In the early 1980s, I went to school in a black high school with white honors students, a largely black administration, and a fairly racially mixed teaching staff of highly varying quality (where quality did not vary on racial lines - I had some very good black teachers and some very bad white ones, and vice versa).
By some standards it was a good school. We regularly sent about 5% - 10% of each class to top colleges like the ivy league and MIT; but everyone who went to the good schools were honors students and all the honors students were white (OK, not all - there was one hispanic* girl in one of my math classes - but she is the only exception I remember).
I was a white honors student but poor and therefore vulnerable. I managed to be weird and freaky enough to scare people away from physically or sexually assaulting me, but at the cost of being a social pariah.
I couldn't tell you how much of the social persecution I suffered was the result of my being poor, or weird, and how much of it was the result of my being white; nor could I tell you how much of it was or was not backed by an administration that looked the other way because it's concern was focused on helping black students - nor whether that would count as 'backed by institutional power'. And finally I'll grant that I only suffered social persecution and not academic discrimination (despite being thrown out of the honors track in history, which is one reason I know so much about how varied the school truly was).
So I can't prove that I've suffered racist persecution... but I do not believe it is trivially obvious that I haven't, just because I'm white.
Kiralee
*there is, I think, some confusion about hispanics being a race; most people treat it that way, but technically it's an ethnicity.
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Date: 2010-08-20 08:41 pm (UTC)By some standards it was a good school. We regularly sent about 5% - 10% of each class to top colleges like the ivy league and MIT; but everyone who went to the good schools were honors students and all the honors students were white (OK, not all - there was one hispanic* girl in one of my math classes - but she is the only exception I remember).
I was a white honors student but poor and therefore vulnerable. I managed to be weird and freaky enough to scare people away from physically or sexually assaulting me, but at the cost of being a social pariah.
I couldn't tell you how much of the social persecution I suffered was the result of my being poor, or weird, and how much of it was the result of my being white; nor could I tell you how much of it was or was not backed by an administration that looked the other way because it's concern was focused on helping black students - nor whether that would count as 'backed by institutional power'. And finally I'll grant that I only suffered social persecution and not academic discrimination (despite being thrown out of the honors track in history, which is one reason I know so much about how varied the school truly was).
So I can't prove that I've suffered racist persecution... but I do not believe it is trivially obvious that I haven't, just because I'm white.
Kiralee
*there is, I think, some confusion about hispanics being a race; most people treat it that way, but technically it's an ethnicity.