Jul 05, 2024 by Steve Brigham

Let me share a little bit more of my personal history.

As you may know from earlier Substack posts, I was born in 1961. In 1962, my family moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, which was 99.5% white (maybe 100% when we first moved in). At that time, it was quite easy for working- and middle-class Whites to move to the suburbs; for Blacks, it was nearly impossible.

On my street, all my neighbors were White. By the time I reached elementary school, every family in my neighborhood (of a couple hundred homes) but two were White. Every kid in my kindergarten through 9th grade classes and every teacher I had were White except for my kindergarten friend, Larry, who rode the bus from Hartford every day.

Almost everyone I ever saw on TV, White.

Almost everyone I heard on the radio, White.

All the elected officials in my town, White. In the three towns closest to us—Granby, Avon, and Canton—White. All the workers and customers in local stores, White.

All the members of our church, White.

When I was old enough to hold a job, all my co-workers and bosses, White.

You get the idea. White was everywhere and, for all intents and purposes, everything.

When I grew up in the sixties and seventies, that was the experience of most White people. Whiteness nearly everywhere. By design.

Today, my hometown is less than 3% Black, a few more percentage points for other people of color, and still 90-plus percent white. So, nearly sixty years later, my experience growing up in Simsbury has not changed much for the current generation of Simsburians.

And Simsbury is not that different from White suburbs —and many rural areas—in every part of the country. White households, White families, White elected officials, White teachers, White almost everywhere you look. In 2023, we are still a semi-segregated nation by race. And, as you will find out if you read my book (to be published by May 2024), when it comes to public and private leadership, we are ultra-segregated by race.

My white experience continued into my adult years. Clark University, where I attended for four years? Very White. The jobs I worked in throughout college? White. My jobs after college? Almost all-White.

Did I care about race relations? Yes.

But did I have many experiences with African Americans that shaped my opinions and experiences? Aside from three good friends I made in high school, African American, all 3 (you may have read about them in a previous post), no, hardly at all. In college, the few dozen African Americans on campus essentially hung together. And obviously, so did the Whites.

I walked 3,500 miles across the country in 1986 on an anti-nuke march. On our journey, we would only come across Black people and other people of color as we neared and entered larger cities. Everywhere else, we encountered only Whites. 

Besides the eight African Americans on the march (out of 400-plus), I do not remember seeing any Blacks after we left Los Angeles on March 1^st until we reached Denver almost three months later. Then none again for another month until we reached Omaha, Nebraska, and then very few again for more than a month until we reached the inner suburbs of Chicago.

I moved to Washington, DC, in 1988. Back then, Washington, DC, was known as ‘chocolate city’ because it was majority African American and a mecca of sorts for Blacks to come to for professional work after college or grad school. For the first time as an adult, I became good friends and regularly interacted with Black men and women.

But in the organizations I worked for most of my career from 1988-2013 – the staff was primarily White; the leadership was all White.

I received my master’s degree in organization development from Johns Hopkins University in 1992. In my three years of classes, all my classmates were White, and all but one professor was White. Mind you, this was 28 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.

Over the next eight years, working for a national association and consulting primarily with higher education and government clients, all my clients were White-led. The client systems we spent time with were almost exclusively White. In the 1990s, this was not unusual for consultants or client systems. 

For 13 years, starting in 2001, I was COO of a national non-profit that ranged, over time, from two staff to 20. The staff – primarily White. The leadership, of which I was a core part – all White. The clients we served – the vast majority, White-led.

As White professionals, none of this has been or is unusual. It could be extremely easy to believe that this is the natural order of things, which, of course, it is not. But it is—and has been—the social order in the U.S. that is firmly established in just about every industry and innumerable organizations.

Yet even though I do not pretend that my decades-long workplace experience is that of every White person, I am willing to surmise that it is relatively comparable for many White people, with differences here and there.

As you probably know, the full Whiteness experience does not end there either.

