On Spending White Privilege

White people often get very agitated upon encountering a discussion about white privilege. It's invisible and unrecognized--and can create a good deal of discomfort in those who do recognize it (or who are forced to recognize it). Too much of our shared dialogue about privilege suggests it's a bad thing--something that white people should feel guilty about. Something that should be avoided at all costs.

...and that's a serious problem. We can't avoid white privilege. It isn't privilege that we've earned. It's senseless to feel guilty about something we have no control over.

However, white privilege isn't something we can ignore. 

White privilege is something that has been given to us by a civilization that has systematically favored white people over all others for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. White people can silently reap the benefits of this unearned privilege or make a choice to spend that privilege wisely.

A friend on twitter passed this clip along in which a women shows the easy and elegant way one person choosing to spend their privilege wisely can change the world.

A white person spending their privilege can help everyone be treated with equality, dignity, and respect. Nobody loses. Everybody wins.

Try it. You might even like it. Be a big spender. 

On Safety Town, Spending My White Privilege, and a Cambridge Policeman

The Young Irreverent Psychologist and Officer Sheppard

When I was a little boy my parents signed me up for Safety Town. I met police officers and firemen who helped me learn how to cross the street, how to ask for help, and quizzed  me about my phone number and home address. We learned as kids that policemen and firemen (and at the time, they were all men) were good people. We learned they were there to help us. They encouraged us to wave at police officers when we saw them. I always did. The officers always waved back to me. I remember being sad when I got older and police stopped waving back.

I recognize writing this that these were the lessons taught to little white boys and girls in my suburban neighborhood. Little brown, black, yellow, or red boys and girls learned radically different lessons. I've learned over the years from friends and patients that people of color learned to be afraid of police officers. They couldn't be trusted. They weren't friends.

Yesterday I had an experience that really shook me. Maggie the therapy dog and I were walking across Harvard Yard. In my  pocket was an envelope of banking material that was in a signed, addressed, sealed, and stamped envelope. Somewhere along the way to the post office that letter either fell out of my pocket or was removed from my pocket by someone.

I retraced my steps back through Harvard Yard, down Massachusetts Avenue, and to my office. I realized that the one place I didn't look was in the Old Burial Ground. On our way to the post office we stopped and played with a woman and her young child. That's where I noticed the envelope was missing. I  neglected to look carefully there and if it had fallen out of my pocket that was a good place to look.

Safety Town with Julie and Officer Sheppard

The envelope wasn't there. I headed back toward my office for my next patient. On the way there I noticed a Cambridge police officer sitting in his cruiser. Policemen are our friends, and they are there to help, right? I thought that there was a small chance that someone might have found the envelope and handed it to him -- I recognized that his car was there on my various trips back and forth through the Yard looking for my lost envelope.

A mother and son were asking him for directions to a museum through his car window. I offered the two some additional directions and then approached the officer.

"Officer can I ask you for some help?"

He responded "no" and proceeded to roll up the window of his cruiser and started to read the Kindle that was resting in his lap.

Now I could have needed all sorts of different kinds of help. I could have been assaulted or seen someone assaulted. I could have been robbed. I could have have witnessed all sorts of different crimes. Maybe I was lost and just needed directions. It doesn't really matter what I needed. I approached a public official in an uniform and asked for help. He said no. This is not acceptable under any circumstance, any time.

I was appalled, deeply offended, and beyond angry. More angry than I have been in years.

I shouted through his closed car window "really, you are going to close your window on me?" He didn't look up. He read his Kindle and ignored me. I was even more enraged, but quickly realized that he was a police officer and I was a civilian. Being angry, and banging on his window (which is what I wanted to do) was neither effective or appropriate.

I called the police dispatch line. I told them I had a highly disturbing interaction with one of their officers. In the course of the next 15 minutes I was put into contact with two very professional and responsible Lieutenants who asked me several questions, took me seriously, and apologized for the behavior of the officer that "did not appear consistent with what is acceptable."

My complaint would be taken up with the officer by his commanding officer. I also was given the option to make a formal complaint. I have chosen to make that formal complaint.

I was a middle aged white man, possessing two masters degrees and a doctorate, with a dog, walking through Harvard Yard. In many ways, I was the epitome of white privilege and power. At least I can pass as having that much privilege and power. I got to thinking about what other people might have experienced had they come to this officer asking for help. What might a young black male in a hoodie encounter? How about an immigrant that doesn't speak English? How about some future patient of mine that is psychotic, delusional, or manic? Would this officer  respond, protect, serve, and help? Would he have closed his window on someone with less power or someone who is more disenfranchised?

Safety Town Graduation with the Captian

This wasn't okay. This was reprehensible. This was wrong. How could an officer, in uniform, close their window and ignore a civilian asking for help?

I recognize the enormity of my privilege here. I recognize that I have the power and freedom to speak up, to respond appropriately, and to create change. I recognize that many in this same situation would not be able to make the choices I can  make.

