As a privileged white girl, I haven’t faced too many
struggles growing up. I am thankful, however that I am able to recognize my privilege.
I know too many white people in my situation that don’t realize how lucky they
are to have what they do. They pretty
much radiate ignorance and its quite sickening. I feel blessed to have
everything that I do, including the awareness of the fact that not everyone is
as lucky as I am. From the beginning I have been blessed with a loving family.
I grew up in a two parent household, in a decent neighborhood, surrounded by
friends who loved me and cared for me. Up until high school I went to public
schools. There I was surrounded by people of all economic and social classes. I
then attended a boarding school for high school, thanks to a boat load of
financial aid. This was an eye-opening experience for me. It was here that I first
truly recognized what a difference economic status made in recognizing
privilege. Here I was, a middle class girl from a tiny town right outside of
Providence, Rhode Island, surrounded by some of the wealthiest and most
ignorant people I had ever met in terms of realizing how lucky they were to
have the opportunities they did.
I was so beyond lucky to go to the
school that I did. I was lucky to have two loving parents. I was lucky that
being a white girl, I didn’t have to worry about nearly as many things than a
little black girl would have to. My parents never once had to speak to me about
police brutality or warn me that I had to be careful around them, because my
life was seriously at risk if I didn’t comply with everything they said. This was
something that would have never even crossed my mind as a child. It’s so scary
to me that this is actually a common conversation that occurs. No matter what
their economic status, African Americans are at a far more significant risk of
being incarcerated than white people. Its unbelievable to me that some people
can ignore things like this and live in their own little privileged bubble,
ignoring the injustices that are happening on the outside. It is the harsh
reality that black and white people experience extremely different realities. It
is so easy to ignore this fact and shy away from the guilt that it provokes,
but as a society we cannot move forward with race relations with this much
ignorance and inequality in the world.
I thought your last sentence about shying away from guilt was interesting. Not until the First Year Experience privilege walk did I realize that people, white people in particular, had tendencies to shut down and feel a sense of guilt when recognizing their privilege. I think it is important to realize that all of us, especially here at Rhodes, have some type of privilege. Most of the time privilege is something one can't conciously acquire or control, you inherit privilege. Due to this, I feel like there is no reason to feel guilty. I think the correct response to recognizing your privilege shouldn't be to feel discouraged, but to use that knowledge to combat the ignorance and inequalities around you.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a lot of white people tend to shut down when confronted with the idea of privilege, since it implies in their minds that they have done something wrong or that their existence is wrong. I had never really understood or talked about what white privilege was until I got to Rhodes, and I personally felt much more concerned with whether or not my privilege had hurt someone in the past rather than if my privilege implied bad character or any guilt. I think what Zaria said is important, and it is important that white people feel uncomfortable sometimes regarding how we address privilege. Being uncomfortable with how you are perceived is an important facet of understanding the way people of color feel in a white dominated society (or that is how I have come to understand it).
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be the case with many things that people will shy away when confronted by something or a topic they would rather not discuss. There's always a breaking point and we can't keep shying away from these conversations or else the problem will permeate into something far worse than we could imagine. Many times people get worried about hurting ones feelings, but truly everyone's feelings will be hurt whether or not we realize it and we must have these difficult conversations to move forward like you said.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important for all people to recognize their privilege because everyone has an injustice they are fighting for. I appreciate your openness about your own privileges and injustices of social class. We cannot "shy away from the guilt" as you said but confront our privileges.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this is a very humbling post, not only for you as the author but in general given the fact that privilege was recognized. Not many are strong enough to talk about the existence of privilege let alone owning the fact that one has it, and I think that is very commendable. I definitely agree with you that we cannot move forward until this nasty reality is confronted. I also agree with the comments above discussing how everyone has some type of privilege, and that we should all take ownership.
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