The Forgotten Race

By John La Rue

Thinking of white as a race or male as a gender is like thinking of grey as a color or water as a flavor. It’s technically accurate, but in our culture, rarely done.

In a political context, a white, straight, male candidate is never identified as “the straight guy” or “the man candidate,” and only becomes “the white candidate” when juxtaposed with a minority opponent. In contrast, minority candidates are identified by their race, a trait that subsumes their campaign platforms and even overshadows party affiliations. Likewise, female candidates must field questions regarding their gender, and gay candidates must defend (or hide) their sexuality. Nobody seems to ask the straight white men comparable questions. So then, how do white males in politics think of themselves, their race, and their gender?

To find out, I spoke with two budding campus politicians: Stephen Dewey ’07 and Eric Lesser ’07, the respective presidents of the Harvard Republican Club and the Harvard College Democrats. Both, like me, are white, male, heterosexual Government concentrators.

Both Dewey and Lesser initially expressed doubts about their ability to comment on race, gender, and politics; the Republican Club suggested that I might want to speak with a female or minority board member instead. Once engaged in discussion, each man at first spoke of race and gender as abstract concepts, applied to others. “You can’t talk about race and gender without politics,” began Lesser, but “I wouldn’t say it consumes every piece of my thought. It’s more at a subconscious level.”

Dewey and Lesser both (independently) explained that they only become actively conscious of race when surrounded by non-white people. “I think it happens when you’re out of your comfort zone, when you feel challenged,” asserted Lesser. As a native of a majority-black city neighborhood, Stephen specified when and why he would feel white: “In Chinatown, I’d feel white, notice I was white. Not if I was in a black area though, because I’m accustomed to it. If I went to Africa, I would notice, but it’s not just racial; it’s cultural, and about relative affluence.”

Similarly, Lesser and Dewey only felt conscious of gender when surrounded by women. Lesser speculated that strong insults attack personal aspects central to a person’s identity. “What makes me who I am is where I come from: my family, my values, my religion, the way I was raised, the town I grew up in. You might say I was fat, but that wouldn’t bother me too much. It might bother some people.” Likewise, Dewey thought that people would most likely mock “the most stereotypical part of a person. Usually with me, it’s some part of my personality or aspects of how I look.” The range of potential insults to a white man suggest that whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality are wholly auspicious traits. We assert masculinity and heterosexuality in order to remain within the boundaries of these commendable categories.

Whiteness, we never think of. We never have to.