How To Be A Peach Person

In my introduction blog, I covered a bit about race labels and why I don't like identifying myself as "white." I proposed "over-privileged peach-skinned bastard" as an alternative, which I later shortened to "privileged peach person."

After a bit, it occurred to me that there were facets of this "peach" thing I wasn't covering. For instance, I don't feel it's appropriate to refer to all white persons as "peach" - white supremacists and clueless middle-class WASPs, for instance, can keep on being white. It's more than a race; it's a mindset. So what exactly is a peach person?

To be a peach person, you must meet all of the following requirements:

1. You must belong to the "white" race.
2. You must be aware that as a light-skinned person, you are more privileged than persons of other colors, particularly in the company of other light-skinned people.
3. You must acknowledge and accept that you have no special right to this extra privilege, but that you have it anyway.
4. You must be willing to employ that privilege, as well as other resources at your disposal, to try and make that privilege available to persons of other colors. How you do this is up to you. Call people out on racist remarks, lobby to get persons of other color into influential positions, band with persons of other color to form an interracial alliance, whatever you are able to do.
5. You must accept that the superiority of fair-skinned people is an illusion, and remember this at all times. As others have said, check your ego at the door. No matter where you go or who you are with, remember that light-skinned people are not nicer, purer, smarter, or more human than people of other colors.
   
6. You must own your white heritage. No matter what you call yourself, you are still the product of a long line of oppressors - a line that shows few signs of letting up - and as such, persons of other color will be disinclined to trust you. You need to accept the stigma of being pale, just as other races have been forced to accept their stigmas.
   
7. You do not need to make an official commitment or label yourself an "anti-racist" or anything else. You only need to be willing to accept that your skin color is only your skin color, and the privilege you have exists only because you were born into a profoundly unjust society, and that you have a responsibility to try and correct the imbalance that granted you that privilege.

That is what it means to be a "peach person." To call yourself peach is to disown your "white" ego - to accept that you, too, have a color, and are no different (essentially, if not culturally) than those of darker shades. You are not "lowering yourself to their level." You are declaring that the level you thought you occupied before - that white people believe themselves to occupy on a daily basis - is an illusion, perpetrated by a pale-skinned society so caught up in itself that has almost forgotten it exists.

(I cannot take credit for everything in this list. In fact, I really cannot take credit for any of it. It is thanks to the excellent anti-racist blog, Stuff White People Do - and the many lists of advice for anti-racist allies that they link to - that I have come to understand any of this, much less condense it into a single train of thought. The owner and contributors have opened my eyes tremendously, and I thank them for knocking me off my own white pedestal.)