Senator Edward Kennedy (1932-2009)

On August 25th, 2009, Edward Kennedy passed away. Today, in my home state of Massachusetts, we paid our final tribute to a civil rights champion, a public servant like no other.

Senator Kennedy, thank you for all that you've done. As far as health care is concerned, "the dream shall never die."

The Silent, The Sick, The Uninsured

At first, I chose to say nothing about the health care plan in the works on Capitol Hill. I figured I had better not stray outside my area of expertise, especially if I didn't have anything concrete to say on the issue. And as far as the bill's possible effect on me, I'm a student, not to mention still under the age that a parent or caretaker can cover me under his or her plan. I thought I had nothing to lose or gain.

Until, I saw this article.

In the August 24th & 31st issue of Newsweek, Johnathan Alter wrote a column titled "Health Care as a Civil Right" about the political rhetoric of the health care debates. He noted the prominence of the so-called Screamers, who have paraded through media headlines and broadcasts for weeks as they attack their Senators and Representatives at town halls. Fueled by catchy slogans and false rumors about death squads and mandatory government-interference in their health decisions, these mobs have largely dominated the health care debate - in part because supporters of the health-care plan, whether elected or appointed or grassroots, have failed to provide an equal and opposite vocal response.

As Alter puts it: "[I]t's the Party of Sort-of-Maybe-Yes versus the Party of Hell No!" He speculates that health care supporters have "forgotten the stakes - they've forgotten that this is the most important civil-rights bill in a generation."*

Passage would end the shameful era in our nation's history when we discriminated against people for no other reason than that they were sick. A decade from now we will look back in wonder that we once lived in a country where half of all personal bankruptcies were caused by illness, where Americans lacked the basic security of knowing that if they lost their jobs they wouldn't have to sell the house to pay for the medical treatments to keep them alive...

Have we somehow forgotten how important this is - or have we just forgotten how to fight for it? Are we really going to sit on our hands and let an ill-informed, insistent mob of squeaky wheels prevent those who really need health care coverage from getting it?

Those of us who are Democrats were without recourse for eight years. Those of us who believe that forming our Constitution's "more perfect union" requires equality of opportunity have been without recourse for much longer. And for as long as we have been a nation, people have been dying because they can't afford to live, have been losing out because they can only afford to live - all because their fate is left in the hands of those who are just out to "get mine."

If you support health care, if you care whether the uninsured live or die, if you recognize that that could be you one day, then get loud.

Health care is a civil right.

Fight for it.

*Emphasis mine

Related Links:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/opinion/16obama.html?_r=1

Blog of the Month

My good friend Jose Olivarez - who is already one of most prolific young poets I know - has an excellent blog over at http://quetothepasa.wordpress.com/ where he shares his writings, his thoughts on education, and his reflections on creativity. (Two of my favorites can be found here and here.)

Right now, he's in the middle of one of his 30 days / 30 poems challenges. So far this month's work has been excellent. Make sure to check it out!

http://quetothepasa.wordpress.com/

"Let's Give 'Em Something to Talk About..."

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been a lot of national discussions about race, race relations, identity, politics, and anything else this blog could conceivably cover. Quite honestly, I didn't feel a strong urge to write about any of them - in part because I have watched recent conversations degenerate into "he said"-"she said" and pointing fingers in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons.

Instead, I present you with the type of conversation that I think is an excellent antidote to the above - as usual, Ta-Nehisi Coates knows what he's talking about.

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/07/the_limits_of_our_dialouge_on_race_and_beyond.php

Of Wise Latinas

I've been waiting to talk about Sonia Sotomayor until I had something to say. Yesterday, on Day 2 of her confirmation hearings, I found something worth talking about.


To the Republican Senators:

How dare you.

If I understand your concerns correctly, sirs, you worry that Judge Sotomayor's impartiality may be unduly affected by the perspective of her race and gender, citing her stated belief that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."

Senator Lindsey Graham especially has made a great deal of his belief that had he voiced a sentiment similar in form and content (i.e., that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina who hasn't lived that life) his political career would be over, by which I believe he means that he would have been perceived as racist. By this logic, he perceives Judge Sotomayor's statement as a racist one.

I won't touch the accusations of racism, implied or otherwise. Honestly, I see where both sides are coming from. Instead, I want to look the following exchange between Senator Graham and Judge Sotomayor - all emphases, mine:

SEN. GRAHAM: ...Let's talk about the wise Latino (sic) comment yet again...

