People get uncomfortable with the term, "white privilege." It seems to suggest that white Americans are still out lynching minorities or that, perhaps I am wearing sack cloth and beating my chest in guilt. Neither are true, but I don't buy into the myth of a post-racial America. I'm the racial minority in my classroom and I hold the power. Sometimes that really bothers me.
- When the old lady at Wal-Mart asks to see my receipt I don't second-guess her motive.
- If my wife straightens her hair nobody makes comments. In fact, my hair will never be viewed as a social statement.
- When I am angry, they say, "Man, John seems angry" instead of "He's an angry black man."
- If I make an accusation about systemic racism no one claims that I'm just pulling the race card or the victim card or any other imaginary cards.
- If a white guy commits a crime no one ever turns to me and asks, "Did you know him?"
- If I am pulled over, I don't have layers of a centuries-old slave narrative tugging at myself and the officer. I just hand him or her a driver's license.
- No one has ever attributed any of my athletic feats (which are few) to my racial identity.
2 comments:
Your examples are true.
I recently came across a blog talking about whether we've made progress in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The blogger said that on You Tube, Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech had to have comments disabled because people were writing racial slurs. That, sadly, speaks volumes.
you would love the book you can't teach what you don't know by Gary Howard. He talks a lot about this issue and what he thinks can be done in schools and in society in general.
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