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On Trusting White People

Posted by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor in At TMV.
Jun 9th, 2008 | Comments

I’ve written on several occasions about my favorite quote by W.E.B. Du Bois, responding to a student who asked: “Do you trust White people?”

You do not and you know that you do not, much as you want to; yet you rise and lie and say you do; you must say it for her salvation and the world’s you repeat that she must trust them, that most white folks are honest, and all the while you are lying and every level, silent eye there knows you are lying, and miserably you sit and lie on, to the greater glory of God. [W.E.B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil 102 (1920) (Humanity Books, 2003)]

Many times, I’ve been told that Du Bois’ expressed sentiment here was racist. Even if Du Bois would have allowed individual Whites to prove their trustworthiness (which he did — Du Bois worked with Whites all his life), his “default” stance of mistrust towards Whites-as-a-class is mere racial prejudice. To which I respond: at what point in American history would it had have been justifiable for a Black person to say that their default position is to be untrustworthy of Whites? I would have thought 1920 would be well within the range, but apparently not. So — 1896? 1856? When?

Some have strongly implied that there is no such time — Blacks are always obligated to have a default stance of trust for Whites, until Whites specifically show themselves to be incontrovertibly racist. What these writers do not understand is that, for much of American history, a default stance of “trust” in Whites was not just a matter of having friendly, egalitarian sentiment towards all of humankind. It was, quite literally, a risk to Black lives. Black people who were too “trusting” of Whites — too trusting that they would treat them fairly, that they wouldn’t mind breaching Jim Crow racial “etiquette”, that they were the “good kind” of White folks — these were Blacks destined to get lynched. A Black person in 1920 who — trusting the fairness of the typical White — asks a White man if he can marry his daughter runs a serious risk of death. In positions of such power asymmetry, mistrust is a survival skill. There were German rescuers, but the Jew attempting to hide from Nazis in 1942 would be forgiven for defaulting to mistrust towards the average German…..

Read the rest of this post at The Debate Link

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AustinRoth

So, does the likelihood that currently a White being the victim of a violent crime from a Black being 5 times the likelihood of being a victim of a violent crime by a White make a default position of distrusting all Blacks excusable for a White?

Of course not.

schraubd

No, because the violence is not racialized. Blacks don't fear Whites because of some statistically measure of violent activity (one could use that to fear anyone -- men, Christians, heterosexuals... -- aside from simple statistical proclivity, nothing in the identity group makes them more prone to violent activity). Rather, it is because the violence and power we're talking about is explicitly racialized: it is because we are White and they are Black that the threat emerges. This isn't to say Whites are inherently violent or bigoted -- it's that the risk under discussion occurs not in tandem with an identity axis, but by virtue of it.

runasim

This is a subject with which I can't seem to go in a straight line. My rhoughts keep going sideways and in circles.

There is a prelude to race relations, and that is: how do we react to strangers?
Then come race relations, the birds of a feather syndrome, and other sociological tendencies.
Finally: what does it take to transform a stranger into 'one of us' in our perceptions?

Trust is the leit motif throughout.
I don't think trust between races can be understood without understanding the role of trust in all human interactions.
At the same time, ,the barrier of race is not like any other barrier between strangers. Physical features brand strangers as such from the first to the last minute. when they are no longer perceived as strangers, but have become one of us. instead.

The default position of mistrust between races is well laid out in this article.
But I don't see it as a separate species of human interactions.. I see it as an aggravated example of human interactions..

T-Steel

My grandmother, lily white (born and raised in France) met my very black, Haitian born grandfather back 1945. They were married (secretly) 6 months after meeting. They've been married 63 years. And they say they still don't trust each other because of their race: the race to the last piece of apple crumb cheesecake back in '59 which all kinds of dirty tricks were played (which eventually led to their dog Princess eating it off the floor).

That's an old race joke in our family minus all the colorful details! (*sorry couldn't help myself*).

Continue on...

runasim

That's a great story, T-Steel.
It may also provide the prescricption for racial problems: intermarriage.

Of cource, that would eventaully lead to blandness.
Diversity and differences may cause trouble, but they also contribute to the splendor of cultures..

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