...the one thing that I've tried to impress upon you, through jokes and being serious, is the consequences of these words in the world in which we live in. You know, we're talking about putting you on the Supreme Court and judging your fellow citizens. And one of the things that I need to be assured of is that you understand the world as it pretty much really is.

This is key. Note that here Senator Graham asserts (1) that there is an objective reality, and (2) that we, as rational, human individuals, are capable of understanding that objective reality.

And later:

SEN. GRAHAM: All right. "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experience, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male."

And the only reason I keep talking about this is that I'm in politics, and you got to watch what you say, because, one, you don't want to offend people you're trying to represent -- but do you understand, ma'am, that if I had said anything like that, and my reasoning was that I'm trying to inspire somebody, they would have had my head? Do you understand that?

JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: I do understand how those words could be taken that way, particularly if read in isolation.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I don't know how else you could take it. If Lyndsey Graham said that I will make a better senator than X because of -- my experience as a Caucasian male makes me better able to represent the people of South Carolina, and my opponent was a minority, it would make national news, and it should.

Having said that, I am not going to judge you by that one statement. I just hope you'll appreciate the world in which we live in, that you can say those things meaning to inspire somebody and still have a chance to get on the Supreme Court. Others could not remotely come close to that statement and survive. Whether that's right or wrong, I think that's a fact.

Does that make sense to you?

JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: It does. And I would hope that we come in America to the place where we can look at a statement that could be misunderstood and consider it in the context of the person's life and the work they have done...

Graham repeatedly points to political restraints that would prevent him from talking about his judgement as better because of his race and gender. But he talks about these things not as a speculative hypothetical, but as fact - fact in an objective reality that he (and presumably every human being) understands, that Sotomayer must understand. And if Sotomayer does not concede this, does not understand the world as Graham's hypothetical objective everyman does, then her viewpoint is invalid. It cannot possibly be based in any kind of reality because only one reality exists.

And if you, or I, or Sonia Sotomayor has a different perspective than the hypothetical objective, then we are not living in the real world.

There's just one BIG problem with that: The objective can't see or adjust for context.

Suppose that in the objective reality, public safety is the number one priority of the government. And the government has decreed that citizens will be randomly searched. Can objective reality account for the fact that the mind of a security person is not a machine and cannot be totally random? And even if the government used a machine to facilitate totally random selection, could objective reality account for the undoubtedly different perspectives of searcher and searchee; the former mindful of possible violence or danger, the latter innocent but detained without explicit consent to the objective morality that requires his detention.

Look, I'm a History and Literature major. More importantly, I was raised by parents who taught me to question the merit and meaning of everything from classic Disney movies to Thanksgiving. Even before I enrolled in college, objective reality didn't exist for me. I don't buy it. The person I am, the life I have lived makes me see the world differently - not better or worse, just differently. Who are you to tell me I am wrong?

Who are you, Senators, to tell her she is wrong? To tell people the world over "Nope, sorry - just one way of seeing things here! Don't trust your own eyes! Why would you? I'm the objective, and I say everything's fine..."

Another Republican, Senator Jon Kyl commented on Sotomayor's past speeches on race, identity, and their effects on legal perspective:

SEN. KYL: ...The question, though, is whether you leave them with the impression that it's good to make different decisions because of their ethnicity or gender. And it strikes me that you could've easily said here, now, of course, blind Lady Justice doesn't permit us to base decisions in cases on our ethnicity or gender. We should strive very hard to set those aside when we can.

Justice has never been blind, ladies and gentlemen - but maybe she has been unjustly blindfolded.

EDIT (7/18/09):
A relevant (and well-argued) column from Frank Rich over at the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19rich.html?ref=opinion

I'm not sure that I agree with his implication that this changing of the tide is inevitable, but otherwise - right on the money.

Edit (7/31/09):
My olders and betters say what I was trying to say. Melissa Harris-Lacewell over at The Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/452587/sotomayor_and_the_politics_of_public_humiliation

The Fight for Your Life: Tactics and Representation

I've worked for a couple of libraries on campus during my college career, so I've seen my fair share of strange and curious things. Most recently, I witnessed the following:

In the media section of the library, one of the library staff found a DVD that had been boldly and emphatically vandalized with a permanent marker. A large black X scarred the plot synopsis on the back along with the words "LIES LIES LIES." On the front of the case, amidst more angry zigzag lines, the accusation "HOMOPHOBIC LIES" was written. The DVD itself echoed the verdict: "HOMOPHOBIC TRASH."

