A racist quandary in a whiff of smoke
By: June Gillam
Tags: White Privilege, Anti Racism, Inner Journey, Racism, White Fragility

Years ago, I became aware of my white privilege as both a blessing and a curse. The unearned privileges have become well known, sparked by Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 article “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.”

But the curse of white privilege is not so well explored. One aspect of it for many of us raised to be “good white girls” is the avoidance of conflict: to not say anything at all if you can’t say something nice. Robin DiAngelo has set out the ways we have been conditioned as too fragile to withstand even talking about racism. A sort of “ladylike silence” around race has been a white norm.

In recent years, as part of inner work to combat racism, as Layla F. Saad advocates in her book, Me and White Supremacy, I recognize myself “staying silent by choosing not to engage in any conversations about race because of [my] white fragility” (56). Saad goes on to note that people can use writing to “disrupt white supremacy” (59) and that is my aim in these articles.

Three years ago, I was called out as a cruel racist by a man I had considered my loved brother-in-law. His honesty about his perception of our interactions, which I had seen as warm and friendly, set me on a path of listening for, making conscious, and writing out my inner truth. Some of my responses to lived experience seem to others as if there is way too much “overthinking” going on and that some of my issues are trivial.

Be that as it may, these writings are the tracings of my process to become more and more an aware anti-racist.

The following depicts a moment in time, trying to catch myself and become conscious of what might previously have been unconscious racist thoughts. It is one tiny step on the long road to racial justice, with gratitude to the woke African Americans who will not let so many of us go back to sleep.

Recently, my widowed sister became very ill. Our family was supporting her choice to stay in her own home rather than go to a nursing home-type setting. Three of us closest to her do not live near her but had been with her a lot, although not 24/7. When she began to need round-the-clock care, a surgical unit nurse recommended an in-home care company. After a two-hour Zoom conference with my sister, the care coordinator and myself, my family engaged this company. No one thought to ask if the caregivers would be non-smokers. One of our family would meet each new caregiver as she arrived to start her shift. So far, the caregivers had been from various ethnicities but none of them had been smokers.

Last week, my sister was sitting out in her family room, pretty comfortable after being helped to take her meds and eat a bit of breakfast by the night caregiver, who was just completing her shift.

I had stayed all night and was ready to meet the new day shift caregiver. When the doorbell rang, I could see a Black woman through the glass door, arriving for her first day. Above her mask, I noticed her bright eyes and honey-colored bobbed hair. We greeted each other and as she walked by me, I could smell the faint but unmistakable smell of cigarettes.

My body tightened up in reaction to that smell. Perhaps naively, I felt shocked that a caregiver would be a smoker. I was a bit frozen and wordless.

While I showed her where to put her things, my mind was screaming silently “Should I mention the cigarette smoke?” I felt I should, but I couldn’t because of fear of having it hit the woman as racist, a kind of microaggression. Yet I was asking myself if would I do the same with a new white caregiver, also in order to try and not start off a relationship with a criticism, to avoid conflict as I mentioned above.

There were other “isms” complicating matters, as well: classism, for one. I was the one hiring the firm she worked for. I had the power of choice: the privilege to mention the cigarette smell or not.

And, was I assuming a dark-skinned American would be more easily offended than a lighter-skinned American of the same socio-economic class?

Stereotypes came to mind of black women coming to care for a middle-class white family. It even felt sexist in the way of classism and racism both being grounded in patriarchy. I knew I had unintentionally participated in this kind of white supremacy earlier in my life and wanted to avoid doing so again.

My mind was in a quandary: should I say something to the new caregiver about cigarette smoke perhaps being annoying to my sister? She had years ago been a smoker, but I had not noticed her ever saying the smell from cigarettes bothered her.

Once again, I asked myself if I would say something to the new caregiver about the cigarette smell if she were white, but I had no answer to that question. Therefore, I didn’t say anything. I was silent on the subject. I let the question go and hoped that the trace of cigarette scent would not bother my sister.

Withholding my thoughts and feelings at this point was from fear of seeming or being racist, and yet at the same time I felt torn that I might have needed to tell this woman that cigarette smoke could offend my sister. Was I overthinking this whole issue due to my grief over the illness my sister was going through?

I felt I had to make a choice between being a good white person and being a good sister. My decision was to bend over backward trying to be a good white person even though the result might have distressed my suffering sister. I was really ashamed of my cowardice. In the end, I just hoped the smoke smell would not bother my sister.

A few days later, my sister began to be more sensitive to all kinds of smells. She expressed she did not like the scent of cigarette she smelled when that caregiver came again.

Our other sister then gently brought up the issue to the caregiver and joked that it might be a good time for that caregiver to quit smoking. Our sick sister and the caregiver worked out a way to deal with the situation that satisfied both of them. That caregiver turned out to be a wonderful person, and I can see my sister benefitting from her care to this day.

I still don’t know if I did the best thing in the situation when I first met the caregiver, but I am feeling it was right to at least pause and consider what to do.

Perhaps if we all thought about the results of our words and actions, there would be less conflict, hurt feelings and racial tension in the world. And that would be a good thing.

END NOTE: Slowing down to listen for my white conditioning to speak, noticing how it works in my life and considering what to do about it is a part of my internal process to become an effective anti-racist. It is not all I am doing. With gratitude to Janet for her blog on this topic: https://goodlittlewhitegirl.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/speaking-of-whiteness/