Text style: Written text – Biography

Written By: Debby Irving

Debby Irving has undergone a racial awakening journey which has led to her becoming a racial justice educator and writer to help other white people understand that they have to do something by learning to wake up to the truth of their society and teachings. We see her fear of offending others turn into action by fighting the battle to level the playing field for those who aren’t a part of the dominant race.

As I was reading this I could see the openness in which Debby Irving tells her journey to racial understanding and awareness and in the process teaching me things that made me hit my head for not noticing earlier. It was refreshing to see her calling herself out as she reflected on her past as many people, like myself occasionally, just brush over our mistakes and pretend like nothing happened to avoid the embarrassment. 

A big part of her journey was waking up to the fact that she has white privilege which she can’t get rid of which as I reflect on I am able to see instances when this occurs in my life. At school every year we learn a bit about Waitangi Day which is usually the same thing every year and we occasionally look at the hardships it brought to the native population, the māori population, but don’t truly dive into ease it brought to the European population for generations to come. Although it’s important to look at the wars and battles that we had it is also key to look at how they forced the dominant white culture onto a population who had their own culture and belief system which suppressed the māori culture. Looking back in my life and seeing a person of colour, I would always recognise that they were a person of colour and see them as “different” but seeing a white person I wouldn’t pick up on it as to me it was considered “normal”. This is because I didn’t think that there was a white race and that it was normal but other skin pigments had a culture. To me the first step I need to take to be more racially aware was to recognise that I have a culture, it only happens to be the dominant culture which we force onto others as we deem it to be the “right” culture which is the wrong way of thinking. Right now I have the belief that it’s okay to have different cultures but you have to understand that they are different and celebrate them individually and equally because each culture tells a story that is important to people and that no culture is above another. I have never actively explored the topic of racism, and even though this is based in America I can’t believe I didn’t look at this sooner, particularly this book as it opened my eyes to see that by challenging views on racism I’ll never be able to understand the concepts around it and the obstacles and that being “nice” won’t help anyone in the long run.

This to me shows that it is never too late to understand racism in white dominated societies specifically and that everyone has their place in the racial system whether they like it or not. “I can’t give away my privilege. I’ve got it whether I want it or not. What I can do is use my privilege to create change. I can speak up without fear of bringing down my entire race. I can suggest change with less chance of losing my job. If I lose my job, I have a white husband who can support me because he’s a white man who had access to education and now has access to employment. If my husband’s job gets targeted because I speak up against racism, I have an extended circle of white family and friends who would advocate for us. We have a choice to make: resist change and keep alive antiquated beliefs about skin colour, or outgrow those beliefs and make the real equality we envision.”. Although this is a long quote, I think it encaptures the amount of safety blankets that come with white privilege due to the colour of our skin. This means that we have the power to speak up with less fear of consequences and make sure that eventually no one will have to fear speaking out about injustices they are facing.

Stereotypes are used to show the impact false information and perspective has on stories which form stereotypes. The first example of this is when Debby was younger and asked her mother what happened to the Indians her mother says that they became dangerous when drinking and is what ruined the natives and was all she knew. Unfortunately this was all her mother knew about them, and maybe her mothers mother as it wasn’t passed on how the white colonists purposely wanted this to happen so that they could steal their land and that they brought diseases that killed they majority of their population, and the ones that survived were striped of their identity and forced into the white culture instead. Because the white culture had the upper hand they wanted to be known as heros which was passed on through the generations and no one sought the real truth and only took one person’s perspective instead of also seeing the Indians perspective which saw the colonisers as terrorists. This unknowingly racialises us into connecting the two together and was further pushed through the media showing the Indians as “savage and dangerous drunks”. It is an inhumane way to fit a large and diverse group of people into a box for them to conform into that paints them in a negative view.

New Zealand is not exempt from this perspective on coloured skin and we look at it less in our own country than we do at civil rights in America. We also stripped the māori population of their culture and tried to reform them to fit into our world. They were forced to learn our language and find their way in our education system against their will as well as having to change their culture to fit into the white culture. Every year around Waitangi Day we still have debates about the unjustice from the signing of the treaty and how we want to help those still affected by it today. We ignore the fact that the white colonisers stole everything from the Maori population and today refuse to acknowledge how we can fix the mistakes of our ancestors.

For the start of my life I grew up in Auckland where I feel I did have prejudices but no one specifically talked about. South Auckland was the dodgy area and when we drove through there I only saw or noticed māori and pacifica people which led me to believe that all māori were poor and because of that were violent and in gangs. There is a higher percentage of māori and pacifica people in gangs but I never associated white people as being part of a gang and what I saw on the news, movies and TV shows didn’t help this image either as it always showed coloured people as being associated with gangs.

In the fight against racism I always hear about having equal rights to everyone regardless of their skin colour, but what I learnt was “Equality starts with equity” which taught me that we first have to level the playing field before we get the same treatment. An example of this in practice is measuring schools achievement rates and their incomes and splitting them into zones, they then took this information and from that decided that the lower income and achievement schools would get more funding that the higher income and achievement schools. This is similar to how we do our funding in New Zealand where they base school fundings off of the area’s wealth to determine which are the “better” schools which get less funding than the “worse” schools. Again referring back to Waitangi Day, the māori lost their land unfairly to the European settlers but today when they get offered back a small piece of the land stolen from them there is an outcry from the white population at the recompensation being unfair. We can’t fit for equality and healing the wounds from the past without compensation and assisting them from their long period of mistreatment, so giving them a piece of their land back is still not enough but is a start. One of the reasons that we have placed the māori population in this situation is because we have our prejudices about them and see what we want to see that fits the description we have of them. One prejudice I’ve heard about māoris is that they live off the benefit system and take whatever they can get freeloading, and when we see them getting back some of their own land this just fuels our image of them that they are greedy. It’s just unfortunate however that people who don’t know the historical value of this make snap-judgments which influence everyone else’s perspective.

Waking Up White is the title and key topic addressed in this biography. For white people we have to wake up and realise that we have a race and a culture instead of seeing us as the “normal” and that everyone has a culture and race that is equally valid. By realising that white privilege is real and that the white race has had many advantages compared to others is to realise that we are the ones that have to have to put our own pride and image aside to work as one race of people that appreciates all cultures.

This is an amazing piece of work that I would definitely recommend. It can help anyone no matter what stage they are at in uncovering where they belong in the story of race. Every chapter teaches you something new with examples to the real world and other people’s experiences as well as Debby answering questions that some people might be too afraid to ask as she also is travelling on this journey too. For those serious about uncovering the truth behind it there are fun little exercises at the end of each chapter which cause you to think about what you’ve just read and diving deeper into the thought processes behind what we think about it. If anything I believe that this will just let people have a clearer view on the world and respark our childlike wonder and curiosity instead of just passing through life without thinking. This was Debby Irving’s purpose with this, to share her story and hope that others can take something from it to push themselves to accept their race and culture and be able to support this movement that she is a part of.