No! I will not Stop it! ...

[Rebecca Trotter]

37. As the author of the article cited . . .

I would just like to say that my reader may not have actually understood what I was saying in that post. All I was saying is that the term "white privilege" is problematic from a linguistic perspective. That is, it means two different things to two different groups. And the term "privilege" while accurate, triggers such a strong fear response for many white people, that they just can't process any of the ideas associated with it in this context. I think the word privilege frightens white people (of whom, I am one) because to us, privilege indicates that you've gotten something you don't deserve and that it should be taken from you.

Basically, the reaction is, "if I got this because I'm privileged, then all of my work didn't mean anything. All my struggles and trials that I endured don't even exist in their eyes. And they think I'm a bad person to boot. Like I'm no better than some guy in a KKK hood."

And those who understand the concept of "white privilege" see just by his words that he doesn't actually understand what "white privilege" is. It's like listening to a congressman talking about wind farms interfering with weather patterns and causing global warming. The natural response is to try and explain yourself (you can read my gibberish laced attempts in the comments on that post). But once that reptilian brain thing has been triggered, they won't be able to hear anything else you say.

Which is clearly what happened with this reader. He read a criticism of "white privilege" as a useful term and did not recognize some pretty basic things about what I was saying. Such as that my clear, explicit and implicit assumption for the post was that the phenomena described by the term white privilege is undoubtably real and I have seen the evidence. Which just shows you how quickly a person's brain stops processing once the term "privilege" enters the conversation. Or he didn't actually read it. Either way, same result.

I don't particularly have a good catch all term to replace "privilege". My husband and I agree that "advantage" might work. I think all but the most clueless white person is capable of recognizing at some level that being white has advantages. Which, you know, we're human. We're not completely above a small bit of cheating, just to get a little advantage. The problem, really, is that they have no idea how big their advantage actually is.

As I point out at the end of my post, we are in serious danger of seeing that advantage whittled away, with the end result being that we all treated equally badly. The one advantage is that as people experience for themselves how hard we have made it to survive in our society, and realize that it's been this way for ever for people of color, they will finally start learning to have empathy on fellow humans who he previously found hard to even see. But it would be much better if we could get people to open their eyes before it's too late to avoid having everything fall apart like that. And honestly, that's not an easy task.

I know that although I wasn't ever racist in any particular way, witnessing what my husband has gone through and what our family has gone through first hand has been eye opening. I come from a well-to-do, highly educated and even marginally powerful family. I can say that prior to actually seeing what I saw, I had no idea how bad things were. None. It never even entered my mind. I'm married to a black man, born to a 15 year old, who moved out of the projects at 11. So, racism in terms of hostility wasn't the problem. It was that everything seemed fine to me.

For example, I shudder to think that I probably said the words, "I'm working this job now so I can go to college, so I never have to work this kind of job again". Out loud. To people who were paying the bills with "this job". It never even occurred to me that someone would take such a low paying job than for an reason other than for vacation money or to have something to do and some pin money to shop with. Because in 1989, those were the only reasons women worked in my world. Unless they had advanced degrees, of course. Those women were clearing the way for the rest of us. (I'm so glad I had those jobs though. Even just working with people who didn't come from my hermetic world started opening my eyes. But I'm still embarrassed to have said such a thing to people. I didn't know better. That was the reason I was given for why I needed to get a job and it just seemed like a self-evident statement to me.)

All of which is to say, that I was really deep in the matrix of white privilege. I understand what it looks like from in there and how hard it is to see something you've practically been brainwashed into believing isn't real. I totally get that it's completely unfair to ask people of color, who have already borne so much of the weight of white people's problems, to carry the load for us in this conversation. However, I think this issue is vitally important and we can't wait any longer.

People are suffering so bad. Have you ever been in a juvenile prison? Or known someone who just got out of jail and is trying to build at life for the first time? Have you known the men and women so broken and dead inside that they abused and abandoned their kids and seen the damage done? Or dealt with a man who did all the right things and just lost his job because of blatant racism. And there's no recourse for any of it. I would like to think no one here is familiar with such things, but I'm no longer that clueless.

Which is exactly why I think it would be helpful to shift the terms of the conversation just a tad in order to work around this defenses of those who are convinced that they understand the problem when they really, really don't. We can't really afford to keep struggling over this particular problem while so many people's lives are just being destroyed.

Again, I'm not claiming to have all the answer here. Just explaining what the problem looks like to me from here.