I am trying to understand my "white supremacy"

[apnu]

27. I too have seen it

I'm white and male.

When I'm with non-whites in a store, we've been followed. When I'm alone, nobody follows me. What's really sad is when an AA security guard is following me and a AA companion. That's soul crushing on several levels.

I see it in my office. PoC's are kept to the edges of things, women too. Not me, I'm in the middle, but I'm also IT so I'm invisible until something breaks and then I'm the most important man in the room. Still, while invisible, I'm privy to all the racism and sexism around me. I used to hear it, it slips out conversationally like its the normal way of doing things. For example, complaining about "made up names" African Americans "use". A favorite around the office to belittle was "She-ni-qua" (not sure if I spelled it right, read it phonetically, but they'd pronounce it with pauses where the dashes are, really douchy thing to do) A few years back I started calling people out on that stuff. I got fed up hearing it. They stopped, at least when I'm around. Now I get noticed, and at least for me, I have a bubble non-racism around me. They still go on with the sexism, calling them out on it seems to have little effect. But we have a lot more women in the office now, it used to be 100% male and white, so that sort of thing is going away. Yay for progress! Anyway, all the non-whites and females seem to think I'm OK and are pretty friendly. The others, not so much. But they know better than screw with the IT guy, else the Internet has problems for them. I could care less, if they stop acting like animals when I'm around, I'm OK with it, that's the small affect I can have on people.

White Privilege is found everywhere, one need only open eyes to see it. But, I've come to relish squashing it where I find it.

Another story, this one kinda creepy.

I was driving back north from Orlando. It was late, I was tired and hungry so I pulled off to a McDonald's near the FL/GA line for a quick burger. Inside all the patrons were white locals and trucker types. Every single person working behind the counter was black. And they looked pretty scared back there. I'm a Northerner, so this was really strange to me. When I ordered, the girl taking my order wouldn't make eye contact with me. She spoke in very submissive tones and language. It was like I was a overseer or something, everything was "yessar" and "nosar" I was appalled and pissed off by that. So I made sure I made eye contact with her, smiled. Called her "mam", thanked her, loudly and told her to keep her head up and stay strong. She looked at me like I slapped her, then smiled sweetly. Everybody behind the counter stopped moving and was dead silent gawping at me. I turned around and all the white trash behind me was giving me the "fuck you" stare. I looked each one in the eye and walked out with my head up and no other word spoken.

I was scared shitless inside, but my rage against the racist bullshit going on there was too strong. And her smile was worth it. When I got back in the car, my wife was pissed off at me, and she's probably right for taking such a stupid risk.

Still, If I wasn't white, I probably would have been jumped when I got outside. As it was, nobody moved in the restaurant towards me.

That's white privilege, right there. If I was black and did those things, I'd probably would have been jumped when I left.