Pacific Northwest Whitewash

"Trying to describe white privilege to white people is like trying to explain water to a fish."


Bonita Appleblog crafted an excellent, thoughtful response to an article in Seattle's alt-weekly, The Stranger, on racism, Seattle-style.


Fact!  I used to live in Seattle.  I went to college there, and I cannot recall interacting with a single black person outside of the Supersonics, Monday night Seahawks hangout at the jazz club, the 3 guys on our school's basketball team, and the neighborhoods where I volunteered.  OUCH.


These days, the first reason I give when asked if I would ever move back to Portland and I say no and they ask why, is that it's not diverse enough.  People like to debate this, or act like this is an unreasonable dealbreaker, but when you grow up as a mixed-race kid in a superwhite area, you're not in a big hurry to return to a place where you didn't stand a chance of blending in, being beautiful, encountering others like you.


This explanation is inevitably met with a blank stare, which brings us back to the quote at the top of this post. Rinse, repeat.


"Your life story produces a racial filter," [explains Tali Hairston.] "It might be a lens so thick that everything gets drawn into looking like it's about race, or so thin that when someone says something is racial, you go, oh hell no, it's not. As a white person, you have to own the development of your own racial lens. Because whether you're aware of it or not, you have one."