Whenever I walk down the street, I take note of people’s posture and poise. I find that most white men carry themselves without fear. With their heads held high, they act as if they have no anticipation of how the simple act of walking down the street could result in harassment or even death. When you factor in race, the anxiety of being Black or a person of color is visible, especially at night or in the presence of police. When you’re a Black woman like me this anxiety is inescapable and ever present, not just on the sidewalk, but in all settings.
I have always wondered: Why are white men this over-confident in every setting? Men — specifically heterosexual white men — walk with a sense of purpose and confidence, as if they are untouchable. They don’t have to be afraid because the overarching establishment that we live under has never told them to be. They don’t have to worry about being on the receiving end of police brutality. They don’t have to worry about how the color of their skin is regarded as an invitation to inflict danger and violence.
White men are the building blocks of the harmful system of racism and patriarchy that we live under today. Oxford Dictionary defines the patriarchy as “a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.” I think there is more to it than that. I regard, and have experienced, the United States’ white, patriarchal society as having a chokehold of oppression on Black people, people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized communities.
History of Oppression
The sentiment that Black people and people of color are criminals was created by the worst criminals of all. The white habit of stealing, murdering, and pillaging has been written into the constitution and the laws that we live under by the hands of the white man. From European colonization, to redlining, to pipelines destroying indigenous land, white people have legally enforced land theft and oppression. Entitlement and encroachment ensured that generations of white families would have land to live on and exploit for wealth and success, at any cost.
For centuries, white people have taken ownership over almost everything in their path. Committing unspeakable crimes against Black people and Indigenous tribes, yet too many refuse to acknowledge the damage they have caused. Little to no action has been taken by powerful white men to alleviate or eradicate institutional oppression from affecting others who are at major risk.
Throughout history, a strong argument could be made that the worst criminals of all have been white men, as there are many examples of them utilizing their privilege to avoid punishment for acts of savagery and murder.
Colonialism was the first culprit. Conquistador culture, which stemmed from Spanish and European colonialism, erased African, Indigenous, Caribbean culture, and the historical LGBTQ+ presence. Colonialism gave white men the permission to have authority over land that was never theirs to begin with.
A modern example is Dylann Roof, the terrorist that went into an African American church in 2015 and killed nine people. Roof felt entitled enough to commit a massacre on Black lives based on his sudden urge to start a race war. After his arrest the police officers, who were white, brought him a meal from Burger King.
The oppression that the white patriarchy forces onto societies is reason enough for Black people, indigenous people, and people of color to deem white men in power as racist, sexist, and yes, evil. In this context, this vile behavior refers to the fallacy around the hierarchy created by white men. This thought process stems from the reality that white men have existed in dominance for so long, while others will always suffer at the hands of patriarchal power structures.
White men have caused and watched the suffering of others for the past 400 years with no remorse. The lack of remorse is present because we continue to live in a society that serves to benefit white men.
White men have had their hands on almost every major law and decision in history. No wonder they turn a blind eye to the concerns of others, when those concerns will never negatively impact them. The fact that white men can effortlessly ignore the ways that the governmental patriarchy benefits them, gives me enough reason to assume that every straight white man I encounter truly has no grasp of how much privilege they have.
The Loudest in The Classroom, and the Most Wrong
The attitude of ownership and privilege in white men has especially been noticeable to me in educational settings. In my friends’ and my own experiences, white male voices in the classroom have often been loudest, yet the most wrong.
Amaechi Kofoworola, a first-year student at Lang, told me about multiple experiences he has faced in the classroom. “One white boy told me that Trump needed to keep illegal immigrants out to keep the country safe. He also said that Black people that were killed by police were doing something wrong to get killed. Another boy in my class said that illegal immigrants needed to be kept out and that Donald Trump was doing a good job of making sure that that happened,” he said.
These words made Kofoworola angry, but still, he was not surprised because white men are often “enabled” when making statements like this.
