Reflection 2: “Under Our Skin”
After spending some time checking out the “Under Our Skin” project of the Seattle Times, something that stood out to me was the mention of the role individualism, a prevalent American ideology, in the discussion of white privilege.
“I feel like a lot of decisions are made assuming that the playing field is level and equal, and they’re not,” said Rachel Decruz in the video on diversity. “Oftentimes, our country’s focus on the individual and this narrative of like, ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You work hard and you play by the rules and you’ll be able to get ahead in life,’ and that’s damaging because it’s not true.”
Jerrell Davis brings up a similar idea in the video on white privilege: “People that say they don’t have white privilege, ‘I work for everything I got,’ I mean, I think even that speaks to white privilege and this idea that we can ‘pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,’ like that’s just b-------.”
Clinging solely to the American ideology of working hard for what you have and pathing your own path can lead to blindness of others’ starting points and experiences, which in turn influences the discomfort and denial of white privilege. And white privilege, the structural advantage on the account of race, is something that is so ingrained in U.S. history; it is something that has become so American, even if we don’t wish to define it that way.
Perhaps the value of individualism is praise-worthy in other contexts, but it has no place in the discussion of white privilege. After all, white privilege is not denying that white people do not work hard for what they have, only that they have not been oppressed on account of their skin color.
A commentary article by Brando Simeo Starkey begs the question of why the existence of white privilege is denied.” Simply put, Starkey writes, “By denying the unfairness, white folk never have to confront it.”
Confronting these uncomfortable realities is a necessary first step in redefining what is American. Near the bottom of the page, the Seattle Times includes their reasoning for the “Under Our Skin” project: to further probe the issues of race and racism in the local stories they cover.
Reflection is particularly important in the newsroom. The role of journalism is to provide the truth to its audiences so that people know what’s going on in their community and those around them. Journalists especially hold the responsibility of confronting and understanding these issues to properly dispel stories to their audiences.
A project like this one that provides a variety of perspectives from a diverse group of people deepens our understanding of terms, such as white privilege, that we see so frequently juggled in the media.