Today My White Privilege

oday My White Privilege allowed me to watch my husband leave for work wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and jeans without feeling that he would be “looking shifty” and possibly arrested or shot by a neighbor who thinks he is “protecting himself”

Allowed my children to walk by themselves to the store without my giving them instructions to make sure they keep their hands in view so no one thinks they are shoplifting

Allowed me to turn on Hulu and find a selection of movies in which the female lead character looks like me and is representative of my culture. She will probably be a well developed character and not a caricature or stereotyped “sassy best friend” or “first one killed”.

Allowed me to look for rental properties in any area of the state where I live and feel confident that most of the people there will look like me, and that the landlord would rent to someone like me.

Allowed me to teach my daughter to drive without also having to explain how to behave in order to avoid being killed at a traffic stop.

Allowed me to attend a peaceful protest knowing I would return home at the end of it.

Allowed me to send a written communication knowing that there was nothing about my name that would make people suspect I was less intelligent or less qualified to say the things I was saying.

Allowed me to walk down town and know that if people were unfriendly it was because they are unfriendly people, not because they are afraid of me or think I don’t belong here.

When my daughter was five, she took a watch out of a store not understanding that you had to pay for things. When we brought it back, the clerk thought it was “cute” and “funny”.

When my son bit a classmate in first grade, the classmate’s guardian shrugged it off and said that the kid hadn’t even told her and “I guess he doesn’t want to rat out his friends.” My son was not called a thug or a bad influence and they were allowed to keep playing after school.

When my son pulled down his pants in the lunchroom in kindergarten, the principal met with him and explained that this is not how we act in the lunch room. He was not called “uncivilized” or “wild”.

Talking “like a white person” is not a short cut for saying that I use poor grammar or slang, but when I do use poor grammar or slang it will be evidence of my being approachable, not uneducated or “street”. No one is surprised that I am “well-spoken”.

If someone mistakes me for someone else, it will because I genuinely resemble that person, in that they also have long greying hair or glasses. It will not be because both of us are white and we otherwise look nothing alike.

When I work with a crayon, the color called “flesh” looks like my flesh. Band Aids also.

When people misspell my name it’s because they are used to a different spelling of the same name which is common, and when I point it out they apologize rather than acting like it’s my fault that I have a name they aren’t used to.

I would have to travel to another country or at least to a very specific event in a collection of specific cities in order to be the only person of my racial identity in a large group of people. And to be identified as “the white lady” rather than by other aspects of me.

I am able to express an opinion without being assumed to speak on behalf of everyone who shares my racial identity.

I am able to be in a group of people without anyone expecting me to educate them about how all people who share my racial identity think, or what they all want.

If I use quirky expressions, they are assumed to be part of my own quirks, or as a result of the particular region of the country where I grew up.

I have never once been stopped at an airport for “additional security check”.

If I ask to pay by check I am not asked for two forms of ID.

If I wear my hair the way it grows out of my head and choose not to put chemicals in it or tie it down to disguise its normal state, I am not assumed to be “making a statement”. I have never been told that I look “unprofessional” because of my hair.

If I like to wear bright colors or specific patterns, it does not get called “tribal” or “ethnic”. If I put special time into my makeup and appearance, I may be told that I look nice but I will not be told that I look “so exotic” as though I were wildlife.

No one who just met me looks at my skin or eye color and thinks that it’s ok to ask if I am “mixed”.

When people ask me “where I am from”” they always mean where did I grow up.

No one compliments me on how good my English is because they assume that I was born here.

When I am at a gathering, no one assumes I am the waiter or the cleaning woman. I never get asked to fill someone’s drink or take their coat unless I am the hostess.

It was assumed that I got into college based on my own merit. It was assumed that I was not on a financial scholarship.

It is assumed that I got my job based on my own merit and that I was not “cut a break” because of my “background”.

Today my white privilege allowed me to feel like listing all these things is “doing something”.