White Privilege and Me
I grew up in Newark, NJ. After I got my college degree, I was one of two white people to be accepted into a one-year teaching credential program at UC Berkeley called “Inner City Teaching.” The other white woman dropped out after one day of our practice teaching at an inner city school in Richmond. I thrived and so did several of my students.
When it came time for hiring, I was repeatedly turned down. “You’re well-qualified, but we need a…” black male, black female, brown male, brown female — in that order. That was back in the early 70’s, before a person could get fired for telling you the truth. I ended up with the unfortunate distinction of being the only person who completed the program and did not get hired.
I remember the day it was all over. I sat alone and despondent at the campus fountain. No job. No prospects. No money. No family support. And lots of student debt.
What’s your opinion?
Do you want to say that’s unfair? It goes to show there’s no such thing as white privilege? If so, not only do I disagree with you today. I disagreed with you that day at the fountain.
Even then, with the devil at my heels, I knew the only reason I hadn’t been hired was because of white privilege. Despite my personal pain and loss, I felt good about doing a little to offset the pain and losses of so many others who’d been denied opportunities. I could compartmentalize enough to feel I was helping set things straight. That last part was anything but accurate.
Nothing got set straight.
In 1968 and adjusted for inflation, a typical middle-class black household had just under $7,000 in wealth. Wealth in a white household was just under $71,000. Fast forward almost 60 years. In 2016, the comparison was $13,000 and just under $150,000. That’s an increase in the wealth gap over the decades.
“As of 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, you would have to combine the net worth of 11.5 black households to get the net worth of a typical white U.S. household.”
It’s not just the middle class. The gap between uneducated blacks and whites is a factor of ten. According to Federal Reserve data, 1 in 7 white families are worth a million or more. For black families, it’s 1 in 50. Since 1992, for black and brown people, that figure has unwaveringly hovered around 2 percent; for whites, it more than doubled to 15 percent.
These same trends are true for black- to white-owned business, to businesses and jobs that have been most severely impacted by the virus, to businesses and jobs that most likely will not open again post-pandemic, to hunger — three times greater in black households than white.
The truth is we are not all in this together. Not by any measure. Being black in America is eons away from the white experience. And we are not anywhere close to redressing grievances.
Talk is good and talk is not enough. It’s easy today to say that black lives actually matter — listen to us — we actually have to say that! No single individual will change this historic mess of absurd proportions. But we as white people must do a few essential things.
— Before we can solve a problem, we have to understand that we are the problem.
— Shut up and listen without getting defensive.
— Start with this. If it’s not painful and moving, listen again cause you didn’t hear.
— Identify white privilege. Identify your own white privilege. Understand it and and don’t abuse it. If possible, don’t consciously use it to your advantage. White privilege is a form of power. Use it to help.
— Speak up and speak out. Don’t let anyone’s micro or macro comment slip by you. Not as a joke. Not as a special case. Not for any reason. Think #MeToo. Think #Time’sUp and understand that it’s on whites now. There’s not much more black people can do. We have to take it on in our own lives and in the halls of power.
— Stop calling people racists. Call out their actions as racist so you leave a door open for change.
— Familiarize yourself with the term anti-racist to help other whites understand. There are plenty of resource out there. Google it.
— Some of us may be able to make a significant change — like Alexis Ohanian who stepped down from the Reddit board, asking for a black person to replace him. Support it. Suggest it where you can.
— When in doubt, rely on your compassion and good heart. That’s every human’s superpower.
“To the extent white people, particularly white youth, are willing to sacrifice white privilege for justice, then we can have a different society that is more moral.” Darrick Hamilton, executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.
