Privileged white people and the denials of racism

Stockwell Day, the former leader of the Canadian Alliance, is the latest privileged white man to declare there is no systemic racism in Canada.

He compared racism here to being teased when he was a boy because he wore glasses.

“Should I have gone through school being mocked because I had glasses and was called ‘four eyes?’” he asked Tuesday on CBC’S Power and Politics. “No, of course not.”

He complained about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “insinuating that all Canadians are somehow racist because our system is systemically racist.”

Trudeau was responding to the protests in the United States over the police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man.

Before Day, it was Rex Murphy, a former CBC radio host and another privileged white guy, writing in National Post on Monday.

Where is this racism? he asked. It’s throughout our history. Against black people, Indigenous people, Muslims.

He complained about being “lectured.” Most people in positions of privilege don’t like being lectured. They’re the ones accustomed to doing the lecturing.

He complained that people, I’m assuming white people of course, don’t get credit for all the progress against racism and dismissed any problems as, “no one’s perfect.”

Windsor is one of the most diverse cities in Canada. We welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees. But we don’t have to look far to find racism.

When city council waived the noise bylaw to allow Windsor Mosque to play the call to prayer over its loudspeakers during Ramadan, because people couldn’t gather due to the pandemic, the backlash was ugly and shameful.

“Practise all your goofy beliefs in private and spare us,” wrote one commentator.

A petition opposing it called it “noise pollution.”

It was hurtful. The mosque was delivering boxes of food to those who needed help during the pandemic, not just Muslims, anyone who needed help.

Murphy wrote that saying Canada is not a racist country “may shock some.”

Sadly, it’s not shocking, least of all, I suspect, for those who experience discrimination, that a privileged white man would say that.

What is shocking is that we still have to point out that a privileged white man, who has never experienced discrimination because he’s a privileged white man, is in no position to pronounce that racism has been solved.

Here’s the thing about being white and privileged — I can say this because that’s what I am.

It’s easy to succumb to what the American writer Eula Biss in the New York Times called an illusion. You believe that you’ve achieved what you’ve achieved, whether it’s an education, good job, nice house, standing in the community, because you’ve worked hard. You deserve it.

You forget about all the economic and social advantages you’ve had. You were born on third base, as the saying goes, and you think you hit a triple. Yes, you worked hard. But you started with advantages that put you way in front of those less fortunate before you did anything.

That’s the biggest privilege — you don’t even have to think about your colour or ethnicity or religion.

When we conveniently forget this, as Biss wrote, it’s like collusion.

Maybe that’s why Murphy doesn’t like being “lectured” about racism. It’s uncomfortable being reminded that your privilege rests on someone else’s lack of it.

As Biss concluded, enjoying your special station, without understanding or acknowledging that not everyone enjoys the same station, is a different kind of racism, less overt, but maybe not much better. There’s a cost, to everyone. It undermines our whole community. It costs us the untapped potential of the classmates, work colleagues and neighbours that we hold back. It costs us the strength of cohesiveness and the collaboration among groups that may see things differently. It costs us the simple, enriching experience of diversity.

Worst, it means that nothing will change.

At least Day paid a price, resigning from the board of directors of Telus, his position as a strategic adviser at the law firm Mcmillan LLP and as a commentator on CBC.

I like the way a different privileged white guy handled the backlash over the call to prayer here in Windsor. Mayor Drew Dilkens shut it down.

“It was the right thing to do,” he said of council’s decision.

You forget about all ... advantages you’ve had. You were born on third base, as the saying goes, and you think you hit a triple.