A white senior citizen's attempt to understand racism through the lens of sexism.

Not a single person who knows my husband of 30+ years would ever describe him as a misogynist.  Words used to describe him are often "kind, compassionate, respectful, a good listener." Women have told me he is a “safe” person, someone who will honor them as women and hold their souls in quiet, gentle hands.  He is slow to anger, abounding in love, and a man of integrity.

But his journey into the landscape of truly understanding the importance of respecting  women has been a long one.  Yes, he was brought up to respect women by a mother whose own gentle soul made its imprint on his.  But he was also a product of his environment – an athlete who grew up in a locker room culture and a young man who came of age during the 60’s and 70’s when objectifying women became an accepted cultural practice.

When we married, he would say things or talk about experiences with fellow athletes that made my heart cringe.  Each time I would express to him that what he had just shared was inconsistent with the man I knew him to be.  And generally, his response would be, “But that’s just joking around.”  I had to explain to him that joking around at someone else’s expense wasn’t funny.

Over the years we examined issues like the use of sarcasm, which I explained to him this way:  If you stab someone in the heart with your words, saying “Just kidding” afterwards does not stop the bleeding.  But the turning point came, I think, when he told me how some of the men he had been golfing with were flirting with a young waitress at the restaurant on the course.  It had made him uncomfortable, and he was processing the experience.  

To put it into context, I asked him how he would have felt if it had been one of his daughters serving them that day.  How would he have felt about the table of men filling the air with innuendo and seeing her only as an object?  He was horrified, and from that day forward, I believe he changed as he saw through his own eyes and felt through his own heart as a father the damage that could be done to a woman by the actions and words of men who would excuse their behavior as "just joking around"  or "boys being boys".

Here is what he did NOT do.  He did not dismiss my feelings or experiences because they were not his own.  He did not suggest that because women were more present in all places of society, they just needed to be patient .  And he did not accuse women of creating divisiveness because of their desire to draw attention to their struggles.

So it is with understanding white privilege, I think.  For those of us who are white, we do not have the background or experience through which to evaluate the depth of racism in this country.  And we cannot dismiss the concerns of people of color simply because we have not walked in their shoes, just as my husband could no longer dismiss sexism just because he didn’t have the experiences of being female in our culture.  

We will not understand until we listen to the experiences of people from other races and cultures and place our own lives in that experience.  How would I feel if I knew that if my son was lost on a street, he would be viewed with suspicion because he is Black?  How would I feel if it was assumed my parents were illegal farmworkers just because they were Hispanic?  Would I want my daughter viewed with suspicion because her faith required her to wear a hijab?

I think we need to stop being offended when someone uses the terms “racism” or “white privilege”. I think, instead, we need to be open to asking questions.  I think we need to be honestly willing to consider the possibility, just as Tim did, that our own personal experience of our culture does not equate with the truth because our vision is limited.  

But more than anything, we need to stop and examine our own lives in light of the pain being expressed by people whose lifelong experiences of the promises of America are diminished because of the external expressions of race and culture.