How Does Racism Hurt White People?

20 ways that white supremacy harms white folks

My photo of a store display. https://www.niceenough-wholesale.com/

What this essay is and is not

I am not saying there is any comparison between the harm done to Indigenous, Black, and other people of the Global Majority to the harm done to white people living in the same society. No. By focusing on how white supremacy harms white people, I do not intend to minimize the harm caused to other groups.

Nor do I propose that white people should be anti-racist only out of some sort of self-interest. Instead, I think we white people share a mutual interest in eliminating white supremacy with people who are directly targeted by racism. Racism’s harm to white people is more subtle than the direct harm we know is caused to the intended targets. One writer suggests that racism “corrupts and limits” white people, and I agree. We must shake off the corrupting and limiting effects of white supremacy — for everybody’s sake.

Here are 20 ways I see that racism harms white people like me.

1. Racist policies and attitudes have collateral damage. I think Heather McGhee (in her book The Sum of Us) breaks it down way better than I ever could. Her point is best described by the drained pools in communities during desegregation. White people in power chose to fill in their public pools rather than allow racial mixing. It forced white people who wanted to swim to have to spend money on private pools or pool clubs. Likewise, they/we shut down or defunded public schools, forcing poor whites to accept substandard schools and middle and owning-class whites to shell out for private schools. In the MAGA era, many white Americans are distrustful of government programs at the local, state, and national levels — because racism has infected the brains of white people. We cut off our noses to spite our faces. Right now we are collectively facing a housing crisis that affects white people, and everyone else, too. We could have avoided this, except public housing initiatives have been undermined for racist reasons since the 1970s and zoning for single-family housing has replaced redlining as a way to restrict access to housing. We also have a prison crisis that affects white people as well as everyone else — which is based on racist laws and punitive sentencing. Finally, we can’t seem to get protections for labor and unions because the white working class is stuck voting on identity politics. They/we would rather be anti-woke than pro-labor.
2. Whiteness distorts reality. We live with the lies of whiteness and it takes a toll on us. We see the manicured lawns of the suburbs and the second homes on lakes and we have to tell ourselves lies to make it make sense. The lies are mixed with our version of Christianity which says that when people are successful that they are “blessed by God.” The corollary is that when people struggle that they deserve their struggle because they are cursed by God. Either position removes the agency of the person. Distorted reality is harmful because we can’t see what needs attention in society and in ourselves.
3. In order to become an agent of oppression, I think one must first be oppressed. This is the way of the schoolyard bully, who inevitably has experienced some sort of trauma to make him that way. The worse the oppressor patterns, the worse the initial abuse. We must know that racism is linked to the way white people are brought up, just like we must know that classism is linked to the way rich people are brought up, or sexism is linked to the way boys are brought up. In each case, the young child is taught to become the oppressor by being oppressed. I did not believe this about owning class people, but my friend confirmed this. She described the ways that owning class kids are brought up to be seen and not heard and raised by nannies and sent to boarding schools. The coldness that she describes in owning-class childhood, is the same as the coldness we see from the owning-class men who are leading the companies that are killing the planet. Anti-racism work reaches for the humanity of the oppressor as well as that of the oppressed because both are cast in roles that are inhuman — through childhood trauma.
4. White people are hurt by racism because it divorces us from natural alliances. An example is the environmental movement that attracted me as a young person. I wanted to save the planet and all the wild places. I internalized the racist messaging that there were too many people in tropical countries and they were the problem. By misplacing the blame, environmental movements have spun their/our wheels for decades when we could have been building solidarity in the fight against corporate polluters and shitty policies. Likewise, in the realm of organized labor, we have been divided and conquered by racism over and over again.
5. Racism is causing climate change. You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones, and you can’t have sacrifice zones without environmental racism. If we white people did not believe that some people are better than others, then we would not tolerate sacrifice zones anywhere. Eventually, the whole planet will become a sacrifice zone, but it will be too late then.
6. Similarly, racism distorts foreign policy because rich and middle-class white people are no longer on the front lines of any wars. We, as a country, are more likely to get into and stay in a war if we are not drafting young white people into it. If environmental racism creates sacrifice zones that allow us to ignore the climate crisis, then our “all volunteer” military (over-represented by Indigenous, Black, and Brown people) allows the rest of us to ignore the effects of the wars the United States gets into. Long term, those wars come back to bite us all in the butt in the form of refugee crises and international terrorism and the deterioration of the name of the United States.
7. Racism limits small towns and rural areas in Wisconsin. We are losing viable small businesses for lack of labor. There is unemployment in the cities and south of the border. If there were no racism, people would move to where the jobs are and it would be a win-win. Instead, we get crazy things like white people trying to change child labor laws to allow 14-year-olds to work. I hear plenty of stories on NPR about white people leaving the cities to live in small towns and work remotely from rural areas. This trend could be bigger, and re-vitalize small-town America, if small towns and rural areas were more welcoming spaces to people who are not white.
