White Privilege Helps Me Out...Again

I gain so much from my white privilege.

I met recently with an adviser at the college in which I'm currently enrolled. After a BA and an MA in my subject area, I finally recognized that I must complete some basic education courses in order to certify to teach in all states. So I'm going back to school, happily if I'll be honest, because I do really love school, no matter the ease of subject material. I guess that comes with always asking questions.

So I have a meeting scheduled for 5pm, but I get there early with my one-year-old son in hopes that I can squeeze in an earlier appointment.
I can't.
They are definitely backed up.

At five, the adviser Erica calls me back. A kind young white woman, probably about my age, and very skilled in helping me feel comfortable, Erica, from her credentials, has been advising for a while. In fact during our meeting another adviser steps in to ask her a question, signaling to me that Erica must be in charge or at least leading a collection of other advisers.

The reason I came into the office today, Erica, is to get a hold-override  on a course I need, I tell her when we sit down. The hold is in place because my pre-requisites for the course have not been verified - I need to have taken their introduction to education course before I can register.
Now I took a foundations of education course in my undergrad years. But that was eight years ago and the content requirements have shifted dramatically in the aftermath of Race to the Top and the introduction of the Common Core Standards and PARCC assessments.

In my mind I know my previous course does not meet the pre-requisite standard as laid out by the course catalog.

So I begin to mentally piece together my argument, mentioning first that I can try to get the 2007 course catalog from my alma mater so we can compare the two and pulling my two transcripts out for reference, but she stops me.

She says "I should refer you to the education department on this one, since that's what I'm supposed to do, but you seem like a pretty responsible person, so I'm going to do the override."

I'm somewhat speechless. All my pretty good arguments about how the State had accepted my undergrad course as valid and how my graduate courses more recently dug into that content I was missing fall onto the floor.

In the moment, I thank her profusely for removing the hassle of 1) getting a meeting with an education chair and/or 2) having to take and pay for another course this semester; I round up my things and my kiddo, and stroll on out of there.

It wasn't until I was in the car that I began to dismantle her statement.

I "seem like a pretty responsible person."


Let me list some pieces of evidence arguing against her assumption for a second:

1) She hadn't looked over my transcripts at all and took my claim of a BA and MA on my word alone.
2) I was not dressed professionally
3) I brought my son. My fifteen month-old BUSY son, with me. My son who is constantly chatting and eating and getting into everything. I brought him. To this meeting.


Evidence supporting her assumption that I am responsible:

1) I am white


I recognize that some might say NO! She might have done the same thing for a black woman. And maybe she would have, but the statistics say that bias against black bodies is real. That she would not have done the same thing for a black woman.
Maybe if the black woman was dressed nicely and didn't bring her kid along. But a black woman in jeans with a toddler in the stroller that she was feeding throughout the meeting? No, Erica would have referred her to the education department. Because that black woman would not "seem like a pretty responsible person."

Now this course pre-requisite override is a small example of the major benefits I receive from being white.

As I've mentioned before, the BIGGEST, all-time privilege I receive from being white is this: I don't have to think about the injustices suffered by black people. I don't have to think about the injustices suffered by persons of color at all. I don't have to think about the injustice perpetrated against them every single day.

But I must choose to think about injustice.

Every day I must choose to SEE and RECOGNIZE my privilege and choose to SEE and RECOGNIZE privilege systemically built into the foundations of this country. And I must listen to stories from black life. And I must talk with white folks about their privilege. And I must choose to do this every day.

For it is so easy to forget.

This Starts With Me

Donald Trump's followers include many overt white-supremacist racists. Donald Trump, I would argue is also an obvious racist.

For a while I thought this public overt racism might be a good thing for the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump's speeches and voter questions are revealing a large segment of the population that is deeply and obviously and proudly racist.

Wouldn't that make us all realize that racism is alive and well?

I mean, you can't deny that general bigotry exists when one of his supporters claims all the problems in the US today are due to Muslims and that we need to "get rid of them."

 Wouldn't those sort of comments make the even the strongest racism-ended-with-Obama arguments fall to pieces?

In part, yes, no one can deny that a large part of the population holds racist beliefs - Trump and his followers have made that obvious.

Where this public knowledge actually hurts our progress is in how progressive white folk take and use this information about overt racism.

As I've said before, the movement to end systemic racism is NOT a black responsibility. It is a white responsibility. We must recognize individually our white privilege, dismantle it, and use our white privilege as leverage to bring about social justice. It starts within our individual selves.

But Trump and Limbaugh and Cruz and the rest of them have made it so much easier to relocate the problem outside of ourselves.
THEY are the racists.
THEY are the bigots.
THEY are the problem.

And the discussion of racism becomes an us-vs-them debate. WE progressives have it right. THEY conservatives are the racists and the bigots. THEY are wrong.

There is no possibility of ending systemic racism if we make this conversation about THOSE racists.

The conversation, white people, must be about I, racist.
I, white privileged.
I, complicit ignorer of injustice.

This starts with me.

In the Gospel of Luke we're told that Jesus shared a parable about a Pharisee and a tax-collector praying at the same time in the temple. Jesus says that the Pharisee stood praying before the Lord and thanked God that he was not like this evil-doer, this tax-collector. Jesus notes that the tax-collector also prayed, but did so with deep humility. Jesus says that "He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’"

Then Jesus praises the tax-collector for his humility instead of the praising the Pharisee for his self-exalting righteousness.

I would say we could replace those two job titles in the parable with progressive and conservative, or democrat and republican, or whatever degrading term you have for "the other side" and the story would still hold. 

I thank God I am not like those racist conservatives. 

But as Jesus teaches, that pride is wrong. 

Christ calls us to a life of self-reflection. 

A life of humility. 

God, have mercy on me, a privileged white racist. 

The Beloved Community starts with me.