The movie in question was the 1978 film "A Different Story," in which a gay man, who has immigrated to the United States illegally, marries a gay women in order to remain in the country. From what I can gather from online synopses and reviews, the two end up falling in love with one another in a way that either assumes or implies that their homosexuality had been a choice all along.

Today, I brought the incident up with a friend, and our discussion turned into a very interesting debate.

We both agreed that vandalism was wrong. My friend argued that this destructive crime - defacing a DVD that one does not own, that belongs to a library no less - can not be excused, even if the person who defaced the disc was trying to make a point or take a stand against homophobic and/or stereotypical portrayals of homosexuality in the media. And while I don't disagree with her points, I do beg to differ.

Suppose I saw a video of Former Alabama Governor George Wallace from the 1960s declaring "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." While this is certainly not a comparable example (You can't make this up, boys and girls - Wallace really did say that), as an African-American female who has attended integrated schools all her life, I would certainly feel my identity was under threat - that I was in the presence of a person who wanted to erase me, who would look right through me if we met, who not only believed that I was unfit for education with his children but also would strike me down with his own hands before he let me get near my elementary, middle, or high school; in other words, a person that threatened my very existence to my face. And no matter whether the threat was physical or purely philosophical, I have found that the psychological effect of such things is very real.

Now while I would never excuse the vandalism I described at the beginning, I can't say that I don't understand it. If I believed that my sexuality was not something I determined, and someone very calmly told the world, in my presence, that I not only could I chose my sexuality, but also that I was, in effect, a big faker...

...well, I hope you would forgive me if I got more than a little upset.

And while I would not expect you to forgive me, and I would not expect to evade the consequences, I hope you would understand where I was coming from should I choose to take a stand (...even if my choice took the form of scribbling big black Xs across the antagonist's face).



I do believe that there is a time and place for respectability. Personally, for me, it's the rule and not exception. My friends have always teased me about not swearing or cursing, but I save extreme behavior for extreme circumstances. And even if something appears to be an extreme circumstance, it's very likely that cursing and whipping out my permanent marker will not achieve my desired outcome - and will make it appear that I am being childish and immature as I lose control of the situation.

Yes, your tactics reflect on you. Yes, you should always represent yourself at your best if you want to be respected. And most of the time, the respect of other parties is crucial to getting your point across - to getting justice, equality, or just plain understanding.

You can't just be heard. You have to be understood.

But I have to say, when I saw that DVD covered in bold, angry lines, I understood the place that message came from. Sometimes in the face of psychological violence, in response to a world asserting that you are an impossibility, the first response - right or wrong - is an incoherent scream.

A Little Politics for the Summer

A few gems from Ta-Nehisi Coates regarding political correctness:

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/05/the_genius_of_politically_correctness.php

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/more_thoughts_on_being_pc.php

Be Still And Know...

At the last Kuumba rehearsal of the year, one of the seniors told us something I never want to forget.

She said that it had taken her a long time to become the person she has become, that she sincerely wished that it hadn't take that long to be the best version of herself, and that for us, it didn't have to.

She said, "Go further faster."

So I will.


Ladies and gentlemen, The Sisters of Kuumba singing "I Wanna Be Ready" (with yours truly on the solo).

Bird's Eye View

Author's Note: My major requires the completion of a junior essay. My paper, "Bird's Eye View: The Modern Biracial Experience in Danzy Senna's Caucasia," focuses on Danzy Senna's 1998 novel Caucasia, exploring the way the title character - a biracial girl named Birdie Lee who can pass as white - defies the sterotype of the tragic mulatto, and how the author uses this character to critique existing concepts of race. I have excerpted several passages below.

...How does Senna’s portrayal of Birdie Lee challenge the existing literary and critical conceptions of the tragic mulatto and, by extension, the conception of race in America? Birdie represents an agency unavailable to earlier formulations of the tragic mulatto. While most of her literary counterparts ultimately accept or are forced to accept the futility of contesting their place in American society, Birdie refuses to accept life as an “other” or as someone who doesn’t fit comfortably into America’s racial categories... By turning the traditionally stereotyped tragic mulatto into a fully realized character, Senna’s book has gone beyond defying this archetype to challenging American assumptions about race. Ultimately, Birdie does not die, disappear, pass, emigrate, or live a passive miserable existence, avoiding all of the possible deaths that have traditionally been available to biracial characters in American literature. Instead, she exercises her agency in order to gain the opportunity to be who she is – all of who she is. Her active choice is ultimately not to choose.

