Jeff James - Giving Up Whiteness: One Mans Journey

The monster has always been well-dressed and well-loved.

Austin Channing Brown, Im Still Here

If you were to look at a picture of me or to see me across the room, you would think to yourself, Theres a white guy.

But that would only be because you were socialized to think so. Im not objectively white in skin color; in fact, like most people deemed white, I have skin that is various shades of beige, depending on which body part gets more of the sunshine that activates my limited measure of melanin. In fact, if you had spotted me prior to the 17th centurymaybe at a religious procession or a beheading in the town square of one of my European ancestors (you know, just a typical day of entertainment in medieval history)the racial concept of white wouldnt have crossed your mind at all. You may have attempted to classify me as belonging to one of many European races based on my hair color, facial features, and skin tone. Perhaps I might be Anglo-Saxon, descended from Germanic people who migrated to the British Isles; or I might be a Frank, another Germanic tribe that took over Roman Gaul after the Roman Empire. Or my dark hair and brown eyes may have led you to classify me as an Indo-European tribe member from Italy, or possibly an ancient Greek. Those were just a few of the dozens of races that were commonly recognized in earlier eras. A few centuries later, most of them were lumped into a new racial category deemed first Caucasian, then white.

Crystal, a creative, intelligent, hilarious, tall, beautiful, spiritual, justice-seeking womanwho society would categorize as biracial under its current racial labeling systemis one of my most thought-provoking friends. One day after I moved to Nashville in 2015, I heard the news of a white supremacists killing of nine members of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. This news, combined with a string of highly publicized shootings of unarmed African Americans by law enforcement officers, led me, along with many others, to feel deep anguish and frustration.

Several pickup truck owners in my new Southern community, however, were apparently feeling their own frustration. The Confederate flag that lay draped around the killers shoulders in his Facebook photos was being scrutinized more intensely. Was it truly an appropriate symbol to fly over the South Carolina state Capitol? After the states Republican then-governor Nikki Haley and its legislature agreed that the flag should be taken down, I noticed a copious number of large Confederate flags flying from truck beds around my new neighborhood.

I texted Crystal.

If you are considered white, you may feel disorientation and even defensiveness about Crystals challenge. I did. Like most people, I assumed that racial categories were immutable. I had heard of some people attempting to pass as another race, and I certainly have been on board for arguing that all races are equal. But to question the very reality of race? To be challenged to shed my whiteness as a solution to what our society was facing? Did that mean everyone should be challenged to give up their race, or just white people? It was jarring to consider.