Reified Whiteness

Three times have I been an ethnic minority--or so I flatter myself: As an LDS missionary in Puerto Rico, as an English teacher in China, and as a reporter in Mexico.

In the first, I did indeed have to learn Spanish, Hispanic discourse patterns, and overall adapt into the native culture. Yet all the while Puerto Rico remained a subordinated colony to my home country; my "white" identity was never truly threatened.

In the second, I was in the midst of a rising superpower, and had to learn not only Chinese but also Chinese discourse patterns; in many ways I had to relearn how to speak and do everything. Yet my purpose there was to teach English, to continue to reify my native tongue as the global dominant discourse.

And in the third, though by then I was thoroughly familiar with Hispanic culture, I was still in a nation that, while not a colony like Puerto Rico, was still in a subjugated relationship to my home country. Also, I was there writing for an English-language newspaper serving American expatriots who demanded the news in their native tongue while they took advantage of Mexico's favorable exchange rate.

The overall effect has been that though I have experienced being an ethnic minority multiple times, I have never actually had an experience analogous to that of most minorities living in these United States. For that to happen, I would need to, say, immigrate to some African Union superpower that had undercut America's economy with its own ruthless practices, enjoyed unchallenged military superiority, and had made Swahili the international lingua franca.

I bring all this up only because 1) I was recently exposed to an article about how white power codes are reified in the classroom, even in classes that ostensibly are all about examining "whiteness," because white people have this irritating habit of drawing false analogies between the travails of minorities to their own experiences, and 2) once my night-manager at the BYUI locker-room said strait-faced that "there is no group more oppressed now a-days than white men," and it took me a minute to realized he wasn't making a joke.

I know what it's like to learn a new language, and I know what it's like to adapt to a new culture, which gives me experience and empathy I'm glad I have; but though I've doubtless slipped up unconsciously, I am wary of drawing patronizing corollaries between my experiences and those of ethnic minorities.