Continuing the conversation about UU cultural identity, I want to suggest that what’s hurting us the most isn’t white privilege but what I call “white collarism.”
What does white collarism look like? Here are two of it’s unspoken assumptions:
- The assumption that others would share my cultural or political views and interests if only they were as educated as I am. (Read as: if they weren’t so “ignorant,” a favorite white collarist insult. “Consciousness raising” talk falls under this assumption too.)
- The assumption that there are people put here on earth to do the shit work I don’t want to do, and that I have a right to expect them to make my life easier so that I can focus on what is worthy of me.
It’s a fundamental belief of this barber’s son that no one has a right to expect anyone else to be your support staff. They may do support work, but you don’t get to insist they define their life around that role.
How does this play out? I read a history of Unitarianism in the South recently where UU powers-that-be concluded that Unitarianism wouldn’t grow much in the South until Southerners were more educated. That was said over a century ago, so this has deep roots.
It’s not just existing UUs who are white collarists, it’s also who we attract. I think about the first time visitor who got to the front of the coffee line in coffee hour, saw the volunteer frantically filling two dozen cups with coffee, and asked for a cappuccino.
You may have other examples.
Because of the realities of socio-economics, white collarism is practiced predominantly by white people, but anyone, of any identity, who makes it in the white collar world can practice white collarism all the same.
A very important point! I’ve certainly heard similar anecdotes and recognize the danger to UUism.
Fortunately my small congregation hasn’t yet had to deal with that. Our board has always included both grad-degree-holding people and people with (just) a high-school diploma, professionals and laborers. One member announced recently that she had set a date on which to take the GED (which then had to be rescheduled because of a financial crisis). The whole congregation was able to congratulate her without condescension.
I want all our congregations to be economically and class-integrated. Indeed, this may be the greatest multicultural challenge we face. And without facing this challenge, we may continue to have little success diversifying our membership in other identity areas.
Good post!
That’s great to hear. I suppose there are congregations where white collarism is the norm, one’s where it’s hardly present, and everything in between. I think as a movement, though, our white collarism drags us down.
I agree. This is a major problem. When our icebreaker line with new visitors is, “what do you do?” followed by “where did you go to school?” it can come across like there’s some sort of resume you’re expected to have in order to fit in.
I think I read something in UU World a few years ago, asking us to use more open-ended questions to get to know visitors, like “what would you be doing if you hadn’t come here this morning?” or “what keeps you busy during the week?”
Our favorite opener, in group settings, used to be “How long have you been a part of the congregation?” Some people made a habit answering 1776 or 1492 until people figured out that question wasn’t so hot. A better way to ask that question is “What’s your connection to the congregation?” People can take that one in several different directions, and you’re as likely to hear what they’re involved in as how long they’ve been there.
My favorite openers for newcomers, one on one, are “Do you live nearby?” and “How did you find out about us?” The first lets me get them talking about their commute, which lets me know if they tried especially hard to get there, and express sympathy for a bad trip if they had a bad trip. The second give me an occasion to ask who the friend is who invited them or, if they found us online, if they already knew about UUism when they were searching for us.
Re: “The assumption that others would share my cultural or political views and interests if only they were as educated as I am. (Read as: if they weren’t so “ignorant,” a favorite white collarist insult. ”Consciousness raising” talk falls under this assumption too.)”
Political Progressives tend to think like this. Mr. Gibb’s Professional Left so to speak. It has nothing to do with collars.
PS….and those who are Educated god forbid and still don’t think like “me” are quickly labeled as NeoCons so they can be neatly categorized and dismissed as operatives of some conspiracy and not individuals who happen to disagree. I’ve got the stickies on my back to prove this.
Wait a minute. There’s no cappuccino at your church? :) Good post and good point.
I don’t necessarily object to anything written here, but I have a tough time figuring out how to apply it. If there’s an objective line between going out of our way to make other demographics feel welcome and pandering to them, I don’t know it. I do wonder sometimes if our being better at Bach than the blues shouldn’t just mean we do the best damn Bach we can, rather than being a second-rate blues imitator.
