The meaning of racism when the 'field" is the other side of town.

Abstract: When a researcher who belongs to the dominant white western society engages in research with members of a nondominant racial group, she often experiences a profound transition into understanding the meaning of personal and societal racism. What happens when the fieldwork is on the other side of town and the researcher must move back and forth between a middle class white world and a poor black neighborhood? As the researcher becomes more involved with her research group, the meaning of "home" becomes lost as the researcher inevitably struggles with the significance of white privilege and the consequences of the racism this privilege serves to perpetuate. Key Words: African American, Racism, Black Feminist Research, Ethnography, Anti-racist Identity, White Privilege As I drove to Morning Sun Missionary Baptist Church (a pseudonym) for the first time on a gray February Sunday morning, I worried about my upcoming research experience. Morning Sun Church was a small, 35 member, storefront church in a large city in the Pacific Northwest. A storefront church was defined by its pastor as a church that was originally meant for another purpose. Morning Sun had been a white frame house on a large grassy lot in a residential area that was primary African American. As I passed south through the city, there were more black (the members of the church self identified as "black") people out on the street than white people. The white people were jogging or walking their dogs, dressed in sports attire. The black women and children (and a few men) were dressed pristinely in their Sunday best, waiting for buses or walking to church. A few black women were dressed in casual clothes, wearing pure white veils on their heads on their way to churches where they would don robes for the services. There was an older black man selling a stack of newspapers at a busy intersection, and other men, casually dressed, were visiting with him on a Sunday morning. When I saw the men, I locked my doors. I was not proud of this reaction and I recognized it for the racist reaction that it was, but I could not stop myself. I had worried about wearing my most precious possession-my deceased mother's ring. I had taken most of the cash out of my purse and had made sure that I had a full tank of gas in case of an emergency. I was not worried about the people in the church, but I was worried about the journey through this part of town. My perception was that it was more dangerous than other parts of the city. This article is about me, about my own growth and development within the process of doing field research with poor and working class black women who lived (and still do) across town from me. It is about the process the researcher inevitably engages in as she explores her own racism and white middle class privilege. It is about coming to understand more about myself, some individual black women, and the racist society which we both inhabit. Spratlen (1998) denines racism as follows: Racism is the pattern and practice of systematic oppression and exploitation of one racial group by another, operating at both the individual and the institutional levels. Racism is based on prejudice (judgment of others before the facts) and power (the ability to carry out the judgment) (p.6). As noted in Spratlen's discussion, there are two important dimensions to racism: the systematic oppression and exploitation of one group and the unearned advantage of another group. McIntosh (1995) explores the concept of white advantage, stating: I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks (pp. 76-77). McIntosh believes that members of the dominant class are taught not to see how they contribute to the interlocking oppressions of race, class and gender. …