{"id":12438,"date":"2017-08-18T09:08:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T03:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=12438"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:04:15","slug":"from-a-white-american-friend-to-fellow-white-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/from-a-white-american-friend-to-fellow-white-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"From a White American Friend to Her Fellow White Americans on Addressing Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Kristine and I with another UWCAD friend in Colorado the summer of 2015. (Photo published with both their permission.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What I knew about race relations in the US before I arrived in the US for the first time in the Fall of 1990 as undergraduate student was based on some books and novels I had read and Hollywood videos I had seen. Meaning, it was little. The book Black Like Me<\/a>, which I read early on in my undergraduate career at Grinnell College, gave me my first real and serious introduction to it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then I have done what I can to learn about it as much as I am able, partly also because of issues of prejudice and discrimination faced by people around the world, including in my home country Nepal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reproduced below is an excellent FB post<\/a> by my (North) American (US) friend Kristine about racism, privilege, what being a White American means, and what White Americans can do about it. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristine is a United World College (UWC) of the Adriatic friend and a fellow teacher. She and I shared a dorm while at the UWC in 1988-89. I finally caught up with her (image above), in Colorado, for the first time in over 25 years the Summer of 2015 during my 13-month North-American travel adventure<\/a>. During that short reunion, she even arranged for me to speak<\/a> to her beautiful group of students.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, there is a slight difference in formatting between her original post and the reproduction here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is directed toward my white\/Anglo friends, especially those who are American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am motivated to write this after seeing the pictures from a friend\u2019s visit to the San Diego Museum of Man\u2019s exhibit on race. It made me put my teacher hat on and think about what we can do to seriously and meaningful address the racism in the United States. It also made me contemplate my own journey in grappling with my own racism, as well as that in our greater society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We as whites have an obligation to educate ourselves about racism, normative whiteness, cultures and peoples who are different from ourselves, and a more complete picture of American history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll start with normative whiteness, because most whites have no idea what that means. A lot of white Americans are so immersed in their culture that they can\u2019t even see it; they see it as what is \u201cnormal\u201d, ordinary, everyday, status quo. (It\u2019s probably also normative with regard to gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, religion, age, body, and more, but I digress.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the way it is defined here: Paying Attention to White Culture and Privilege: A Missing Link to Advancing Racial Equity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBy \u201cwhite culture,\u201d we mean the dominant, unquestioned standards of behavior and ways of functioning embodied by the vast majority of institutions in the United States. Because it is so normalized, it can be hard to see, which only adds to its powerful hold. In many ways, it is indistinguishable from what we might call US culture or norms \u2014 a focus on individuals over groups, for example, or an emphasis on the written word as a form of professional communication. But it operates in even more subtle ways, by actually defining what \u201cnormal\u201d is \u2014 and likewise, what \u201cprofessional,\u201d \u201ceffective,\u201d or even \u201cgood\u201d is. In turn, white culture also defines what is not good, \u201cat risk,\u201d or \u201cunsustainable.\u201d White culture values some ways \u2014 ways that are more familiar and come more naturally to those from a white, Western tradition \u2014 of thinking, behaving, deciding, and knowing, while devaluing or rendering invisible other ways. And it does this without ever having to explicitly say so.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Resources around this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n