On Being a White Male: Part I

I was reading a very interesting piece yesterday on multi-cultural education that pointed out that the point of such education is often to celebrate people of color and white women (and perhaps people with disabilities or alternative sexualities) while castigating white men.  The author cited a teacher who summed up George Washington's life by dismissing him as a slave owner.  I also know a number of white males (and not a few white women, for that matter) who seem determined to somehow shed their racial identities through their grooming, clothing, religious practices, or what have you.

Of course growing up in rural Oregon in the 1960s all we learned in primary and junior high school were the wonderful achievements of white males..  But I fear the pendulum has swung the other way at times, and in ways that ironically end up celebrating and empowering white males even further.  So I'd like to talk about some of those examples and dynamics.

Let's start with George Washington.  Washington was a slave owner, and when some of his slaves tried to escape during and after the Revolution, he tried to get them back.  But he also freed his slaves upon his death and was troubled by the institution--which we must remember was widely accepted across the globe until the century in which he was born.  He also managed to keep together under very trying conditions the Continental Army, served as a powerful symbol of strength and unity as both the nation's leading general and first President, and set an extremely important precedent in refusing royal titles and stepping down from office voluntarily.

Washington had his flaws, even by the standards of his own day, and we should not repeat the mistakes of past generations by pretending otherwise.  But he was also an extremely influential and in many respects inspiring historical figure.  To dismiss him as nothing more than a racist slave owner strikes me as silly and sets up a sort of dichotomy in which white men are inevitably evil (and powerful) and every one else is good (and weak), a dichotomy that.both does violence to history and reality and robs all people of their complex humanity.

Next week I'll discuss how a popular American novelist distorts African history through her determination to escape the burden of whiteness.