Sermon: Emptying the Invisible Backpack

Text: Philippians 2:1-13

Date: September 25, 2005

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

I caught a little of the Tavis Smiley radio talk show a few days ago as he was interviewing Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. They were discussing recent polls having to do with the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. One of the things they discovered in their research was a large gap between the perception of white people and black people regarding whether the response would have been the same if the majority of victims of the disaster had been white rather than black. What do you think? If the majority of people who could not escape the hurricane’s path had been white, would government and other agencies have responded more quickly to their need? Among white people, the Pew Research Center poll found that 77% believe the response would have been the same. Among African-American respondents, the answer was almost the exact opposite; 66% believe that the response would have been different if the most of the victims had been white.[1]

Whose perception was right? I guess we’ll never know. A follow-up question in the poll revealed another gap in perception. “Is racial inequality still a problem in the United States?” Most African-American respondents said “Yes.” Most white people answered “No.” Whose assessment is right?

Well, fellow white people, I’ve been ruminating on this in connection with the lectionary text from Philippians, particularly Paul urging the Christians to “empty” themselves as Christ “emptied” himself.

A few years back I read an essay that has stuck with me, and I remember it again when I encounter something like that Pew Research Center poll. The essay is called, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack” by Peggy McIntosh. In her opening paragraphs, McIntosh, who teaches in a Women’s Studies program, says she is constantly surprised how few men recognize that being male in our culture means that they are automatically over-privileged. There is a great deal of privilege and power that comes along with the male package, but for some reason she hadn’t found many guys who would acknowledge that, even if they admitted that women were somewhat at a disadvantage.

That experience led McIntosh to think about white privilege in our country being similarly invisible to the majority of white people. She writes,

As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage. I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is

like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless backpack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.[2]

Do you think this is true? That being white means you are issued an invisible weightless backpack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks? If we asked an African-American congregation if it was true, what do you think they would say?

If we have this invisible backpack, does it qualify as something that the lesson from Philippians would call upon Christians to empty?

Let me say more about what author Peggy McIntosh would say is packed in the invisible backpack. These are descriptions of “unearned skin privileges” which the author had to think hard about to bring into consciousness. These privileges aren’t things we think about much when we’re in the privileged majority position.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the

time.

2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing

in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or

pleasant to me.

4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be

followed or harassed.

5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see

people of my race widely represented.

6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown

that people of my color made it what it is.

7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white

privilege.

9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race

represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my

cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my

hair.

10. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without

having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the

illiteracy of my race.

13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who

constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such

oblivion.

17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and

behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.

19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I

haven’t been singled out because of my race.

20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys,

and children’s magazine featuring people of my race.

21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling

somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard,

held at a distance, or feared.

22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers

on the job suspect that I got it because of race.

23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race

cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

25. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.

26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.

Not all these privileges are bad things. Quite a few are privileges we would want to make sure extended to all people, like being pulled over by a cop or audited by the IRS without wondering if you were being singled out because of your race. Okay, being pulled over by a cop or audited are not privileges, but you know what I mean. Most of us want a society that is color blind when it comes to being treated fairly by the authorities, or when it comes to opportunities to succeed in education and work.

We are not at the current time living in a color-blind society. But we are not accustomed to thinking about what the color of our skin buys us if we are of a paler hue. In fact, we may be quite resistant to seeing the “invisible backpack.” McIntosh wrote that she repeatedly “forgot” each of the 26 privileges she listed until she got them down in writing. To recognize privilege is to weaken one of our dearly-loved cultural myths, which is that we live in a society where one’s success or failure is dependent on the individual’s efforts, what McIntosh calls the myth of meritocracy. “If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”[3]

If you feel a little guilty right now, don’t! You didn’t ask for these privileges any more than people of color asked to be left out. You inherited a culture you didn’t invent. So there’s no need to feel guilty.

There is a need, though, for those of us who were given these privileges to ask, as people of faith, what we ought to do with them. Should we just say, “Whew, I’m glad I got the backpack!! I’m going to take full advantage of it now that I remember all these privileges are packed here on my back.”

Or…

Listen to Eugene Peterson’s translation of our text from Philippians today with the invisible backpack in mind: “If you’ve gotten anything at all our of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.”[4]

That translation speaks to me in connection with the privileges I inherit for being white. Christ didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what…When the time came, he set aside the privileges…and took on the status of a slave, became human…Having become human, he stayed human…an incredibly humbling process. I was challenged by a preacher a few years back to think about how I might relinquish some of my privilege. Frankly, I don’t have too many ideas about how to do that. I do think that the beginning of relinquishing privilege is recognizing that it exists. When you have an invisible backpack, refusing to acknowledge it is the same as grasping it. It’s a humbling experience, incredibly humbling, to face the fact that we might have some of the comforts and successes we have because we had a big head start rather than because we’re such hot snot. We need to catch ourselves when we rest on our privileges as if we earned them, and try to put ourselves in the shoes of those who do not share this inheritance of privilege.

Next, we pray for the willingness and ability to set aside our privileges when the time comes. Part of that for our family is the discipline of sharing a portion of the wealth that has come our way, recognizing that white privilege paved the way for our family’s earning what we have. I mention that not because we are as generous as we could be—not by a long shot!—but because that’s one concrete way to set aside a privilege rather than hanging on to every penny for the status and security money buys. If you have other ideas about how we might empty the invisible backpack, share them with me at some point.

The movement of Christ as Paul writes about it was to join the human family. If we seek to have the mind of Christ, then that is what we seek, to join the truly human family, not thinking of ourselves as better or worser than others, but as part of the one family loved by God. I had the difficult privilege of being a racial minority for a couple of years when I was a kid living in an Athabascan Indian village in Alaska. My younger sister was in pre-school at the time and she used to feel kind of bad because all the kids at the school had cousins there and she didn’t. She came home one day completely delighted because one of her classmates had offered to be her cousin---a beautiful act of love. Christ went one better, becoming our brother. We who follow in Christ’s footsteps can keep looking for ways to empty ourselves of all that stands in the way of being loving sisters and brothers to all our relations.

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[1] Archives, tavistalks.com

[2] McIntosh, Peggy “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack” http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/mmauldin/McIntosh.pdf

[3] Ibid.

[4] Peterson, Eugene The Message: The New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in Contemporary Language Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993, p. 417