By the end of the novel, Birdie claims her right to be both black and white, and in doing so she chooses not to accept the marginality that has traditionally been ascribed to the biracial experience. She chooses to distance herself from her mother and the choice of identity she represents. She also chooses, however, not to deny the white side of her family. In fact, even as she searches for her father and her sister, she turns down multiple opportunities to settle down and belong to a certain group or a certain family, whether black or white... This is much more than the stark survival posited as an end goal in discussions of the tragic mulatto archetype. Much more than surviving, Birdie is staking her claim on a true experience, on the opportunity to live a rich, nuanced life that encompasses her whole identity. Beyond the context of the novel, Birdie’s active choice as an individual also makes her an agent of change in a larger sense. Within the plot, Birdie’s struggle is largely a personal one, a choice enmeshed in the particular circumstances of her fragmented family. In the larger world of American culture, however, Birdie’s character helps to contradict and prove false the existing concepts of race and the language used to discuss them...

Both drawing on and expanding these changing narratives of race, Senna’s Caucasia demonstrates how the traditional American conception is inadequate to describe how race works in the contemporary social landscape. The book makes the categories and words usually used to define race inadequate to the task by portraying Birdie neither as definitively black nor definitively white... In different contexts throughout the book, other characters classify Birdie in different ways...

Characters in the novel are not the only ones who have different views of Birdie’s racial identity, however. The potential for different readers of Caucasia to read her racial identification differently provides further evidence for the inadequacy of America’s racial language. As a young black female reading the novel for the first time, I found myself identifying strongly with Birdie and the identity issues she confronts during her adolescence – society’s struggle to classify her permanently as a member of black America or white America, her daily encounters with simultaneously fitting in and not fitting in with each community, and her personal choice not to identify or be identified by the racial boundaries that American society has erected to define the un-definable. But if Birdie chooses to defy racial classification and is successful, then why am I so quick to identify with her and to view her as coded to represent a modern young black woman?

While Birdie cannot simply be characterized as a young black female, the aspects of her particular identity crisis speak to the struggles felt by other youths whose identities do not fit comfortably within the boundaries of the group identity American society has defined for them. Seen as “too black” by some of her white counterparts, criticized as “not black enough” by some of her black peers, Birdie’s character provides identification not only with the racial coming-of-age of a girl whom American society defines in some contexts as black, in others as white, but also with one who can understand the personal dilemmas inherent in that schizophrenic classification. Birdie’s choice to defy inadequate and false racial definitions manifests itself in a racial and cultural mobility that may be familiar to many readers living at the intersections of more than one group identity.

Caucasia also proves the traditional American conception of race false to the reality of the contemporary racial landscape, showing readers through Birdie’s life that the lived experience of biracial Americans cannot be contained by or represented in this conception. The analysis Senna offers through Birdie’s eyes speaks to the artificial choices mandated by American society’s constructions of race and attempts to disprove the need for such choices... The fact that there is not one word which captures this experience – neither a ethnic nor a political definition of this new and un-classified racial experiences – proves the futility of attempting to describe this experience with the terms and concepts Americans have traditionally used to discuss race.

Birdie’s character demonstrates the need for a new American concept of race, one which is truer to the realities of life in the contemporary United States. The idea is revolutionary, and in some ways, frightening. How, in this age of political correctness, can we afford to let go of the terms and concepts we were just beginning to master? How can we deal with fellow Americans on the basis of experiences particular to their skin color or ancestry or family – or even to their individuality? In a country where we call a biracial American the first “black” president, it is surely a good time to try.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Weslie Turner

A Word on My Spring Break Experience

Returned from Kuumba's spring break tour in Washington, DC a week ago - spent the week singing and touring monuments, museums, and black churches. On Sunday, we sang at Covenant Baptist Church where one of our founders, Dennis Wiley, preaches. It was an amazing opportunity to connect with and learn about Kuumba's history, and I can't even describe the feeling I got when Reverend Wiley announced that he would be praying for us - and the whole church rose to its feet, clapping in affirmation. Friday was our main concert and what I can only describe as communion with the Spirit. God is so real. This tour was the spiritual and human connection I've been searching for.

