Race, Privilege, and "Young, White, Female Activists"

I've had many responses to the Marla Ruzicka/Rachel Corrie piece that I wrote last week.  Two of the letters, however, have been particularly on my mind.  The first, from someone who identified herself as  a "fair complected"  young female voiced her discomfort with the following sentence:

"I must note that my sadness does not only get called out by the deaths of young, white, female activists, but there is a certain sense of identification that I feel with these women."

She wrote that she was disturbed by my underlying identification with the young, white female -- that I ought to be identifying with the enduring humanity that a person brings to the earth, and not just their packaging.  My initial reaction to her response was that, of course, I was identifying with Marla and Rachel's enduring humanity -- as I wrote, with the spirit, courage, love, etc. that they took out into the world.  That is what I meant to convey in the piece, and I was sorry that it seemed like I was simply saying that my identification was based on race.

However, race is a real construct in our society.  And, for too many white people in this country, it is an unexamined and unearned privilege that shapes the opportunities that they have and the actions that they take or don't take. 

I received another thoughtful, and very beautiful, note from Bishara Costandi, a Palestinian father who lives here in California.  He wrote:

Having lived in this country long enough, and having been active as long, I never cease to be bewildered at the mindset leading the actions of "progressives" with whom I work and those I hear of. Why, I wonder, is there not a class movement yet? Why is it always "anti-war", or "peace", when the "hood" and the school are burning, the prisons are getting fatter, "health care" is a passport to illness and death? Tragically, all are issues merely uttered as sub text?

 

Why is the "movement" (nothing is moving!) middle class and white in its general persona? How come "leaders" (short of naming names) are more concerned about sending food baskets to the Iraqis (they are not asking for charity), continue to care-less for the Palestinians, and call for the election of a person like Kerry, but fail to take actions as simple as surrounding the federal buildings to demand honesty in "elections"?

 

Why is there no will to sacrifice?

He also sent me a piece he had written in memorial to Rachel Corrie, where he expands on these thoughts of sacrifice, humanity, freedom, that I think I was trying to get at (rather unsuccessfully) in my own essay:

The struggle for freedom, however, is at once the pursuit of unanimous liberty and of self emancipation. It cannot be otherwise. It is a mission that revolutionaries take, not alone, but in communion with fellow humans, trespassing all boundaries of geography, race, gender and religion. A mission, moreover, that treks a protracted, torturous path; one that is bleak, dangerous and … deadly.

Significantly, the struggle for freedom is a decision containing a contradiction: those of us, who decide to meet the challenge, do so voluntarily, at will, exactly when we also understand that morally we have no other choice!!

These two responses have been much on my mind as I think about Rachel and Marla and how I place at least some of my identification with them and their actions.  I've realized that, yes, I am identifying with their underlying humanity as I hoped to communicate in the essay I wrote.  However, as a white woman it is also true that I do identify with them as white women, and to say otherwise might not be honest. 

But, let me be more specific.  I identify with them not just because their skin is white, but rather in my admiration and respect for their efforts to transcend the race and class privilege that would have easily allowed them to stay out of harm's way, to not get involved, to not come into communion with fellow human beings.  Face it --  most white, middle class women in our society will never do this, will never make anywhere near the kinds of sacrifices that these two women made, will never even recognize the problems.  I wonder about the extent to which I will be able to transcend my own privilege,  though I work in that direction every day. 

In this sense, I do hope that these two white women will be guides for my children.  However, ultimately, I hope that Rachel and Marla's examples will shine alongside the voices and actions of many others who actively work to create change for the better in our world.