In a women’s support group there are five white women and one woman of color, Rita, who is part black and part Latina.  The facilitator is also white. During the third group meeting Rita talks about the difficulty she and her husband are having getting a mortgage to buy a house.  She explains that a white couple she knows who have a similar financial situation were given a mortgage by the same bank the month before.

Jennifer, a younger group member, quickly interjects “I know just what you’re talking about.  Me and my friend got turned down for an apartment the other day and it had to be cuz of our piercings.  It’s pretty much the same thing - discrimination plain and simple.”  The facilitator turns to Rita: “Rita, what do you think of what Jennifer just said?”

Commentary to People of Color Vignette #3

A white person may try to equate an experience s/he had in order to show empathy or gain rapport with the person of color.  Often a facile comparison such as the one above does not ring true to the person of color.  Piercings are a life-style choice; race is not.

One of the first steps in racial healing is for us to simply listen with our hearts to what people of color are telling us about their experience of racism without minimizing it, comparing it to ours or manipulating it in any fashion.  We don’t really know what it is like to live our entire lives with a skin color that often puts us at the bottom of the power structure.  An open and curious attitude can bring us a long way toward a deeper understanding.

When the facilitator asks Rita what she thinks of Jennifer equating the two kinds of discriminations she puts the burden of explaining racism onto Rita who may be needing support herself.  Ideally the facilitator or another group member would step in as a white ally and do some educating about racism here - it is well known that black people are sometimes turned down for mortgages merely because they are black.

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