Our "Nation of Cowards" (con't)

A different take on Eric Holder by one of my favorite writers: http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/the_case_against_a_dialouge_on_race.php

Our "Nation of Cowards"

See the following in the New York Times, regarding Eric Holder's "nation of cowards" comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/us/politics/08race.html?_r=1

Mr. Obama was asked whether he agreed with Mr. Holder. He hesitated for five seconds before responding.

'I’m not somebody who believes that constantly talking about race somehow solves racial tensions,' Mr. Obama said. 'I think what solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care, ensuring that every kid is learning out there. I think if we do that, then we’ll probably have more fruitful conversations.'

Now it was a very political answer, so I can't even be sure that President Obama was saying what he actually believes. But even assuming he wasn't speaking his mind, I think he should have.

To me, this discussion is about the equivalent of "What kind of bear is best?" "False: Black bear." I believe, Holder's argument was that when it comes to race in America - to thinking about it, discussing it, and dealing with in every day life - we, Americans, are for the most part "a nation of cowards;" i.e. that most of us would rather ignore the idea of race, how that concept functions in America, and the repercussions for both those from minority groups and those in the majority. Obama's response, instead of directly addressing that idea, is (1) even if we did talk about race all the time, it wouldn't solve racial tensions; and (2) what will solve racial tensions is ensuring a basic standard of living for everyone.

As far as (1), no one (i.e. not Holder) is advocating that we talk about race every minute of every day until we all feel better. This response sounds reasonable, but could actually be harmful in its method of calming opponents of Holder by assuring them that the type of dialogue he has called for is not, in fact, productive - may even be counter-productive.

And in response to (2), false: black bear.

"[F]ixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care, ensuring that every kid is learning out there" will not solve racial tensions. It may make racial relations less tense, as Americans in general become less uneasy about their lives, but it will not in and of itself solve racial tension - not without discussion. And to say that we will have "more fruitful conversations" after these other things have been fixed... well, I have a problem with the implication that conversations about race can or should wait until after things that are supposedly more important are fixed. The truth is we can do both at the same time.

And as politically correct (*wince*) as his answer was, as much as I would traditionally agree with political advice to diffuse such a situation, I have a hard time believing that the same man who gave a landmark speech about race only last year could not have found a way to convey the importance of conversations about race without implicating himself in a news cycle of Holder drama.

I'd be interested to see how the question was worded...



I should add that, personally, without the ability to have both abstract and concrete discussions about race and identity in America, I would be for all intents and purposes, intellectually dead. The world has always approached me as a black woman, and I need to be able to talk about how society's view of my race and my choice to identify with my race has shaped me. Its never the only lens I wear, and I can recognize and acknowledge other people's identity lenses on this and other topics. But the most honest, most revealing conversations I have had have been on identity or through the lens of identity, whether mine or somebody else's. Those conversations enrich everyone involved. And to my friends who are reading this, you are my close friends in part because I can and have been able to discuss issues of identity with you.

Thoughts?

A Word on Mental Health

Author's Note: More than a few members of my campus family have struggled or are currently struggling with mental health issues - clinical depression, for example. The following is one of my attempts to understand the silence around mental health on college campuses - why these things keep happening to good people and the apparent lack of administrative intervention.

This is nothing any group of 20-year-olds is equipped to deal with.

I've watched this happen a couple of times now. Health Services bungles the diagnosis or the treatment, most members of the house community or academic advising system remain more concerned with helping you deal with your workload than treating the root of the problem, and it falls to the depressed student's significant other and/or peers to try to help them - especially for students who are not close enough to home to spend some time sleeping in their own bed or to get their parents to advocate for them. And what's more, depression is somewhat "contagious." I should know - I've watched the shock-waves ripple outwards more than once.

And I just keep asking myself - where are the adults?

You know, the one's who are to some extent charged with your well-being - even after you've come of age?

It makes me mad, because I've seen the cycle enough times to know that there's an institutional silence around it - and that silence is hurting people.

Inauguration Day

Well...

It certainly seems to be a new day.

