WHITE PRIVILEGE

Soooo … what have you guys been up to lately?

I’ve been finding out that a lot of family and friends hate me because I believe that people of color deserve the same rights as white people.

They think that because I feel this way, it means I hate the police. I do not hate our police. I love them and fear for them in this shit-show of a world.

The people who hate me so much think I don’t know anything because I’m not in NYC witnessing the atrocities of what’s going on there.

I DO know what’s going on there. People are USING the Black Lives Matter movement to be animals – black, white, ANY color that is not protesting peacefully. I am not blind to that.

Here is where I’m coming from. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again because my friends and family are so angry, that they just want to pin me as this anti-police, anti-white, anti-FAMILY, monster instead of listening to what I’m saying.

I told a family member that she has white privilege after she stated several times that she does not. She got very angry with me. She told me that she busted her ass for everything she has.

That’s great. I’m proud of her; so did I. We both still have white privilege.

I shared an article by Cory Collins entitled, “What is White Privilege, Really?” * to explain my stance, but I’m pretty sure she’s so blinded by rage that she didn’t read it because she never responded to me.

*many parts of this blog are pulled directly from that article.

These family members want to hate me because I’m not going along with what they’re saying.

Some of the family I love the most aren’t even cursing me out like she did, they’re just passive-aggressively liking and ❤️- reacting to all the negative comments toward me. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t breaking my heart.

I thought it was because they were all listening to Tucker Carlson’s big fat fucking melon head telling them what’s right and wrong, but I recently discovered they get their “news” from QAnon. Lord help us all.

For the record, white privilege is not the suggestion that white people have never struggled. Many white people do not enjoy the privileges that come with having money.

And white privilege is not the assumption that everything a white person has accomplished is unearned; most white people who are successful worked extremely hard to get there.

Instead, white privilege should be viewed as a built-in advantage, separate from one’s level of income or effort.

One example of white privilege is being able to walk into a CVS and have it cater to all your white needs, while black people have to find the smaller “ethnic” sections.

But white privilege is not just easily finding what you need in a convenience store. It’s the subconscious comfort of thinking that a “normal” WORLD is one that caters to your white needs.

It’s also the power to remain silent in the face of racial inequity. It’s the power to weigh the need for protest or confrontation against the discomfort or inconvenience of speaking up.

It’s getting to choose when and where you want to take a stand. It’s knowing that you and your humanity are safe.

Basically, having white skin is the privilege in and of itself.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on with me. Plus getting 3 kids in 2 different schools up and running with virtual learning and working full-time. It’s been great 👍

2 responses to “WHITE PRIVILEGE”

  1. I tried explaining this to an acquaintance a few weeks ago. It is impossible for them to grasp it if it isn’t in a physically tangible example. Since it just ‘is’, they refuse to accept that it is real. It was frustrating, to say the least.

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  2. Reading Robin DiAngelo WHITE FRAGILITY — you only have to read the introduction to understand this crazy response to Black Lives Matter. It’s the irrational anger people have when we mention the privilege of not having had our ancestors arrive here in chains, as chattel. People seem to think that acknowledging the horrors of slavery somehow detracts from them as white people.

    White Privilege means we acknowledge the 400 year disadvantages Black people in this country have endured, beginning with the slave boats in 1619, through the forced labor farms that we called “plantations” through the GI bill that allowed white veterans to buy houses with the GI Bill but disenfranchised Black people by making sure their loans would not be insured and thereby made it impossible to buy houses under that SAME GI Bill.

    Those houses our fathers bought after coming home from WW2, Korea and the Vietnam wars became the basis for whatever limited inherited wealth the children of working class and middle class parents had. And Black veterans and their families were denied that same opportunity. That’s white privilege. Denying it is white fragility.

    Keep speaking, Tiffany.

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