Thoughts from a White Guy on Prejudice

Preface: Fair warning, there is some “strong” language below and that’s because those particular words felt most accurate per the meaning I was attempting to convey. Also, this is not meant as a request or an indictment upon anyone other than myself - I think that often leads only to defenses being raised and true communication being forestalled. Rather, this is meant simply as a sharing of my own experience and perspective.

I feel a little ambivalent about writing this, partly due to not wanting to say something just because I think it’s what I should do or am supposed to do, as well as to the fact that shitty things have been happening for a long time and the current state of affairs doesn’t really make it any different - so why now?
Well, I just feel compelled to express myself, and that may be coming from a selfish need to relieve my own discomfort, but here it goes. There’s been a growing pit of unease within me that’s been hard to articulate and often ends up feeling hollow when I attempt to do so interpersonally, so I thought I’d try putting some of my thoughts into written words here. As someone who falls into the category buckets of straight, white, and male, I feel silly and guilty for focusing on my own reactions to social unrest, and have noticed my selfish visceral wish to not feel this unease and to return to comfortable “normal.” But I also increasingly realize, for many reasons, that what I’ve come to regard as normal is in many ways a fucked up place to be. This certainly applies to the history of racism and oppression in this country (and the world), and maybe also touches all parts of the human condition.

The central current I keep returning to is self-protection; the attachment to a self, the inherent identification of “different” others who are not self, and the subsequent drive to bring those different others down and lift self up in a zero-sum fashion. From the moment I was born, my self-identity began to take shape. I was adorned with the name “Charles” and, through the color of my skin, the location in which I was born, the amount of money my parents had, and a variety of other factors, I inherited a particular pair of glasses not of my choosing. This pair of glasses came loaded with a pre-set historical context. I was thrown into the world already having so much of my identity chosen for me and then implicitly asked by society to continue to fit into this mold and play by the rules. And, luckily for me, the pair of glasses I received were rigged to win the game being played in American society.

But what if I had been given a different pair of glasses? What if I had been given a pair that asked me to lose the game over and over again in order to maintain the status quo and keep society operating in the “normal” that is comfortable for some but incredibly painful (to the point of sanctioned murder) for me? How would that feel and what would I do? The thing that can be frustrating at times is that I only have my pair of glasses to look through and I can’t really know what it’s like to be someone else, as much as I might want to. In my therapy work and in my personal life, I am so fortunate to get to know individuals who identify differently from me in a deeply intimate and human way, but I still can’t truly know what it’s like to look through their unique pair of glasses.

What I can do is keep looking at my own glasses; keep noticing my own urge to protect my inherited self-identity and then let. go. of. that. urge. It’s not easy to do. The whole world of “Charles” rests on the maintenance of the game the way it’s been played. But there is a deeper version of me, the me that was there before the name Charles and before my particular pair of glasses were manufactured, and that I believe is ultimately the exact same within every person and every thing. This is the essence of what I’m after in meditation, getting in touch with a felt sense of this nameless Thing that connects everything and everyone. Any time I notice myself judging someone else negatively, I can catch the way in which this judgment is attached to my desire to lift up “Charles” and others like “Charles” and put down the “different” others. I have a strong feeling that all negative judgment boils down to this zero-sum attitude (maintenance of me by destruction of you), and it may be what continues to drive the roots of racism, bias, and oppression between humans.

One of the most beautiful feelings I know in this world is the catching of myself instinctively judging someone else, and then internally responding with a resounding “What are you doing? Why are you judging this person? What if this person was your younger brother? What if this person was your therapy client?” When I catch myself in this way, something kind of amazing happens: the weight of this judgment literally melts off of me and I sometimes well up with tears of compassion for this person. They are just another human being who inherited a pair of glasses, was thrown into the world, and is trying to figure out how to play this fucked up game. Relieved of this weight and relieved of the energy used for protecting my self, I can then use all of my energy to just try to understand and listen to someone else. This is an incredible feeling! BUT, it requires a sort of continual death of the game-playing “Charles,” that version of me that has an inherited history and that has been conditioned my whole life for its own survival. This, to me, is spiritual practice: noticing the ways I have become attached to my self-identity (my pair of glasses) and then developing a new conditioning of letting go of that again and again, letting go of that weight, feeling so much lighter through the process, and opening up to the experiences of others - of being able to genuinely connect with that nameless Thing inside us all.

I’m trying my best to do this every day and realize that I often fail, but all I can do is continue to notice and then let go of the urge to self-protect, especially because the societal game was rigged for me to win. Along the way I have compassion for myself, remembering that I did not choose this pair of glasses. I’d love to know what you think about this whatever your pair of glasses may look like - what reactions you have, what you feel may be missing, and what blind spots I may be displaying (feel free to respond in the comments below). And I hope you know that I see and believe in the inherent value in you beneath all of the layers of the glasses you and I have been given.
If you think others might enjoy or benefit from this message, please feel free to share it with them. Thanks for reading!

What are your inherited glasses like?
How do you clean them off?

*UPDATE: See/click below for a podcast version of this message