an ethnic identity: What have you observed in the White American experience that seems to deviate from white cultural norms and match other majority world cultures? • C) People of Color: What aspects of your own cultural identity must be part of a reconceptualized white culture?

20. Question 2 • What changes in personal interactions can we make to transform European-American culture to be a giant step closer to racial justice by 2042?

21. Q2: Discussion Questions • If White culture was transformed, what would day to day interactions begin to look like? • Pick a situation and discuss how you/white folks would act differently to model a transformed set of white values.

22. Question 3 • What changes in institutional practices can we make to transform European-American culture to be a giant step closer to racial justice by 2042?

23. Imagining Institutional Change • Move to the part of the room where the sign is located for an institution you care about or work in – could be health care, education, housing, mass media, criminal justice or other. Small Group Discussion: • Identify a specific, significant change within this institution that would support a different set of values. Ones that will help change European culture at their core.

24. Question 4 What do white people have to gain from this transformation? Goal: How are you going to gain support? • What is my sphere of influence? • “What’s in it for me?” – that person • How can I get other white people to join in this process of transformation?

25. Benefits of Fighting the Fight Derrick Bell, in his book Faces at the Bottom of the Well argues that racism is permanent. Yet he also argues that we should continue on with the struggle even if in the end we do not reach our ultimate solution because unexpected miracles have occurred. • “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll

26. Reconceptualizing Whiteness Presentation by: Paul Madden – Paulemadden@gmail.com Susan Naimark – Susan@naimark.org COMMUNITY CHANGE, INC. Promoting Racial Justice and Equity Since 1968 Reconceptualizing Whiteness by Paul E Madden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.