written by Love Isn’t Enough founder Carmen Van Kerckhove; originally published at CarmenVanKerckhove.com
Back in 2004 when I first started speaking and blogging about race, I was invited to facilitate a phone discussion with a group of parents who had adopted children from outside the United States.
One of the mothers in the group was white and Jewish. She adopted her son from an African country, and was raising him in her faith. She told me that she wanted my advice on a situation she was dealing with.
Her nanny was a Jamaican woman. One day, the nanny came home and the mother noticed she looked upset. The mother asked her what was wrong, but the nanny just shook her head and said everything was fine.
The mother was concerned, so she kept prodding, but the nanny was still reluctant to say anything. The mother was persistent, and told her that this was a safe space for her to share. She said there wouldn’t be any judgments, no matter what it was about.
Finally, the nanny broke down and said, “You people don’t know how to act!”
She explained that anytime she took the child for play dates in their mostly white and Jewish neighborhood, parents would treat her brusquely and avoid eye contact. Whenever she went to a store, salespeople would follow her around to make sure she didn’t steal anything. When she went to pay for items, the cashier would treat take great pains not to touch her hand when giving her change back.
She had been putting up with this kind of discrimination for a long time now because she loved working with this family, but she didn’t know how much longer she could go on as it was wearing on her emotionally.
“Can you believe that?” the mother asked me, her voice shaking with anger.
I was about to respond by expressing how sorry I was that this level of prejudice existed in her community, when the mother continued.
“I’m going to fire her! How dare she call Jews ‘you people!’ I’m Jewish and my son is Jewish. I’m just going to have to fire her because I don’t feel safe around her anymore.”
I was stunned.
Not only did the mother completely ignore the very real discrimination her nanny was dealing with; she managed to turn the entire situation around so that she became the victim.
In subsequent years, I’ve come to realize that this kind of behavior is not at all unusual.
If anything it’s the norm, not the exception, for people to be pre-occupied with their own suffering and supremely uninterested in hearing about the oppression others face.
This lack of empathy is one of the biggest roadblocks we face in dismantling racism.
If we’re serious about social justice, we need to recognize that when one of us is discriminated against, it’s an affront to us all.
That is a really depressing story. Where do you go with that? Did anyone respond to this woman?
my first response (as a jewish caucasian woman with a child adopted from another country) as i was reading this was ‘she’s right, we don’t know how to act’, as in white people, not as in jewish people. i was totally blindsided by her assumption that the nanny was referring to jews. and yes, that is a really depressing story. for so many reasons.
I feel worried for the child growing up in an adoptive home and community where he is isolated and living with an adoptive mother whose white supremacy dulls her senses and warps her empathy. I feel compassion for the nanny who took the risk of speaking out and then was betrayed and had to deal with the negative reaction of her employer. I feel frustrated by the reaction of the white adoptive mother because she reminds me of my own fallibility and how much damage I can do having been raised and immersed in white supremacy. I hope that the mother continues to learn. Perhaps she has or will discover wonderful resources like this blog. If we aren’t part of the solution, we are part of the problem.
I don’t think this woman’s response was because of white supremacy. She was feeling discriminated against as a Jew when her nanny said, “you people.” Being Jewish, I’ve heard that expressiona few times and it was not pleasant. This incident was one huge misunderstanding between the mother and the nanny.
this is unbelieveable. so quick to judge. do i think that the nanny is accurately describing her situation. sadly, she may be. or she may not. may i remind you that from what ive read, 67 percent (or more) of jews who voted for president did so for obama.
do i think its the jews who are to blame in this situation. i dont know. but you sure are quick to support a person of color against a jew.
frankly,although i dont know about this particular situation, i think every group acts in a prejudicial way to every other group that they dont belong to. and that will never stop. eventually race will not be an issue. and then there will be differences so that we feel superior to others.
its so wonderfully easy to blame the jews. unlike most other groups, its not politically incorrect to speak ill of them. perhaps this is cause they are seen as caucasian. i have news. there are jews in all different kinds of countries. and the jews there look like the people there. so some of them, believe it or not, might be considered people of color.
and lastly, why is it not ok to generalize about other groups, but ok to do so about jews.
