Page 70 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

Narrating the self 63
BB: Was it mainly a white environment or . . .?
Deborah: Um,...Yes, it was, but then you get all these other factors be-
cause everyone knows that its more difficult, . . . because ...ra-
cial inequality is so rife, for people to you know, it starts off with
education, home life and all that kind of thing, maybe for say, a
black man, to get into that area – that would be difficult, ...and
for a black woman even more difficult. And quite difficult for
anyone, I suppose, to end up working on a magazine, not that
many people do it, when you think of the population as whole,
when you think about people who work in shops or banks, you
know just sheer numbers and it probably all goes back to educa-
tion. So it’s not surprising when you work your way back, to
realise that, no it was a mainly white environment . . .’
BB: Do you think you were conscious of that at the time or . . .?
Deborah: I don’t think I was conscious of it, ...I mean was conscious of
it, I don’t think I thought it remarkable, because there weren’t
that many, as I said before. We had a lot of contact with other
people you know, when I worked on teenage magazines, with
musicians and models and people like that, and actors and eve-
rything and yeah and those walks of life. They’ve all got their
own kind of issues about race and everything. So there was a lot
of contact with a lot of people but as far as the day-to-day office
was concerned ...I am just trying to think of people . . . it was
mainly white.
(Interview 40, emphasis Deborah’s)
While Deborah appeared a little defensive about the whiteness of her
former workplace, she was clear that discrimination was located at other
points in the system – for example in education, and possibly in the ‘home
life’ of those who suffer inequality. There were not ‘issues’ of ‘race’ for her at
work because it was a white environment. However, again, we get a sense of
gradation within the normative. Deborah explained that she also had ‘con-
tact’ with ‘other people’ from more marginal or bohemian ‘walks of life’,
such as musicians, models and actors. For Deborah, racial identity and, in
particular, whiteness was something that one only really becomes conscious
of in the presence of non-white others. This did not mean that Deborah is
never conscious of being white. The following extract shows that whiteness
was something that she sometimes feels guilty about. But there was also the
suggestion that she feels threatened by the resentment of others:

I’m conscious that I am in a privileged position. You know, that I’ve got
advantages before I even do anything. Just from the colour of my skin
and the way I speak. Um, I start off at an advantage, so I’m conscious of
that. And it does make me uncomfortable sometimes. Very uncomfort-
able. Because I wonder if it’s resented and I’m sure it must be. I’m sure I
would resent it if I were in a different position. Very much.
(Interview 17)