“I felt enraged, as anyone should have after hearing that. If you are not enraged, when you hear that, you are complicit. You are in direct association with the growth of malice on behalf of white counterparts, and if you disagree or do not react, you are directly invigorating violent sentiments and harm,” Kofoworola said, in reaction to that experience.
Another example was that of Leda Fisher, a Black student at Dickinson College who received extreme backlash after publishing an article titled “Should White Boys Still Be Allowed to Talk?” in her college newspaper in 2019.
Fisher described the superiority complex in the context of education and classrooms, writing that: “If your name is something like Jake, or Chad, or Alex, you were taught that your voice is the most important in every room. Somewhere along your academic journey, you decided your search for intellectual validation was more important than the actual exchange of information.”
“The list of what white boys think they are qualified to talk about is endless,” Fisher wrote.
The comments section below the story was bombarded with angry and hateful messages from strangers on the internet, some even calling for her expulsion from Dickinson College. One commenter said: “This was an attack at all the white young men who help make Dickinson what it is.”
This was an egotistical, patriarchal and racist thing to say. It fails to acknowledge the simple fact that white men aren’t the only people to exist on the planet. White men, inherently, are so wrapped up in their heads as they consider themselves the pillar of the universe – a universe constructed by them so meticulously that they will always have a leg up.
White Feminism
I’ve covered white men pretty generously throughout this piece, but the white woman’s role in patriarchal racism cannot be ignored.
White women have comfortability and privilege because of the color of their skin, but white men continue to remain superior overall. White women obviously experience sexism, but because the issue of race is not a problem, this in turn gives them a sense of superiority over others as well.
“While White women are members of an oppressed group based on gender, they still experience privilege based on race. This dual oppressor/oppressed identity often becomes a root of tension when White women are challenged to consider their White privilege by Women of Color,” wrote Mamta Accapadi, Vice Provost for University Life at Penn State wrote in an article titled “When White Women Cry: How White Women’s Tears Oppress Women of Color.”
That being said, white women are not excused from the effects that the toxic white patriarchy has created.
In 2017, when I was a freshman in high school, I attended the Women’s March with my mom and her friend in Washington DC. We were excited to go because we hate Donald Trump- his policies, racism, and overall rhetoric. We wanted to show our opposition and resilience in any way possible. However, there were very few women of color present, and white women were the majority at that protest. At first, I felt confused as to why we were the few women of color present, especially in a city in which 46 percent of residents are Black. We were outnumbered. However, as time went on, I understood why. White women dominated this movement.
There has been a lot of speculation over the idea that the Women’s March, and movement behind it, is too white. That it doesn’t address the needs of women of color or the LGBTQ+ community. Michael T. Heaney analyzed this in an article for The Washington Post. “Critical race theorists and other scholars have explored that these feminist mobilizations tended to be led by and focus on the concerns of white, middle-class, heterosexual women and neglected the concerns of women of color, the poor and other groups facing discrimination.”
The Women’s March primarily existed in support of white women, despite the fact that white women tend to support the ideals and movements created by white men. Have white women ever truly been there for women of color? The answer is no. White women are also bystanders when it comes to activism in support of people of color. White women are also quick to state that they are oppressed because of their gender, despite the fact that their race will always come before anything else, which is something that women of color cannot use as a shield for the violence that they face.
Through my Lens
As I am not white, and it isn’t necessarily my job to educate white people on how to do better, I wrote all of this to state that my existence as a Black woman is a protest. I am still here, surviving the white patriarchy, given that the obstacles in my path that are unavoidable, since they are set up by institutional barriers that have yet to be changed. That there are many layers of oppression inflicted upon Black people and people of color, and it seems that equality is unattainable unless white people destroy all of the systemic blocks that they have put in place. Until then, Black people and people of color are waiting for the day where white people can finally recognize their part in the suppression of BIPOC success, prosperity and joy on all levels.