Denise:
How did Obama get dragged into this? What his election have to do with anything in the post?
Then you go off into a tangent about how it’s “so wonderfully easy to blame the jews.” No where, not in the post or in the preceding comments has everblaming jews for the ills of the world, nor is anybody generalizing them. (I’ll go even further and say no post on this blog has done so either.) This is about one woman’s inability to look past her own privilege, even after telling the nanny that it was okay to be candid with her feelings.
Next time, please read before you comment. It’ll save us a lot of aggravation and save you from a lot of embarassment.
Prejudice plus power. That is the dynamic to look at closely.
The adoptive mother is white and Jewish. She knows how Anti-Semitism manifests itself in the past and present. The words “you people” triggers a strong emotional reaction. The employer can recite examples of racial discrimination and prejudice experienced and described by her employee. The white Jewish woman does not feel empathy for the black non-Jewish woman.
Why? I believe it is because white supremacy warps the ability of white men, women and children to feel empathy for those who are racially “other.”
What if the employer had been able to say to her employee: “I believe you! Thank you for sharing this with me. Please let me know if there is something that I can do to support you. I value your hard work and care of my son. I would like to have another conversation about this later after I have had the chance to absorb everything you have shared.”
Is this unrealistic? I don’t think so. For those of us who are white, there may be a limited number of times that an individual of color takes the risk to share something personal about her/his experience of racism. (Especially if she is subseqiuently fired!) Similarly, there may be a limited number of times that a Jewish individual opens up to a Christian about a painful experience of Anti-Semitism. I believe that is worth preparing for courageous conversations.
This forum is one venue to exchange views on what to do and say.
wow – i am perhaps even more shocked by the comments in support of this mother’s reaction … Denise posted ‘eventually race will not be an issue’ – I have to assume you are white? because in my experience it is generally white people (speaking from white priviledge position etc) who have no real lived experience of racism – I am white – I am gay – I have plenty of experience of discrimination where I live – but I would not claim to ever fully understand the lived experience of racism – my daughter will have to live that experience – she will have no choice – just like the nanny. This is not about a competition of victims here – the mother coaxed this out of her nanny and then proceeded to not hear her – and what about this woman’s son? will he get the benefit of her whiteness when he is out alone as a teen/adult? not likely – and who will listen to him when he need to talk about the racism he WILL face from strangers but also the friends/neighbours/community that were being racist to his (now presumably fired for speaking her truth) nanny? I weep for children who are adopted by white people who refuse to see the colour of their children’s skin (and so do not, in my opinion, see their own children)
mk:
yes, i am caucasian.
i said that eventually race would not be an issue. i didnt say it wasnt an issue now. i didnt say people of color dont experience racism. i wouldnt say that because i believe they do. my point was, there is and always will be some way people look at other groups and see them as inferior, just to make themselves feel superior.
as for a position of privilege, my mom and i were on welfare. my dad spent time in prison. i am not from privilege. and i dont appreciate your making the assumption that i am, and that that is the reason i made the comments i made.
and i have had my share of discrimination, as a jew.
angel:
i am not embarrassed by my comments.
i think they make sense in response to the post. i was saying that the jamaican woman was generalizing. i do not believe that all, or even most, parents in that neighborhood acted in the way she alleged, although im sure some of them did. (and i am not defending the actions of those who did.)
i did not say anything about blaming the jews for the ills of the world, although perhaps my selection of words could have been different. my point was that generalizations about jews seem to be accepted, while generalizations about other groups are frowned on, and quickly critisized. and i think the jews are being blamed in this post.
my point about pres obama, was that, how could so many in a jewish neighborhood act the way the jamaican woman say they did, and yet, such a high percentage voted for obama. i think that jews tend to be mostly supportive of human rights, but their human rights are umimportant to others.
