Procrastadabbler

I just finished Thandeka’s book “Learning to be White.” It’s a different take on race theory than I’ve read in the past. Thandeka, a Unitarian/Universalist minister and theologian who’s also a psychologist takes, as one would expect takes a psychological perspective on how white identity is formed. Thandeka, by the way is African American. I am, by the way, European-American. I’ve been working on and off for several years on an article about my formation of my raced and classed identity. Although I’m not enamoured by psychological theory, her argument that becoming white means giving up the ability to form fully human bonds with all people does make sense. She talked with a large number of white people about their earliest recollections of race difference, and found that so many experienced shame associated with it and that there was also a sense of loss.

My own experience was one of confusion. I was 7 years old, living in a trailer with my father, two older brothers and younger sister. No mother in the picture. I was in love with Nat King Cole. Or at least his voice. We had a Bakelite radio in our living room and one day I heard him singing. I told my brother I was going to marry Nat King Cole when I grew up. I don’t remember the particulars, but I remember something to the effect that my brother said I couldn’t because Cole was “colored.” Being the stubborn little kid that I was (and still am), I said so! But I remember confusion. I didn’t quite understand what it meant to be colored and why that meant I couldn’t marry him. But in the frame of what Thandeka is arguing, it was a moment where I learned that there are people who are different from me and that I wasn’t allowed to associate with at a full level.

What particularly strikes me as absurd about this exchange is that my brother (who is 5 years older than me) didn’t bother to point out that Cole was a full grown adult with a wife and child and I was all of seven years old. Or that Cole was a famous singer and I was a nobody kid living in a trailer park. No – what was important was the racial difference.

I have to give Thandeka’s book some more thought. I’ve read a bit in critical race theory and critical whiteness studies. Her work adds yet another layer of understanding.