Dear white people of which I am one.

When someone mentions white privilege our first response is to become defensive and explain that at no time did we ever expect or demand preferential treatment.

But this misses the point as no one is accusing us of actively seeking it, but is trying to point out that what we have considered the normal treatment that everyone receives is not actually that.

We are unaware of the disparity of treatment because, for the most part, we have not experienced it.

We are not guilty of any “crime”, as some people feel the accusation is claiming, but we are being asked to understand that our assumption is wrong.

Our experiences are not universal.

I assumed as a little Catholic kid, everyone ate fish on Fridays. Most of my neighbors were Catholic as well, so how would I have noticed, until the protestant family moved in, that this fish on Friday thing was not something for everyone.

Years ago I worked in California with a woman who initially impressed me because, judging by her age, she would have had to have married her Black husband back when a white woman marrying a Black man was just not done. However, I found out she was “Fourth Generation” and there was no interracial marriage.

She eventually told me that when she was in elementary school, and too young to analyze the world, she just assumed that her darker siblings were being treated like she was.

She was in good classes with good settings, went on a variety of field trips, and was allowed to participate in all school activities. She just assumed her siblings were not as smart as she was since they were in the slow classes with the worst educational environments for learning, and that it was because of their behavior that they were not allowed on field trips.

Like many kids, she had her own friends at school with whom she spent her time, but her siblings were not in the group. Her peers with whom she played at home knew who her brother and sisters were, but with her siblings in lower grades by a few years the adults at school apparently did not.

Her parents were always working, so they never attended school functions, and it was only when she registered at the high school that people saw how dark her parents and siblings were, and the questions began.

When it became known that she was as Black genetically as the rest of the family and not the little white girl that people thought she was, her experience in school changed, and she was placed in lower level classes, denied field trip participation, and certain extra-curricular activities were closed off to her.

She told me she had since had to deal with the guilt that she never saw that her siblings were not treated like her based only on the fact that they were obviously Black while she had been assumed to be White.

She had not sought the different treatment. It was simply given to her.

Being older and less innocent, she realized in high school that those things she assumed had been opportunities available to all hard working students were limited to only the white ones, and she lost it all when it was realized she was actually Black.

She had been experiencing white privilege from the privilege side.

And like her fellow students, at the time she was experiencing it, she was not aware of it. Her awareness came only with the loss.

People objected when February was named Black History Month because they felt attacked that we now had to hear about things Black people did. Although race hadn’t been pointed out previously, because most teachers were white, and pictures of people in textbooks who had done anything important were White, the logical assumption was that only White people had done things of importance. Blacks had just been slaves, and were poor people now.

Black History month in no way was to take anything away from White people, but to take the opportunity to set the record straight, and the list of Black people who had done things beyond finding a million things you could do with a peanut turned out to be quite long.

Taking Black Lives Matter as an example, the group got organized as a result of a number of questionable police shootings, and those closest to Black lives, and that would be Black people, wanted to make the point that their lives had worth, and did, in fact, matter. The first reaction was, “oh, so no one else’s life does?” even though no one said that. Yes, all lives do matter, so what is wrong with Black people making the point that theirs do?

I once walked into a store with a friend who happened to be Black. We separated since we were there to look at different things. I browsed undisturbed except for the employee who had to ask if I needed help, and after I said I didn’t, she walked way leaving me to browse undisturbed.

My friend was asked the same thing, but rather than walk away, the employee hovered around him close by making a poor attempt to seem not interested in him but in straightening out merchandise that was coincidentally near wherever he went.

The privilege in that instance was that I could shop undisturbed while he was shopping under supervision.

He, by the way, was intending to spend more money than I was.

David Becker, 18, a former Massachusetts high school athlete, had been charged with two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault and battery for sexually assaulting two unconscious women at a party but he won’t be serving jail time or registering as a sex offender.

Instead, his case will continue without a finding for two years with two years of probation. That means that in two years if he commits no crime, the charge just disappears without a trace.
So men cannot concentrate on sex, therefore, sexual dysfunction is no longer levitra india a problem of immense worry and concern. It only takes the time and determination to learn what is necessary to improve and cheap professional viagra advance in your job. In India now many certified sex problems soft cialis online http://www.devensec.com/district-development.html treatment clinics are there where India’s best sex doctors are practicing and treating all kinds of sex problems. As you best viagra pills Check Prices age, the health of your organ declines.
Unlike others on probation who have to stay in the state where the offense occurred, he will be serving his probation in Ohio, where he plans to attend college.

