I write to hold up a mirror to myself. In rereading, I noticed that in this essay I introduced my “rational” self and then spent the whole essay knocking him down like the straw man that I made him into. I probably should have given him a little more airtime and better arguments, because when I look in the mirror most days, it is him looking back at me. I grew up with the idea that people succeed or fail by their merit (which works okay for many white people like me). I have come to understand that systemic bias exists, but I don’t often see it in my day-to-day life. I am sheltered from seeing it (or blind to it?).
When I went looking for systemic bias in land ownership, I found plenty of policies that got us to where we are now, but none of them feel personal or immediate for me as a white person. My rational, scientific mind only believes what is in front of me, which keeps me from seeing racism. I wrote about this in another essay (https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/my-white-bubble-protected-me-against-critical-race-theory-until-now-20e966053737) - about living in my white rural bubble, and liking it. In this new essay I tried to interrogate my rational self, by willfully seeing systemic bias. That rational guy would probably respond to the interrogation by saying that I am seeing bias where it barely exists as a factor - that if I have to go back to 1493 or 1677 to explain something happening today, then I am grasping at straws.
I think this is my challenge going forward. If my thesis is correct that systemic bias has affected farmland ownership patterns, which have also affected white people like me, then I need more than straw to hold onto. More research. More stories from people affected.
On some level I think that both truths could function at the same time. There can be meritocracy within a skewed system. There can be injustices that happened 500 years ago that are still affecting people today, and at the same time opportunities can exist so that past injustices can be overcome. We are not determined by our history, but we can’t write new stories without a complete picture of how we got where we are now. There is a tension here and my “rational” self can have a valid perspective, while not holding the whole truth.