And I don’t think being upper middle class and avoiding shit work necessarily go hand in hand. At least one of the old ladies who answers the phone and does volunteer clerical work at my church is a retired lawyer and plenty of people of all social strata turn up at the “do a bunch of gardening and maintenance work” day that the church has twice a year. Indeed, the former head of a large nonprofit spent a Saturday morning last December shilling knicknacks at our annual bazaar.
CC
I want to be clear that I’m not talking about white collar workers. I’m talking about white collarists. There’s overlap, but they’re not identical. And not every white collarist has to be white collar, though most are.
This is a tough one. If it were easy, we’d have solved it already.
Thinking more about your Bach/blues comment, CC, I think we should do Bach well if that’s our gift and not be ashamed about it. But problems start when we add to that “But you don’t like Bach?!?” or “But you want us to trying playing the blues?!?”
This is an ongoing problem. I recently spoke at church and the person who asked me wanted a bio and she couched it in such a way that it didn’t have to be a list of degrees, life experience was good too. But you could tell that she didn’t really think that she just didn’t know what to say to someone like me who has an alternative education background. Without the massive lists of initials after my name, I am second class… and this is a small fellowship in the South.
I worked in the needle trades for a while as assistant to the cloth cutters. Chicago used to have a big clothing industry. That’s why I know the days of guys in white collared shirts and ties are over, and gone the way of the Hart Schaffner and Marx’s factory that made Obama’s suites. You may need to think of a new methaphor for whatever here. It’s dated.
If professionalism wasn’t already taken, I’d use that. For want of a better metaphor, I’m sticking with white collarism.
I am a high school grad who’s been a visiting my local UU for about three months. I know darn well that I’m not as educated as the movers and shakers who make up the congregation…but that’s okay. As long as they don’t reach for the pitchforks and torches to run me off I’ll hang around. It’s been a badly needed breath of fresh air, because my Christian faith is pretty much dead and gone after 22 years of futile trying.
There are plenty of church offerings available within my education demographic, but I’d be a closet liberal slinking around afraid to speak my mind. So I may as well take my outwardly normal/inwardly marginalized self to those who profess my inherent dignity as a human being…and are fighting to protect the dignity of others. Cheers.
I really don’t want to be unfair or politically incorrect or offend anyone, but, also, I really do believe that education is good. It turns out that some subcultures in America believe more education to be good while others don’t think that. They are suspicious of higher education. It’s a cultural thing. But everyone believes their own attitudes to be the proper ones.
We took in a teen who was starving and homeless. We urged her to finish high school and go on to college so that she could get a good job and so on. Were we wrong to do that because she comes from a culture that believes that college is unnecessary? Should we have instead encouraged her to stick with minimum wage jobs and live the miserable life her mother lives? It is, after all, what she is more comfortable with. I’m not being flippant here — I really want to explore how we REALLY deal with different world views. Should I never promote ideas I am sure are good ideas just because someone else disagrees? And what about those other people who aggressively push their ideas? How do you make someone welcome and also disagree with them? Some cultures think it’s healthy to discuss our disagreements and have “lively discussions” but others don’t: how do you politely and tolerantly disagree with someone who feels any disagreement is an attack? and who has the answers to this kind of question? I believe that psychology, sociology, and anthropology must have some hints at answers to these questions, and that was one of the things I had hoped that the Chalistry would study.
I’m not knocking education. I’m knocking using education to put other people down.
I’m 49, and very much blue collar, but (thankfully) I make a good living. That said, I regret not being educated, but not because of what I could do for a living (which probably wouldn’t pay as well as my current gig). What I’ve missed is having my worldview challenged and being exposed to new ideas, and I hope my attending the UU here in Columbia makes up for that in a small way.
Is it possible, educated or not, that some of us are just wired to ask questions, explore new ideas and not accept the usual answers? As a Christian I attended Baptist, Methodist, and Charismatic churches, and my last stop was Eastern Orthodox. I feel like the quintessential misfit, and I’m hoping that Unitarian Universalism will offer me a home and prove life-changing.