With this in mind I am responding. I'm responding because I can and I'm responding because I know there are others who cannot. I'm responding because if I ask my patients to do the hard thing, I have to demand that I do the hard thing too. Most of all, I'm responding because I don't want to live in a world where requests for help are ignored.

It's not okay for a police officer to close their window on anyone asking for help so they can read their Kindle in peace.

UPDATE 4/25/2012

I had a fantastic conversation earlier this week with a high ranking official in the police department. I was treated with courtesy, respect, and felt like this issue was taken seriously. Presented with a multitude of options to seek address, I chose what I thought was most appropriate for this situation and am satisfied that my actions made a small difference to make the world a little better place.

The proud graduate, ready to look both ways before crossing

I'm a Wellesley Girl: Part I

That's right. I'm a Wellesley girl.

I recently had a short exchange with the Public Conversations Project on Twitter. I had commented on a tweet about the Open Circle Program saying that my brief work with that program was an unexpected and influential agent of change in my doctoral work. They asked me to say more about that influence. I'd be happy to, but in order to do so we need to rewind a few years. The work I did with Open Circle was neither the first or last association I had with Wellesley College, the Wellesley Centers for Women, and the Stone Center.

The 2000-2001 academic year was my second year of doctoral work. I survived through the various vicissitudes of relocating to New England from the Midwest, leaving an already active career in psychotherapy, learning how to be a student, navigating my way through a particularly challenging cohort of doctoral students, finding a mentor and advisor, and completing my first training practicum.

The prior year I got my nose knocked out of joint looking for a practicum. I figured this was going to be easy. I'd earned a masters degree two years prior, worked as a psychotherapist for the two years before starting my doctoral program, and worked for nearly five years before that in a variety of mental health related roles.

I also had never interviewed for something that I wasn't later offered.

You know how this story is going to end, right?

I interviewed at just about every college counseling center that was within a commutable distance. I was turned down for every single one of them! I was horrified, demoralized, and also just plain pissed off. I finally did secure a practicum. It was a good one--in fact it was an excellent one.

I digress.

So I went about my search for my second training practicum in the same arrogant way (tempered, a bit, with the previous years' experience). Of course I'll get a practicum. How could I night, right?

Yes. You know how this is going to turn out. Everyone turned me down again. What the heck?

All wasn't lost. I really had my hopes set on doing my training that year at the Stone Center Counseling Service at Wellesley College. Not a problem at all, right. A man, working at a women's college, in a counseling center staffed by women that had never had a male psychology trainee (or from my knowledge, a male trainee of any sort). This is a wise thing to set my hopes on, right?

Who would have thought they would take me on. They did. My life changed. I was the first male psychology trainee, ever. In my training year another man, Stephen, became the first male social work student trainee, ever. They figured they would put us together so we each could have someone to talk with.

So just exactly what so was special about being a man at Wellesley College? It was subtle, it was profound, and it was totally unanticipated. For the first time in my life I discovered myself completely surrounded by people who were different than me. For the first time in my life I found myself a minority. I was a white man surrounded by a sea of women from around the world.

In that sea I found myself. Peggy McIntosh showed my my invisible knapsack of white male privilege and power and safely helped  me unpack it (really now, could it be all that invisible when there were only two men carrying them around?). Unpacking that knapsack didn't hurt. It was freeing. I found my power and started to learn how to spend it wisely.

In that sea I found my courage. Judy Jordan, who always seems to find a pencil tucked in her pulled up hair, consistently noticed my courage. She showed me that it is an act of courage to sit with every patient. It is an act of courage to pay close attention to everything that happens in a room. It is an act of courage to allow myself to be moved and effected (or is that affected--or both?) by the experience of my patients.

In that sea I found my confidence. Robin Cook Nobles, my supervisor who brought just a little fear into my heart by the sound of her fast paced rustle in the hall way, demanded with her ever-attentive mind that I offer up my best--and never doubted that it was possible.

In that sea I found I found fearlessness. Lisa Desai, my supervisor who showed  me how easy it was to encounter differences of race, faith, gender, or sexuality with my patients and how easily and gently it can be spoken about.

Any mention of my first year as a Wellesley Girl is incomplete without mentioning the endless love and support of Ann and Gail, office assistants, candy-enablers, and confidants. They helped me figure out how not to be so scared of the rustle of Robin coming down the hallway (she's actually not scary at all, promise!). Their collective compassion taught my as much about therapy as my supervisors.

Writing this today I'm discovering this is more of a meditation on gratitude for what was offered so freely to me. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the students. You came into my tiny office and sat down in those ridiculous orange chairs. You let me into your worlds as I learned how to let you into my world as a psychology-trainee. The gifts that I carry most of all from this first year at Wellesley College are those gifts you gave to me. The gifts are many: three come to mind right now. An undocumented person who struggled to make a better life for herself, a survivor who finally found someone would would believe her story, and another student who challenged me to think about what it means to be a woman. Each of these three young women, in their own different ways, showed me that psychology can transform.

So that's part one of being a Wellesley Girl. Come back again later for parts two and three.