Posted on January 13, 2014

University-Sponsored Production Glorifies White-Shaming

Katherine Timpf, Campus Reform, January 7, 2014

The University of Oregon (UO) put on a production about race in which one student repeatedly said “I don’t know why I’m white.”

“I didn’t choose to be white. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know why I’m white,” said Eric Braman during the Nov. 13 event.

The production was an an adaptation of National Public Radio host Michele Norris’ “The Race Card Project,” according to the school’s official website.

“How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?” asks the initiative’s official website.

At the start of the production, students read some of these responses, which included everything from “So scared that Zimmerman is Jewish” to “I am fortunate to be Caucasian” to “Nobody asks me about hot sauce.”

Others included “Not all Mexicans can do landscaping,” “Loving my butt and hair? Impossible” and “Embarrassed that I’m afraid of black boys.”

{snip}

Braman, who identified himself at the end as a gay white male, described his experience with white guilt after learning about slavery and civil rights in grade school and white privilege in high school.

“I remember being so frustrated and angry that I had privilege just because I was white, and now because of that I had to feel bad about it,” he said. “I didn’t choose to be white. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know why I’m white,” he said, explaining that neither of his parents had shared his specific family history with him.

“Why was I supposed to feel so bad about my whiteness when I didn’t even have any connection to how I got it?”

He said those feelings caused him to exhibit what he called “some pretty ignorant racism.”

“I said it all,” he said. “Everything from ‘No I don’t see color!’ to ‘I got a black friend, I love black people!’ and yes, I even said, ‘Don’t call me white, call me pink, I’m more pink than white!'”

{snip}

An option to download a video of the performance is on the UO website.