WASP Male Syndrome

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. - Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:28 (NRSV)

It seems that race, racism, sexism and male gun violence are all over the news. Police profiling, Black Lives Matter, women still making 2/3rds of what men make, the vast majority of those who use guns for violent means are male, etc. I could list many, many other issues and headlines and statistics and accounts but you know what’s out there and that the issues of racism and sexism and violence are ramped in this country. I know that the US is not alone in this but I can only speak firsthand about my nation and my experiences so I am focusing on the good old US of A.

I don’t remember when I first became aware of my privileged status in our society. But somewhere in my growth and development I became conscious of the fact that I was a White Anglo Saxon Protestant Male and I had power, privilege and opportunity that those we are not a WASP male do not have. Once I became aware I started noticing things:

• Sales people talked to me even when the woman I was with had made in clear she was the one deciding things.
• People got nervous when my black friend walked into the bar.
• People (mostly males) told me racist and sexist jokes and expected me to not only laugh but to enjoy them.
• I had to go through a massive amount of work to get the Social Security Administration to recognize my name change when I got married but Amy just filled out a short form and was done with it.

I could go on but you get my point. As a WASP male I was and am treated differently, and most often it is by assuming that I make the decisions, I control the money, I am safe, I enjoy being on top and seeing people of color and women as less than myself, and that I would not willing give up my position and status in our social systems.

With my awareness came a desire to understand what my friends of color and the women I know experienced and felt. I took feminist literature classes, sociology classes that focused on race and gender, liberation theology classes that shared the voice of people of color and women and their understanding and interpretation of the Bible and Christianity. I observed how they were treated and when I could I made a point of treating them with respect and dignity as a witness to how we should treat each other. I speak out when someone starts a racist or sexist joke and let them know I do not appreciate such things and why. But no matter what I read, studied, observed or did I don’t feel I have ever been able to understand what it means to be a person of color or a woman in our society.

So I have stopped trying to understand it. I still try to witness to a way of treating others that is freer of racism and sexism then is the standard of our society. One thing I have done until very recently is try to tell those close to me who experience racism and sexism (and heterosexism) that I know how they feel from my own experiences of exclusion, being judged without someone knowing me, etc. I have stopped thinking this and saying it. I have stopped because I have become conscious of the fact that my experiences are not similar to theirs because I am never, ever in a place where I am not a WASP heterosexual male. I have come to this because of a video that one of my sources for internet wonders shared with me. It is Darius Simpson & Scout Bostley - "Lost Voices" (CUPSI 2015) at this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpPASWlnZIA

I encourage you to watch it either to maybe come to the realization I did or to have your own experience confirmed or to gain a sense of what others feel and experience or just to watch two young people express their experiences in a creative and powerful way.

Dear God, help me to be all that you created me to be. Help me to witness to the way you want us all to be. Help me to speak the truth, live the truth and work to make the truth that we all are one, equal and wonderfully made known to all. May we find a way to move beyond racism, sexism and all things that separate us. Amen.