The illusion of Black people and white people as distinct races may have been understandable in the Antebellum South where for the most part the two groups of people where fairly distinct visually, the descendants of West Africans and north-western Europeans. But wherever and whenever the view is broader and more inclusive, the mixtures of peoples more complex, these seemingly straightforward racial categories collapse. People dividing themselves into “us” and “them” has been going on since before Cain and Abel. “We” are “good,” “they” are “bad” is typically the result. As I grow older I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no any inherently good nor inherently bad individuals, and therefore no inherently good nor bad groups of people. We all have our struggles.
With that said, as a white American who can trace some of his various familial lines back to the early 1600’s in America, I wanted to write about white privilege. As always, what the phrase “white privilege” means to certain individuals may not be what it means to other individuals so I’ll define what the phrase means to me. The phrase means to me that as a white person I’ve derived some sort of underserved benefit, or privilege, simple based on my “whiteness.” The following is not meant to be all inclusive, just some examples.
So if I look back on my family history, and I’ve spent a great deal of time researching my own family history, can I find white privilege?
The most obvious question is, were my ancestors slave owners? The answer to that question is yes, some of my ancestors were slave owners, the vast majority not. I know one of my earliest Dutch ancestors in the New World owned at least one slave, most likely a household servant. This ancestor, who went by various names throughout his life, but died using the anglicized George Bouman, arrived in New Amsterdam, present day New York City, around 1640. He was one of the original patentees of Brooklynn and owned a ferry between Manhattan and Brooklynn roughly where the Brooklynn Bridge stands today.
The vast majority of my ancestors from that time period did not own slaves though, in the New World or back in Europe. In fact, there is some evidence that some of my relatives may have come to the New World as indentured servants, a status just above a slave.
I don’t know what the living conditions of these individual slaves where. In the early 1700’s George’s grandson, Thomas Bouman, built a farmhouse in Readington Township, New Jersey that still stands today as a museum. Supposedly, Thomas’ five children lived in the finished attic of that home with about seven slaves who worked the farm.
The last conclusive evidence I can have of any of my ancestors owning slaves dates to the very early 1800’s, and involved one or two slaves that where likely household servants or farm hands. This ancestor was my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Leonard Neighbor. Leonard is one of my 64 great-great-great-great-great grandfathers. An African American woman named Euphemia Van Fleet did live until her marriage in the household of my great-great-great-great grandfather, Peter Sigler, and his wife, in the early to mid-1800’s, perhaps as a slave early on but certainly while emancipated.
Obviously, those of my early ancestors who were slave owner were in a privileged position as contrasted with those who were slaves. I would likely not be able to trace so much of my genealogy back to the 1600’s if my ancestors where African American slaves due to the nature of the records kept and the family dynamics. Being counted and treated as a citizen, and not as property, positively impacted the educational attainments, economic status, and the ability to maintain familial relationships of my ancestors, particularly over time. That is a privilege that I have that I would likely not have if my ancestors were African American.
Even those who were not slave owners, or directly involved in the slave trade, benefited from the profits derived from slave labor. The number of slaves in the United States grew with the profitability of cotton as a cash crop. The profits accrued to the plantations did not just benefit those slave owners. Those monies helped to fuel the rest of the economy as the cotton was processed and shipped overseas, manufactured into cloth, and goods and services produced elsewhere was purchased by slave owning plantation owners and used in the slave economy.
In 1857, Leonard’s great-grandson and Peter’s grandson, George Boeman, moved from New Jersey to one of the many rapidly growing farm communities in Illinois. By all appearances, George had little or no money and support from his immediate family. George’s sister Jane lived with Peter and Euphemia as a little girl, not with George or his newly remarried mother. George’s father, David, was involved in some failed, and perhaps shady, business ventures prior to reportedly leaving his family to go west.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, George volunteered for the 93rd Illinois Infantry and was severely wounded at the Battle of Champion’s Hill. Of my ancestors that fought in the Civil War, all fought for the Union. George’s cousin, Major Lambert Boeman, was killed at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Five to ten other ancestors were causalities during the War, including one, Calvin Edwards, who died as a prisoner of war at Andersonville Prison in Georgia. Some evidence suggests Major Boeman’s extended family were abolitionists. Calvin’s family were Quakers, who were also typically abolitionists. The motivations of my other ancestors who fought for the Union is unknown.
George received a pension after the war ended, in part for his service, in part for his battle wound impairing his ability to farm. This pension from the Federal Government, although not large by today’s standards, greatly helped George and his family throughout his life, until his death in 1923. George also benefited from being able to travel relatively freely out west and eventually buy his own farm in rural Illinois. Both serving in the Union army during the Civil War and starting a new life in rural Illinois would have been largely precluded if George had been African American. In that way my ancestors and I benefited from white privilege.
George’s great-grandson, my own father, John S. Boeman, joined the U.S. Army soon after the United States entered World War II following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. He eventually commissioned an officer during the war, the command pilot of a B-24 bomber in the South Pacific. After the war, he got married and used the GI Bill, intended in part to fund the education of returning veterans, to attend the University of Illinois. Shortly after graduating he joined the newly formed U.S. Air Force at the start of the Korean War and stayed in for another 20 plus years, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. For the most part, he supported his nine children through his active duty pay as a officer and pension following retirement.
Joining the U.S. Army at the start of World War II was possible for African-Americans but there can be no question that their ability to rise through the ranks and become officers or serve in career promoting combat roles, as my father had, was greatly impaired in the segregated army of the time. Likewise, the opportunity to parlay that early service into a career would have been largely precluded if my father had been African American. In that way my family and I benefited from white privilege.
Finally, I attended Collinwood High School in Cleveland for my last two years of high school. At the time, with exceptions, there were two school systems in Cleveland. The Cleveland Municipal School District, which was largely African American, and the Catholic Parochial Schools, which where largely white. Cleveland was divided about 50/50 between African American and whites and had a history of segregation, especially in its school system, which often led to violence. Collinwood was particularly noted for racial tension as it went from overwhelmingly white in the early 1970’s to overwhelmingly African-American by the early 1980’s. I graduated in 1983 and was very often the only white person, or one of a couple, in my classes. Prior to court ordered busing for the purposes of desegregating the schools the African American schools where noted for overcrowding and being underfunded versus the white schools.
As I’ve gone through my life and reflected back I can see that those who attended the parochial schools had an economic advantage over those who went to the city schools. It was certainly possible for a dedicated student to get an education in the Cleveland City schools of the time, but the opportunity for a quality education was much greater at a St. Ignatius or St. Joe’s within Cleveland, or the various largely white, and well-funded, public schools in the surrounding communities. The cumulative effect of decades of discrimination in educational opportunities negatively affected African American students.
The negative effect of slavery on the African American community did not end with emancipation, or the negative effect of decades of lawful discrimination with the Great Society or desegregation orders. Those negative effects are still felt today. Those negative effects are a shared burden and should be treated as such. Remedying these problems does not lend itself to simple solutions, but this history is our Nation’s Achilles heal.