Examining the Geographies, Privileges, and Inequities of Race

 

Critical Race Theory (CRT) examines the social convergence of race, ethnicity, societal norms, and laws which determine the treatment of different socially constructed groups. Garnette Cadogan “Walking While Black” and Elijah Anderson’s “Black in White Space” are literary examples of CRT that examine the geographic restrictions imposed on black individuals in America.

The concept of race in America is somehow both all encapsulating and entirely unspecific. For example, The U.S Census Bureau for all intents and purposes lumps me, a citizen of Persian ancestry, in as Caucasian. For the average American however, that identity makes no sense until I put it in the context of its colonial name, Iran. Whether it’s my prominent nose, thick eyebrows, and/or hint of pigment in my skin, my inherited phenotype has resulted in me being referred to as a “foreigner”, “terrorist”, or most commonly and erroneously a “Mexican”. Having grown up in a culturally homogeneous ‘white suburb’, I was socialized to perform all the mannerisms and politesse of affluent ‘white society’ such that I can navigate “white spaces” and “white institutions” with little to no discomfort (Anderson). I have been pulled over for “looking suspicious”, but I was well learned in the ways in which to talk with a police officer (in this instance I was completely innocent) and through ‘performing whiteness’ I have been incredibly privileged to fall on the lenient side of our legal system even during minor infractions of the law, much unlike Garnette Cadogan and the millions of other black citizens who have experienced injustice and violence from the U.S legal system for just existing. Although my ‘off-whiteness’ has caused me to be treated differently in homogenous white spaces, my knowledge of how to perform “whiteness” to navigate “white spaces” and “white institutions” has given me unfair leverage in our society (Anderson).

 

I had never truly understood this privilege until I began to critically analyze it during the course of a sociology class when I read my first literary introduction to human geography: Elijah Anderson’s “Black In White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color In Everyday Life”. Anderson begins with analyzing the 1857 Dred Scott V. Sanford case in which the supreme court ruled against the rights of those with dark skin with the chief justice, Roger Taney expressing “are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States". Even after emancipation, this idea of second-class citizenship haunted Black Americans and continued to geographically confine then, socially restrict them, and economically oppress them. Through this and the system of sharecropping, the Black population was geographically confined to the same regions and fields which created an understanding of “black space” as opposed to the “white space” such as the culturally homogeneous industrial hubs of the north (Anderson). The Great Migration distorted this concept of Black vs White America, but the uncomfortable white Americans simply fled to the suburbs, creating their own new “white space” while designating the inner city as the new “black space” that would eventually become known as “The Ghetto” (Anderson). Fast forward to the modern day and non-white populations have grown outside of the inner city, but there are still very much spaces that are unnamed “white spaces” policed by “white institutions” (Anderson).

 

This system of racially assigned and enforced geography is what contributes in the hateful encounters as documented by Garnette and Anderson and experienced by countless non-white Americans. It also results in the general discomfort felt by black Americans in white spaces.  Garnette describes this manifesting as white people “speeding up” “clutch[ing] their bags” or “exchanging a salutation for their safety” (Cadogan 5): visibly uncomfortable interactions that signify to a non-white citizen that they are in a white space. Elijah Anderson refers to this as “the dance” as a means to rebuild/express the preassigned “deficit of credibility” that is assigned to black people in white spaces (Anderson 44). The dance refers to the “the silent, uneasy dialogue” (Cadogan 10 ) that black Americans are required to perform in order to “pass inspection” within the white space (Anderson 45). The idea of the Ghetto serves to create a defined set up of stereotypes (which makes for easy media) which many white Americans from culturally homogenous areas (especially the suburbs) impress upon any new black person entering ‘their space’. Due to the infamy of the “iconic ghetto” which includes associations with crime and violence, black citizens, especially black males, are treated as threats upon initial inspection. It then becomes the burden of the black citizen to prove themselves as safe through preforming “the dance” (Anderson).

 

Ending racial inequity in this countries will require restricting of institutions and societal norms, but I believe readings like these and programs like critical race theory are a much-needed start. Not only can they help to educate the mass of ‘white’ citizens on their privileges and biases, but it gives power and spotlight to black stories, REAL stories that can help overwrite the black stereotypes derived from the “iconic ghetto” that fuels the suspicion and mistreatment of black citizens. Through mass education, a body of voters can be assembled to put meaningful change into legislation in order to build a truly equal “land of the free”.