Well, as we all know, the Jews control the weather (or so said a caller to a radio show in my old roommates home town – he was telling me how stupidly anti-Semetic people were in southern Virginia)…
Clearly, the mother jumped to a conclusion in assuming that ‘you people’ meant ‘you Jews’ and not ‘you white folks.’ I have some other friends who tend to do that as well (incidentally, I’d be curious to know how many folks of color would define Jews as white?).
As the article said, I don’t think this is a case of the mother being particularly racist or white supremacist – it’s a case of her making a faulty (paranoid?) assumption about the nanny’s meaning.
And I think that’s a lesson that’s worth inverting as well – one of the frustrations I’ve had in discussions here is with people who assume they know my meaning or the ideas behind what I’m saying. If we want to create change in biased people, we need to talk to them and engage them in language that’s meaningful and recognizable to them. For example, I think there’s got to be a better way of explaining the concept of ‘white privilege’ to people (cf Denise’s response above) – and by better I mean “more likely to make them realize what I’m talking about and change their behavior as appropriate.”
If only the mom had asked “What do you mean by ‘you people’?” the whole thing probably would’ve been avoided…anyone who knows her (original author?) might want to ask the mother how she knew what the nanny meant.
Yeah worry not, she actually had a discriminating attitude toward WHITES, not toward JEWS….
Pheeeew, what a relief…
>as for a position of privilege, my mom and i were on welfare. my dad spent time in prison. i am not from privilege. and i dont appreciate your making the assumption that i am, and that that is the reason i made the comments i made.
Denise, that’s not the operational meaning of “white privilege.” It does not negate socioeconomic background.
What it means is that, through no personal fault of your own or even your action or inaction, we live in a society where someone non-white from the same exact socioeconomic circumstances as yourself will likely face less opportunities and more prejudice and stereotypes than you, because you are in the majority culture.
lyonside:
youre right. although, i did know what white privilege was, but misunderstood what mk said.
@Lyonside: see what I mean about the utility of the phrase ‘white privilege’? (:
@Tchekitchek: Yeah, how discriminatory to feel bad about being treated poorly by the ENTIRE COMMUNITY. Did you read the article?
I keep coming back to this post. And now I realize that there is one person in the original story that I failed to recognize and acknowledge in my earlier posts – Carmen. Thank you!
Honestly, the woman asked a question that did not want to be answered by the nanny and she kept prying yet the nanny was complaining and being evasive. I think she should have been far more forgiving but she still had every right to at least feel defensive if not act on her feelings to fire someone which i think would be unfair.
The nanny, any nanny actually is in a no win situation. Even in the most optimal situation fellow parents or friends of the family you work for tend to be really passive aggressive or rude to you (I was a nanny for well over a decade) . Think of how threatening it might be for some to see a non-parent doing the parenting, knowing that person, a veritable “stranger” in many ways, runs the house and guards the children during formative years..Its par for the course to have people project their issues on you.
You have to have a nanny who is literally co-parenting with you and who is your friend then situations like this don’t come up. With parents simply handing a child over for 30 plus hours a week and having no strong communication, friendship and understanding with the person their handing their child over to, misunderstood expectations come up all the time. race is actually a moot point, it is mostly about class. Guaranteed her feelings of resentment would have come up in another why had she been white, Asian etc.
Clearly this woman is having difficultly recognizing that the same anger she is feeling towards her nanny in that moment is the anger that the nanny feels every single day because of the discrimination she faces. I agree with Carmen, the only way this type of prejudice and discrimination is if we can all stop being so pre-occupied with our own struggles, and come together united to fight against them. My favorite quote from this article was when Carmen said “If we’re serious about social justice, we need to recognize that when one of us is discriminated against, it’s an affront to us all.” Whether we realize it or not, discrimination hurts everyone. We all miss out when we hinder individuals from being the best they can be by discriminating against them.
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