8. Racism stifles innovation — which hurts everyone. Racism functions to exclude people from certain spaces. I think about professional sports before Black people were allowed to play. The level of play was lower. Every sport has benefited from integration. Likewise, any field of work that requires creativity benefits from the inclusion of all people. Not only does racism deprive us of the benefit of the creativity of excluded groups, but the threat of potential exclusion limits the range of expression of people who are included.
9. Racism infects anti-racism work and interrupts solidarity in movement spaces. Specifically, any hint of superiority patterns from white, het, male, college-educated people (like me) can cause other people in those spaces to distrust our allyship (this seems to have been the case with my critic). They assume we are there to take over the space and center ourselves and our white savior narrative, and in many cases, consciously or unconsciously, that is what we end up doing. More broadly, racism can cut white people off from forming deep and lasting friendships. By undermining racism in our own selves it can put us in the position to be accepted into movement spaces as co-conspirators and to build real friendships.
10. Racism causes the misuse of anger. Aaron Wilson-Ahlstrom writes on Debby Irving’s blog (cited below): “Our anger so often turns to disdain/contempt/judgment (out of feelings of superiority) really quickly, imperceptibly. Our anger often becomes a tool of domination over others, and this is especially true for us as white men. If I am in a position of power relative to the person/people I am angry at, I expect to be able to rant and rave and have things changed for me. If I am not in a position of power in a particular situation, I suppress my anger and stuff it down, with the result that it comes out sideways at a later time, often at the expense of women or people of color. Our inability to use anger except in conjunction with our unearned privilege limits our ability to use it for creative purposes (as Audre Lorde discusses in “The Uses of Anger”)”. I can’t add anything to that quote.
11. Racism makes white people misjudge danger. We carry unconscious bias and unexamined fear. We foster an idea that Black folks are interested in vengeance, and it makes us afraid. We clutch our literal and metaphorical purses. We get triggered by the smallest expression of Black anger. We can unknowingly limit our relationships when we give signs that the full range of emotions from our friends might be unacceptable. At the same time as we overestimate Black danger, we miss real dangers from white people — like from scoutmasters, priests, coaches, and family members.
12. White supremacy tells us individuals are the engine of change and causes us to miss the power of connection and collective action. We place false importance on individual effort and achievement. We glorify individuals. This culture of individualism hurts us because it makes us negatively judge ourselves when we do not achieve individual success, and it causes us to not seek help when we are struggling.
13. Whiteness is a fabrication. By accepting whiteness as a defining feature of ourselves, we lose out on all of the ethnic and cultural diversity that was originally present among white people. We have lost foods, rituals, religions, languages, and more — and replaced them with a generic white culture. This sets us up to fetishize and appropriate other people in search of what was lost.
14. Racism hurts democracy. The undemocratic Electoral College was a concession to racist slaveholders. Gerrymandering has been used to disenfranchise racial groups. In both cases, white people’s access to democracy is undermined by racist policies. You can’t disenfranchise Black voters in Milwaukee without affecting rural white people like me in Northern Wisconsin.
15. As a white person, you can’t know if you have succeeded by your own merit. This is sort of like the opposite of the way white people criticize affirmative action. When you are a “nepo baby,” did you do well because of your whiteness or your skill?
16. Racism puts conditions on our love. It teaches our children that their acceptance is conditional. Racism says that some people are not worthy of love or personhood. When we have conditions put on love in one place, it undermines our ability to love unconditionally in all other places. Unconditional love is the foundation of a stable psyche in children, so this is foundationally harmful.
17. Whiteness elevates intellectual achievement to the detriment of the mind-body connection. Rachel Siegel writes (cited below): “Whiteness emphasizes the mind over the body. We mostly feel our bodies when we are trying to get better and compete (sports and fitness) or when we are trying to improve ourselves through diet. My eating disorder is related to my whiteness.” And Greg Elliot says (cited below): “White people dissociate from our bodies and revere ‘thinking’ over feeling, intimacy, or paying attention to the information/wisdom our bodies give to us.” This is harmful in the extreme to our health and wellness.
18. We trade in our humanity for the illusion of comfort. Whiteness is a bargain that we made without realizing it. Greg Elliot again: “In order to cash in on the privileges and benefits of white supremacy, white people must fear, disown, demean, ignore, dehumanize, exoticize, murder, incarcerate, and segregate ourselves from the majority of humanity.” Yuck. I don’t want it.
19. We don’t learn the real history and therefore we miss the real heroes and lessons. We believe the myths we are told over the lived experience of Indigenous, Black, and other people of the Global Majority. We white-splain their history to them. And those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. Not good.
20. We have an ingrained sense that there are winners and losers. We value domination inherently. Competition and victory are prized. A scarcity mindset and zero-sum thinking tell us that this is just the way it is. We accept it without recognizing that this binary thinking is a product of a culture of domination that starts with white supremacy but flourishes on other binaries.

