Me and White Supremacy - Day 16: White Centering

Resource: Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad

It turns out that I could renew my copy of this book so I can finish working through it!! Today the topic was white centering.

White centering is the centering of white people, white values, white norms, and white feelings over everything and everyone else. As a result, white is seen as “normal” and nonwhite is seen as “other.” Although self-centering is something we do as humans since we are going through life with our own individual perspective, but white centering is like a collective ego that asks “How is this important to us white people?” It dismisses all other narratives.

White centering shows up in:

• Overrepresentation of people with white privilege and white-centered narratives in movies, art, books, etc.

• Overrepresentation of people with white privilege in positions of leadership and success

• White feminism that centers on gender only and excludes intersectionality of race

• Reinterpretation of historical events and culturally significant holidays through white-centered narrative (think Thanksgiving)

• Tone policing

• Affirmation of valuing European beauty standards over BIPOC beauty standards

• In anti racism work, focusing on how the work makes people with white privilege feel over how racism makes BIPOC feel

As Saad stated, “White centering is like an invisible net holding up white supremacy.” We have been taught not to see it, but we can also be taught to see it. Disrupting white centering begins with individual actions/behaviors/mindsets, and even just being aware of it. De-centering whiteness does not mean becoming inferior to BIPOC, but learning to stop upholding whiteness as the norm and instead learn to live and operate in a more inclusive way.

Reflection: How is your worldview a white-centered one? What are you beginning to understand about how white centering affects BIPOC?

These are big questions, because as I am learning more about race and racial inequities, I feel like I keep learning how white-centered my world really is. I was thinking about it yesterday while watching Hallmark movies (my mom and I have been on a Hallmark movie streak lately) about how every one of their movies that I have ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot - like the only thing I watch around Christmas) features white protagonists. Sometimes there are Black side characters, but they don’t have much of a story and are there to support the protagonists’ story. I feel like even if they have movies with Black protagonists, I imagine they’re very whitewashed (probably only using SAVE and not AAVE, in the same sort of unrealistic settings as most other Hallmark movies, and no elements of how their race influences the story - in other words, I can see them not changing anything about their movies except replacing the characters with Black (or other POC) actors. Hallmark movies are just very white-centered in general, and even though I still enjoy them (even though the plot for every story is pretty much the same), I am more aware and critical of the messages portrayed (often unintentionally) in media like this.

I think one of the most influential things that I do that allows me to practice taking on others’ perspectives and center non-dominant voices is to read, and I feel very grateful that I was exposed to books by diverse authors in high school. I think a lot of high school English curriculums still center on books written primarily by white authors (white men specifically), but being in an IB program and having teachers who were aware and intentionally, we were exposed to some diversity in authors including Isabelle Allende (we did a whole unit on magical realism and read several books by Latinx authors), Toni Morrison, Zora Neele Hurston, and Chinua Achebe. For most of college, I didn’t read much outside of course materials, but I think after college was when I became more intentional about who I was reading and made sure to diversify my bookshelf. And to clarify, I read mostly fiction, which I think is often more valuable than reading nonfiction to practice taking on perspectives. I really do think this has been a huge and important part in influencing my perceptions of the world and my ability to more clearly see white centering.

I hadn’t really considered how white centering impacts BIPOC before, and I read a really heartbreaking thread this morning that really opened my eyes to the damage white centering does. In this thread, Black people were describing how much, as a child, they hated being Black and wanted to be white, how they saw themselves as ugly, and how they would think about this all the time. While this was the perspective of maybe 5 people, I’m sure it is representative of a much larger group of people. As a white person, I feel like it’s easy to brush off the gravity of the impact of white centering as the benefit we receive from it presents itself as a neutral way of being, and not a benefit. I’ve never had to question whether or not I belong somewhere (in a job, in school, in the outdoors) because of the color of my skin, and I lived much of my life not recognizing that as a privilege - a lot of that is due to white centering. Maybe it wouldn't be bad if the message were just coming from one place, but nearly everything in our society is still white centered from the authors we celebrate to the bandaid/makeup options we are presented to the people who represent us in the government. I think overall as a society we are moving in the right direction, but just because we are doing better at recognizing and working against white centering than 50 years ago doesn’t mean that everything is fixed and that it’s something we can not consider anymore.

I am thinking in particular how white centering shows up in my teaching practice and how I can work against it. I am thinking about how science curriculum is white centered in the perspectives and ways of gaining knowledge that we value (Western science vs Indigenous science in particular) and the people we learn about who practice science (almost every scientist I can remember learning about in school was white - I recently learned a little bit about George Washington Carver, and I want to learn more about him). I am thinking also about the culture I create within my teaching groups and my group management skills, and I wonder how white centered they are (I’m not entirely sure). Being aware of white centering though has made me consider these things and will allow me to be more critical of my teaching practice when I am able to work with students again.