I think it goes without saying that this morning was fantastic. All day I've been wearing my Obama shirt with all of my Obama buttons pinned on it. Very festive if I do say so myself. The inauguration was significant for me, not because of the moment itself - I've had my moment, and my moment was the 24 hours after Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4th, 2008. For me, the importance of the inauguration hit me when I went to the new whitehouse.gov and saw what can only be described as a collision of barackobama.com, change.gov, pic2009.com, and the old whitehouse.gov. Go check it out - this really is going to be an administration based on transparency, accountability, and maintaining the momentum of this grassroots movement. Get psyched...

Current Intellectual Crushes

I am currently in love with the scholarship of Patricia Williams, Lani Guinier, and Cheryl Harris, just a few of the reigning queens of Critical Race Theory. (CRT is a branch of legal studies which confronts the basis of American law and legal scholarship in outdated concepts of race.) A quote from each to illustrate:

On Denying Prejudice and Discrimination

...I came up behind a couple and their young son. The child, about four or five years old, had evidently been complaining about big dogs. The mother was saying, 'But why are you afraid of big dogs?' 'Because they're big,' he responded with an eminent good sense. 'But what's the difference between a big dog and a little dog?' the father persisted. 'They're big,' said the child. 'But there's really no difference,' said the mother, pointing to a large slathering wolfhound with narrow eyes and the calculated amble of a gangster, and then to a beribboned Pekinese the size of a roller skate, who was flouncing along just ahead of us all, in that little fox-trotty step that keep Pekinese from ever being taken seriously. 'See?' said the father. 'If you look really closely you'll see there's no difference at all. They're all just dogs.'

...I used this story in my class because I think it illustrates a paradigm of thought by which children are taught not to see what they see; by which blacks are reassured that there is no real inequality in the world, just their own bad dreams; and by which women are taught not to experience what they experience, in deference to men's ways of knowning. The story also illustrates the possibility of a collective perspective or social positioning that would give rise to a claim for the legal interests of groups. In a historical moment when individual rights have become the basis for any remedy, too often group interests are defeated by, for example, finding the one four-year-old who has wrestled whole packs of wolfhounds fearlessly to the ground; using that individual experience to attack the validity of there ever being any generalizable four-year-old fear of wolfhounds; and then recasting the general group experience as a fragmented series of specific, isolated events rather than a pervasive social phenomenon ('You have every right to think that that wolfhound has the ability to bite off your head, but that's just your point of view').
-- Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights

On Race and Political Organizing*

While it has allowed various white supporters of movements for social change to justify their fatigue in recent times, the colorblindness attack has destabilized the movement for transformative social change within communities of color as well.

The way to combat this fatigue is to reinvigorate race as a political category, not just for analysis but for action. Race is useful to explain a material reality in which blacks, other people of color, and whites who are otherwise socially positioned in the same way have less social, political, and economic power than others. What we are calling political race is also useful and (and perhaps necessary) for collective organizing to change, through political action, the reality of racialized injustice. Political race is both a critique of the status quo and space for action to change it. It helps locate a problem in a way that allows those most directly affected to function as a catalyst for reform. And it draws on psychological strengths that are already present in the black community. From segregation can come congregation.
-- Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

On Affirmative Action*

[A]ffirmative action is more than a program: it is a principle, internationally recognized, based on a theory of rights and equality. Formal equality overlooks structural disadvantage and requires mere nondiscrimination or 'equal treatment'; by contrast, affirmative action calls for equalizing treatment by redistributing power and resources in order to rectify inequities and to achieve real equality. The current polarized debate on affirmative action and the intense political and judicial opposition to the concept is thus grounded in the fact that, in its requirement of equalizing treatment, affirmative action implicitly challenges the sanctity of the original and derivative present distribution of property, resources, and entitlements, and it directly confronts the notion that there is a protectable property interest in 'whiteness.' If affirmative action doctrine were freed from the constraint of protecting the property interest in whiteness - if, indeed, it were conceptualized from the perspective of those on the bottom - it might assist in moving away from a vision of affirmative action as an uncompensated taking and inspire a new perspective on identity as well.
-- Cheryl Harris, "Whiteness As Property"

*Note: My emphasis in bold

A Little Introspection Goes a Long Way...

Reading recommendation for everyone: http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/214607.html

It's called "Don't Be That Guy." Specific to sexism, but best breakdown of how to deal with privilege - white, male, straight, upper-middle class, etc. - that I have ever read.