TYRINGHAM — Following the senseless murder of George Floyd last May, once the marches and demonstrations dwindled, many in the Berkshires came not only to understand that more had to be done, but also began to wonder about their own complicity in matters of racial injustice. In the tiny town of Tyringham, a concerned group of residents began asking themselves, “If we talk about injustice but don’t do anything, aren’t we complicit?” Cognizant they had a lot to learn, and unlearn, a second question quickly emerged: “How to begin?”
These questions gave rise to Tyringham For Racial Justice, a group that has partnered with the community service organization Hop Brook Community Club to present White Privilege: What It Is and How It Matters. On Saturday, June 19 at 1 p.m., Dr. Peggy McIntosh of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and Ms. Gwendolyn VanSant, CEO and founding director of BRIDGE, will discuss white privilege and the ways in which power can be used for social change. The event, which celebrates Juneteenth, will take place at the Tyringham Firemen’s Pavilion at 100 Main Road in Tyringham.
“White privilege is the advantage I get from being born white in a culture that favors white,” explained McIntosh, widely considered the global expert on white privilege, having coined the term in 1988 in her paper White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies).
When I recently spoke with McIntosh and VanSant, we agreed on the need for some historical context regarding the Juneteenth holiday: On the eve of January 1, 1863, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes across the country in anticipation of news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were Black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south spreading the good news. Still, Lincoln’s Proclamation could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control, which meant that, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, freedom for enslaved people would not come until much later. On June 19, 1865, some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay to announce that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree, marking a day that came to be known as “Juneteenth” by the newly freed people in Texas. [This history is courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.]
It bears noting that, in Massachusetts, Juneteenth is now an official state holiday after Governor Charlie Baker signed legislation last July, 13 years after Deval Patrick, the state’s only Black governor, signed the first proclamation commemorating Juneteenth in the Bay State.
VanSant’s introduction to McIntosh’s work started when she read her paper “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” at the start of her BRIDGE tenure (the nonprofit was founded in September 2007). She now uses the piece in all of her social justice organizing and said, “It’s sort of like the kitchen sink … it’s a baseline conversational source for me in my work and my [interracial] family.” For McIntosh, it was her brother-in-law who called her to say, “Something has started called Multicultural BRIDGE. I thought you would be interested,” she recalled.
The collaborations quickly ensued when McIntosh learned they were not teaching the students about Du Bois at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. “We both objected to that,” said McIntosh. During her time founding the Department of Equity and Inclusion at Simon’s Rock (her alma mater), VanSant invited McIntosh to speak and she said yes. The pair also collaborated on a BRIDGE event at Kripalu, another site that had not delved into white privilege prior. The invitation to speak in Tyringham stems from the fact that, “[McIntosh’s] husband’s family bought a farmhouse in Tyringham in about 1933 … and [his] mother was a devoted member of the Hop Brook Club.”
“What we have in common is being driven to do something in the world that might, as my parents’ used to say, improve on the older generation, always,” said McIntosh, who admits to having “both class and race privilege, to act on what I [see].”
Below are excerpts from my recent conversation with McIntosh and VanSant. They have been edited for length and clarity.
Hannah Van Sickle: Why, now more than ever, is the conversation not only relevant but also imperative?
Peggy McIntosh: The pandemic and the murder of George Floyd both showed that there are tremendous gaps in the United States between the experience of people of color and whites. Suddenly, my work, which was written 33 years ago, was considered important for understanding. Looking at it from the point of view of white privilege, so much of the disparity … is caused by unconscious exclusion, bias, stereotyping, neglecting and ignoring people of color. It’s not just white privilege; it’s an attempt by whites to keep control, as in the case of the murder of George Floyd. For years, people have talked about discrimination and hatred on the part of whites toward people of color; there is so much power in the hands of whites that they do not realize. They have subsisted on the myth of meritocracy, which is that everyone gets what they deserve or Manifest Destiny, [the belief] that God intended white people to take over the continental United States from the indigenous people who were here. Or the myth of white racelessness, which is that whites are just normal, and other people have racial identifiers and characteristics. Or the myth of white moral and managerial superiority, which would explain why we run everything — we’re so good at it, right? If you look at the state of the world, and the state of the United States, and ask — “Is it true? That we, whites, have been so good at everything?”— the answer is no, we haven’t, and maintaining our control is part of what has given us this ethnic profile of dominance and an attempt to keep the dominance. But, because most people are not quite aware of the relations in the society they are born into, most whites don’t understand that they do have unearned advantage.
