White Privilege

White Privilege doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard, it means that your skin tone isn’t one of the things making it harder. There are numerous privileges, like male, socioeconomic, able-bodied, cisgendered or christian, but white privilege is likely the most pervasive and persisting privilege throughout history. It means that society gives you preferential treatment in comparison to other groups of people. It means that there are systematic procedures that fortify your standing above others based on how you look. 

White Privilege allows you to…

Go birding, unlike Christian Cooper.

Go jogging, unlike Ahmaud Arbery.

Relax in the comfort of my own home, unlike Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor and Regis Korchinski-Paquet.

Get help after being in a car crash, unlike Jonathan Ferrell and Renisha McBride.

Have a cellphone, unlike Stephon Clark.

It’s about benefit, and we live in a system where a dominant race benefits off the oppression of others. As a white person, whether or not you feel guilt about about your position of advantage, your advantage exists. Part of acknowledging your privilege isn’t just understanding the advantages you have, it’s understanding the opportunities that are actively being denied to others. Whether or not you acknowledge your privilege, it’s not negated. Refusing to acknowledge it, however, is part of the problem. White privilege means that you have a certain platform, and level of safety. To ignore using those advantages to help those in subjugation is simultaneously your prerogative and heinous. Understanding the position you occupy is different than utilizing that position. Privilege means not caring about something because it doesn’t directly effect you, and that is the greatest privilege, not having to care. 

White Privilege prevails as a consequence of racism, biases and procedures designed and upheld to suppress people of colour. It means that you are a beneficiary of the oppression of people of colour. It means you are the default representation in all media, it means that products are designed with you in mind first. It means you don’t get harassed for existing in public spaces because of your skin colour, nor will your citizenship be questioned. It means that your actions aren’t perceived as being representative of your entire race.

White Privilege allows you to…

Get home safely, unlike Jordan Edwards.

Sell CDs, unlike Alton Sterling.

Play loud music, unlike Jordan Davis.

Sleep, unlike Aiyana Jones.

Walk to the corner store, unlike Mike Brown.

Pulled over, unlike Sandra Bland.

Lawfully carry a weapon, unlike Philando Castile.

Have car trouble, unlike Corey Jones.

Black students are 3x as likely to be suspended and Black graduates are 2x more likely to be unemployed because of racial prejudices. Black women are 4x as likely to die of child birth because of racial bias. Black Americans are 30% more likely to get pulled over by police and make up 40% of the prison system because of systemic oppression, bigoted law enforcement, and discriminatory judicial procedures. These are some of the inconsistencies and practices that exist because of the enduring legacy racism, a legacy that oppresses people of colour, and through that oppression, white people receive privilege.

I understand the universal troubles of the human experience, again, being white doesn’t mean you haven’t encountered hardships, you likely have, but you haven’t encountered racism. Racism is the systematic deconstruction and oppression of a race or ethnic group. Other definitions are fundamental misunderstandings of what racism actually is. Racism is a grand, sweeping force, not interpersonal biases and prejudices encountered by those in already advantageous positions. Racism doesn’t “go both ways” it’s a downward exertion unto those who are oppressed.  

White Privilege allows you to…

Shop at Walmart, unlike John Crawford.

Have car trouble, unlike Terence Crutcher.

Read a book in my car, unlike Keith Lamont Scott.

Walk with my grandfather, unlike Clifford Glover.

Decorate for a party, unlike Claude Reese.

Ask a cop questions, unlike Randolph Evans.

Play with a toy in a park, unlike Tamir Rice.

I understand why being told you have privilege, or why being told you have an objectively easier time than others could be frustrating, but being called privileged isn’t an insult. It’s an objective observation, like observing the colour of someone’s skin, and neither is wrong. It’s important to acknowledge how colour effects our benefits and opportunities if we ever hope to exact any kind of change through our privileges. Understanding your whiteness, and only understanding it is the same as someone refusing to see colour, it’s strictly beneficial for you, and undermines the difficulties faced by those in oppressed positions.

The disobedience of a white person is more likely to be chalked up as youthful indiscretion, whereas black and brown people would be reprimanded, condemned, arrested or killed for those same actions. Use that privilege, care, exact your influence against the system from which you benefit, knowing full well that if a person of colour were to try and do the same they would be stifled like a candle in a hurricane.

White Privilege allows your to…

Cash a check in peace, unlike Yvonne Smallwood

Take out your wallet, unlike Amadou Diallo

Go for a run, unlike Walter Scott

… Breath, unlike Eric Garner and George Floyd.

Walk home, unlike Trayvon Martin.

Protest peacefully, unlike David McAtee, James Scurlock and Freddie Gray.

I understand that you shouldn’t have to shield a black person from a row of militarized police, I get that building a human wall around black protestors to hinder lethal escalations isn’t something that should have to happen, but that is the unfortunate reality that is unfolding before us. Understand your privilege, don’t ignore it, scoff at it or make excuses for it, use it.