"White People"-A Favorite Phrase of My Fellow Travelers

I've been pretty consumed with class the last week and have not kept my journal up. I kind of made the decision that quality is more important than quantity. A re-hashing of what I did here will show no reflection. While I may not have written every day, I'm processing what I see and feel and those entries will show up in the end. We're leaving on a trip in a day or two and I plan to journal my heart out.

Anyways, on this trip there has been nothing that I’ve detested more than the use of the term “white people.” Not the use of the term by Indians, because I haven’t heard any Indians say it, but the use of the term by my fellow travelers. It is so frustrating to hear their excitement as they yell, “Look another white person” when we happen to see another tourist. It completely discredits me and all of the other multicultural people on this trip.

What they really mean to say, at least I hope they mean to say, is “westerners.” It makes me sad and a little angry too, to think that perhaps when my fellow travelers think of the western world, they are still thinking western is synonymous with white. I wonder if I was not one of them, if I was just walking down the streets of Mysore, would they see a westerner? Race is so inextricably tied to their definition of nationality that without knowing it, the bliss of white privilege, they discredit their own classmates and whole groups of people that live in the western world.

On the same token, behind their use of “white people” is probably the feeling of being a minority for the first time. But what is interesting, and I hope they recognize this, is that they are a minority for six weeks and their minority status is not met with animosity or hate but privilege. When they go home, they are no longer a minority.

I write this entry a little upset because I know that some of my fellow travelers will never have the thoughts I just mentioned because they’ve never had to think that way.