HVS: What is the link between white privilege and systemic racism and how do we move the dial in a positive direction?
Gwendolyn VanSant: Systemic racism, as we define it, is a social, political, and historical construct in that it provides entitlements to folks who can identify as white — whether that’s land ownership, wealth, or all the other privileges Dr. McIntosh has talked about. So, there is a direct link. What I find sometimes when people talk about white privilege, it softens that blow — these are privileges, these are benefits, I didn’t make them, so I’m not accountable to the harm that is caused. The most important piece of this conversation to me, especially on a day celebrating Black culture and honoring Black liberation, is that people begin to lean into the constant and perpetual harm that comes from systemic racism through white privileges, through these entitlements [McIntosh] just outlined. The most important thing to do is to keep talking about it, keep naming whiteness, keep naming how whiteness manifests, and realizing that these privileges are attached to real trauma.
HVS: How has the conversation evolved, in the decades since each of you began your respective work?
VanSant: In my shorter [than McIntosh’s] time talking about this, the folks who are awake — the people who understand that they benefit from white privilege — are beginning to think about how to repair, how to restore. There is becoming a more mainstream conversation that needs to be managed. Juneteenth, there is a lot of push back about it getting corporatized, but so as long as we can stay within integrity and intentionality around these conversations, I feel like we are moving the dial to increase awareness in the popular mindset, not just folks who are studying in a college classroom or who pursue this knowledge on their own. I have great hope and optimism that the conversation is becoming more pervasive, even in the time I’ve been doing BRIDGE work. That being said, in the times we’ve lived since 2016 and even before, the white-lash is also stronger [as seen] in people who believe they need to hold onto an America they feel is disappearing. They aren’t able to see that [it] hasn’t been the same America for everybody, [namely the] many who have not had access. So I see an evolution in a positive track, and then there is this backwards movement.
McIntosh: In my acceptance speech for [the 2021 Centennial Medal] from Harvard, I made a point of saying [W.E.B. Du Bois] was the first Black Ph.D. from Harvard, 126 years ago … he arrived in my acceptance speech. I thought I had left Harvard behind — Harvard’s assumption, Harvard’s frames of reference, Harvard’s modes of teaching — I thought I had left them all behind. And then I remembered there had been one teacher who had taught us very, very close reading of poetry, and he was the only one who stuck with me, mentally. So I read between the lines of my own life [and] asked: ‘What can I do with all this unearned advantage?’ And I thought, well, I can use it, spend it down, to weaken the system that gave it to me. That’s why I spent half my acceptance comments on [Du Bois] and what his Ph.D. tells us now about sharing respect among all the students, all the instructors, all the faculty in such a way that they come to respect the students of color, who they need to learn from; the faculty of color, who they need to learn from; the instructors of color, the staff of color, who they need to learn from. [Du Bois] presented himself to my subconscious mind, that’s how he got in; he came in because he belonged at the ceremony. How does that happen? Du Bois is a genius; read him! Of course, it will take you half a lifetime. Read James Baldwin; read Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.” Read, read, read…
Note: This is the inaugural event in a speaker series being co-hosted by Tyringham For Racial Justice and the Hop Brook Community Club. The talk is free and open to the public. Reservations are requested by June 14, by sending an email to hopbrookcommunityclub@gmail.com, but pre-registration is not required to attend.
All donations will benefit BRIDGE, a minority- and women-run organization dedicated to racial justice work. Donations may be made on the day of the presentation in cash or by personal check payable to Hop Brook Community Club, P.O. Box 354, Tyringham, MA, 01264, or through your PayPal account by clicking “Send & Request,” then “Send money” and entering: hopbrookcommunityclub@gmail.com.
