on accountability part two: whiteness
when i first started writing, all i wanted to write about was whiteness. i was in that portion of white racial reckoning where i felt like buzz lightyear when he realizes his whole universe is fake. i had, as Baldwin describes it, "woken up to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame." i felt desperate to shake other white people awake. to say the right thing to make them understand that everything we believe is undergirded in this assumption of supremacy, which in the day to day just feels like justification for whatever behavior we want to engage in. my writing, my nagging, my conversations, my insistence was ineffective. i was obnoxious. i fixated and spun out.
while my writing now is almost always political and thus inherently includes critiques of white supremacy and its impacts, i don't write directly about whiteness often, partially because it's hard to do so without ending up with a piece that's just a navel gazing attempt at saying something that's been said better by a thousand black thinkers and partially because the people who don't agree with you already won't consider your argument.
one of the delights of this newsletter for me is that i can reasonably assume that if you're here you'll consider my argument.
i want to talk about whiteness and accountability.
as i've gotten older, i have developed a tendency to react angrily when i feel / experience / witness injustice. this anger is an engine, but sometimes it leads me to steamroll people. often, i wish i could approach everyone with the same type of accountability i want for and try to practice with my kids. accountability that hears the experience of everyone involved, that recognizes good intention while prioritizing impact, that seeks a way forward that is better for the entire community. i find it harder to show up this way with grown folks.
recently, i've been thinking a lot about how some people do get this treatment in their adulthood.
despite media outcry about cancel culture, in systems of accountability from the criminal legal system to work places, white people, especially white men, consistently receive the benefit of the doubt, consistently have their intentions honored. in my experience, this shapes them (us) to be unprepared and often unable to accept real accountability.
meanwhile, the rest of the world face a spectrum of accountability that treats so many violently, often times in ways that cannot be avoided and are not warranted. it's a damn trap.
given this disparity, it's unreasonable to consider accountability for white people, and especially white men, without acknowledging and acting on this context.
what does "accountability" that centers white people look like in practice?
+ tone policing and protecting "civility" or "privacy" at the expense of honesty and creating space for people who are most impacted to share their truth: no matter how public harm / harmful actions are, no matter how hurtful, many white people and most systems created by white people will not accommodate or accept anger and directness, especially publicly. even in cases where space is made for anger, consequences for the angry person follow, from an uno-reverse style "now apologize to me" moment, to damage to the angry person's reputation or status, to acts of retaliation both obvious and subtle.
+ praising and centering the white person in question: the person who has been harmed often receives less aftercare or recognition of the difficulty of the accountability process than the white person who has caused harm. our experience is considered first and foremost in how the community moves forward. our ego and self-esteem are assuaged by praise before any follow through or change is actually completed on our part.
+ painting continued accountability as grudge holding or the angry person being unreasonable: when bad behavior on the part of the white person involved is brought up in the future, it is seen as unnecessary or mean-spirited despite the continued relevance of this behavior. there is a desire to "move on," which means no longer discussing the behavior or its impact. efforts to check back in about the white person's commitments or address ongoing harmful behavior (similar or different from the original issue) are dismissed or mischaracterized as petty and the person who calls for on-going accountability is also dismissed or mischaracterized.
in these situations, not only is the white person unlikely to actually understand their impact and change in a meaningful way, the person or people harmed are likely to end up feeling further angered as well as less likely to participate in accountability processes in the future. a vicious cycle that consistently benefits white people and upholds white supremacy.
i believe in meaningful accountability as the strongest safeguard of community wellness. if we don't acknowledge the ways white dominant culture and white supremacy prevent us from holding white people accountable in meaningful ways, our communities will continue to suffer.
as always, i hope this was useful.
if it was and you've got five bucks a month to spare, click here.
with hope,
katie wills evans