His attorney has stated,

“He can now look forward to a productive life without being burdened with the stigma of having to register as a sex offender. The goal of this sentence was not to impede this individual from graduating high school and to go onto the next step of his life, which is a college experience.”

I should mention that, although Becker denied sexual contact with one victim he believed his actions with the other drunk woman had been acceptable because she didn’t stop him.

His attorney also said,

“We all made mistakes when we were 17, 18, 19 years old, and we shouldn’t be branded for life with a felony offense and branded a sex offender. Putting this kid in jail for two years would have destroyed this kid’s life.”

Remember Brock Turner, the 20-year-old former star swimmer at Stanford University?

He was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a party in January 2015, and only got a six-month sentence with the possibility of three months off for good behavior.

Contrast that with Brian Banks, a promising high school football player who had committed to play at college. He too fell into the category of those who “all made mistakes when we were 17, 18, 19 years old, and we shouldn’t be branded for life with a felony offense and branded a sex offender”, except he had made no mistake.

But, at 16 years old he was accused of rape and tried as an adult, was sent to juvenile hall for a year before his case came up, received six years from the judge, and served time with hardened criminals twice his age.

While Turner and Becker, both White, were caught in the act and could not deny their actions, Banks, who is Black, was convicted based on the testimony of his alleged victim who recanted her story after he had already served  five years and two months in prison and five years of high custody parole.

The explanation that Turner and Becker had no criminal history, which played into the courts’ decisions, falls flat when the fact is neither did Banks.

While Becker could “go onto the next step of his life, which is a college experience”, Banks lost a college scholarship.

A number of years ago a group of us were headed to a teacher union meeting in Downtown Los Angeles.

I had learned early in my time in L.A. that when getting pulled over for an alleged traffic violation you waited for the officer to tell you to exit the vehicle, walked to the front of the car, and assumed the position with your hands on the hood and legs spread.

On this occasion things went a little differently.

Our driver was a well respected Black man who had been teaching and coaching for a number of years as well as working within his community to help keep kids off the street. We got pulled over going through an upscale neighborhood, and when he was directed to exit the vehicle by an officer whose gun was drawn, he went to the back of the car, put his hands behind his head with his fingers interlocked, and knelt on the ground.  The other passengers sat quietly looking straight ahead, and I was directed by one of them to do so as well as I was very obviously turning and watching what was happening.

I heard this large, athletically built Black man constantly say the word “Sir”, and noticed many questions were unrelated to the alleged traffic violation, but to him personally.

Eventually he was told to return to the car while the officer closest to him followed at a respectable distance, and the one on the other side of the car kept parallel to him, and it was only when he was back behind the wheel with his hands on it that they re-holstered their guns.

I was informed later by one of the teachers in the car with me that that is how Black people are pulled over while White people followed the procedure I had.

Having lived in and near a big enough city that had neighborhoods divided according to cultures, often because of the practicality of people arriving from other countries over the years and settling in neighborhoods whose character was familiar to them and staying there for many generations that followed, I have noted that those most offended by the term White Privilege are those who live in areas with little diversity, or are of an age where they may have had little intermingling with people least like themselves as they grew up, and, so, may not have had the opportunity to see that their experiences are not the same as so many others.

So, again, the term White privilege is not an allegation of conscious wrongdoing, but is just an attempt to have people of a particular group look outside themselves and see the differences of treatment experienced by those outside themselves, especially those groups that have not been historically the majority or in power.

And since that group is most likely White, it is not inconceivable that over time they modeled their spheres of influence on what was good for them, assuming it is good for everyone, without being in a position to notice differences of treatment within that system.

And so, my fellow White people, instead of instantly going on the defensive, look around and see what the term means, and you might be quite surprised that it has some validity, and you may become a little more conscious of how others are treated, and may, if you are a reasonable person, see the need for appropriate change.

 

Sincerely,

A White Guy