Questioning whether racism really hurts white people

A note: As a white person writing about white people, I am likely to make mistakes. I have an insider’s perspective, but that also means I miss things. This makes me a potentially unreliable witness and narrator, even as I strive to hold up an honest mirror to myself. I welcome feedback, especially in places you think I am full of shit. This is how I learn and grow.

I recently wrote a different essay about white supremacy, and after one critic had a lot to say about the essay, I found myself reevaluating many of my points. One point I made in the original essay is that racism hurts white people. My critic was unconvinced. To him, the statement that racism hurts white people is a way for “Neo-Super-Liberals” like me to play the victim and deflect from our role as oppressors, both on the personal level and at the structural level. Likewise, he suggests that my focus in the essay on structural racism that benefits the wealthy elite makes it seem like I am denying my own responsibility.

I can see how my statement that “whiteness harms white people” could seem like another white person centering his own experience, and my focus on whiteness being a weapon used by the 1% to manipulate the rest of us can seem like I take no responsibility. Neither point was my intention, but it doesn’t matter, since that was the impact.

My goal with this essay is to explore my statement that racism harms white people.

Accountability

Asserting that I am harmed by white supremacy does not absolve me of accountability for my roles in perpetuating whiteness and white supremacy. I remain accountable.

I think it is possible for me to both be harmed by whiteness and simultaneously receive benefits for my whiteness.

I want neither.

There is no trauma and oppression Olympics.

Even though some trauma and oppression are objectively worse, all humans function with the same basic response to harm. Harm can shut down our abilities to think and feel and lock us into patterned responses. The fact that Black folks are hurt worse by racism doesn’t mean white folks are not hurt by it. White people will benefit from recognizing how we have been harmed by white supremacy and working to heal, just as Black folks will benefit from healing from the ways they are harmed. My goal is not for white people to play the victim. My goal is for everyone to recover their own abilities to think and feel outside of patterned responses.

I cannot claim credit for all the thinking here — I compiled and paraphrased and then added a few of my own points. Below you will find some further reading that was helpful to me (plus I recommend you all read The Sum of Us):

10 ways white supremacy wounds white people: A tale of mutuality

How Racism Hurts White People - Peace & Justice Center

How Racism Damages Us As White People - Debby Irving

4 Ways That White Supremacy Harms White People

An Injustice!