If you’re White, most likely you:

• Attended better schools than Black kids your age.
• Had better access to and continue to have better access to primary care doctors, medical specialists, and quality health care than Blacks your age
• Had and now have multiple healthy food options nearby in comparison to where many African Americans live
• Have a considerable number of quality amenities (parks, quality open space, good recreation facilities, well-stocked libraries, etc.) nearby in comparison to what amenities are available in most predominantly Black neighborhoods
• Have lived and still live in neighborhoods where violent, or even petty crime, was and is a non-issue
• Grew up in neighborhoods where nearby industrial plants or environmentally hazardous materials were not present, unlike a disproportionate percentage of Blacks
• Had and still have numerous mainstream banks to choose from to do your local banking in comparison to a majority of Blacks
• If you have kids, they are likely attending schools that are majority, if not near-universally, White. The teachers? Mostly, if not all, White. The principals? Mostly, if not all, White.

If you’re White, it is highly likely you have not faced discrimination, as many Blacks have:

• In the employment market
• In the housing market, to secure a reasonable loan
• With the banking industry to open an account
• In the schoolhouse or the classroom
• When applying to college
• When attempting to obtain a loan to start a business

If you’re White, it is highly likely that you have not been profiled because of the color of your skin:

• While driving your car
• When out shopping
• When walking down the street
• When proceeding through airport security
• When entering a bank
• While doing everyday activities

If you’re White, you likely have not - whereas Blacks most likely have:

• Attended a school where you are in the minority in terms of race
• Gone shopping where you are in the minority
• Worked in an organization where you are in the minority
• Lived in or even walked through neighborhoods where you are in the minority
• Found yourself in social situations, even occasionally, where you are in the minority
• Experienced daily microaggressions because of the color of your skin.

If you are White, you may not check off every single item on the above lists, but probably most. As a White person, you do not realize how pervasive Whiteness is until you are in an environment where White does not dominate, which for most White people rarely, if ever, happens.

Yet, the advantages of Whiteness do not end there.

If you’re White, you may have descended from among the:

• Hundreds of thousands of families (including in the North) in the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries enslaved people to accumulate wealth. OR
• Millions of white families who received free land as part of the 1862 Homestead Act or 1866 Southern Homestead Act to accumulate multi-generational wealth. OR
• Millions of white families in the South and the North who benefitted from Blacks toiling as second-class citizens from the mid-1860s to the mid-1960s. Such toiling meant Whites always had the advantage of advancing in employment and housing and accessing better health and other amenities. Over time, this helped Whites enormously to build wealth. OR
• Millions of white families who benefitted from the New Deal housing and employment programs - from which Blacks were primarily excluded from the 1930s to the 1960s – to ascend the job ladder and grow wealth. OR
• Millions of White families of veterans who leveraged the GI Bill for free college, vocational training, as well as cheap home loans – from which Blacks were again primarily excluded in the 1940s and 1950s – to grow wealth. OR
• Tens of millions of young white adults since 1865 who had direct access to well-resourced colleges and universities – from which Blacks were long excluded - to build wealth. AND
• The list goes on.

 Recently, collections of lists like these have come to be known as White privilege, but I  prefer the term White advantage. White advantage refers to an outcome achieved through having such privileges and how that advantage has been passed down—and continues to be passed down—from generation to generation.

Whiteness is still the water we drink for most White people and, essentially, the air we breathe.

Is that an exaggeration? Indeed, society’s boundaries are not as rigid as in the sixties and seventies. Yet, it would be difficult for anyone to argue that Whiteness does not still hold a significant advantage in America.

It has always meant something vastly different in this country to be White than Black.

White in this country has always meant ‘better’ and to be affirmed, to be accepted. White in this country has always meant ‘power over’ others and ‘a leg up’ over all others.

White in this country has always meant entitled to be first in line, to have immediate and, too often, enduring advantage.

Since the Civil Rights era, we have continued to keep the African American community at a fundamental disadvantage in America. Many White people will be remiss to admit that. Some will never commit to seeing that.

That makes it no less true.

Images courtesy of ChatGPT. 

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