‘OK to be white’ at USC? Actually, it’s a luxury

The signs posted around the USC campus last month said, “It’s OK to be white” — as if there were any need to declare that. You don’t have to look far to realize that, yes, it is in fact OK to be white.

Walk into the Colloquium cafe, and notice who is handing you a coffee. Racial divides are engrained in every aspect of a student’s life. They are undeniable the cleaning staff at the library, in the stream of people who go in and out of classrooms. I can tell anyone that, yes, it is OK to be white. In fact, it is a luxury.

“It’s a luxury to be white.”

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There are six of us in the room as I write those words. All of us are white men. In my quantitative and qualitative methods in geography class, there is one person of color. I’ve never been in a classroom where the majority of students are black. Yet every black student has classes that are majority white. There is not one class here at the university that would ever make whiteness a heinous offense. So why does anyone feel it necessary to remind us of the obvious?

In college we learn about such things as suburbanization during the height of segregation, which relegated the black populace to industrial neighborhoods and inner cities. Exposure to such reality kindles an acute awareness of your position in society, and if this doesn’t incite an awakening, it will leave you bitter and defiant, like an old man spewing forth the enraged rants of white victimhood. Something, by the way, that you can see on display as the S.C. Secessionist Party raises its Confederate flag on the State House grounds every summer.

The burden of whiteness is that it prevents us from seeing outside our own skin color. Even if you recognize it and hate it, it is there. Growth and healing come when you sit with this, and then realize that this outlook is hurting everyone.

This is what the individual who posted this sign should know, along with all the individuals who applauded it: Your attempt to perpetuate this notion prevents our campus and society at large from growing and becoming less violent.

I plead that instead of fostering their own denial, my white peers will put their education to work and grow. It is for the better.

This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 1:13 PM with the headline "‘OK to be white’ at USC? Actually, it’s a luxury."