I love this quote by Peggy McIntosh, an anti-racism activist and scholar; “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.” Look up the word privilege in the dictionary and this is what you will find: noun: A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. But like any word the true meaning is so much more.
I’ve spent the last couple of years learning what my white privilege means. Not just the definition of the words but the soul of the words. It’s an uncomfortable space to reside and it should be uncomfortable. In one sense, my privilege precludes me from “fixing” the imbalance, if I honor my privilege I can’t ride in on my “white horse” and “fix it. But since I am part of the system, ignoring my privilege contributes to the problem. So for now I am aware and I continue to educate myself.
A couple of weeks ago I saw an announcement for an anti-racism reading group in my home town, Chicago. I decided to give it a try. They are reading, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. It is the first book on white privilege that I have read written by a white person. I just opened the book and I was hooked. The author writes that exclusion can occur simply by the homogeneity of the group. If the people making the rules are all white, educated, well off men, they may not be aware of the barriers faced by people that don’t look like them. Even if they think they “know” they haven’t experienced the barriers themselves. Here’s the rub, institutional change can only come from those in power. A perfect example of this is the women’s suffrage movement. The only way that women could get the right to vote was if the men who held all the power, voted to give them the right.
Another recent aha moment came while attending a free conference at Roosevelt University. I had the privilege of hearing the author of Behold the Dreamers, Imbolo Mbue. An immigrant from Cameroon, she spoke of many things, including her first impressions of America when she arrived over 20 years ago. Although I am often fed up with our political system, she was amazed at our freedoms. She was in awe when she turned on her T.V. and saw comedians making fun of political leaders. This would have been during the Clinton administration, so you can image the jokes. In her country, making fun of the country’s leader would land you in jail, or worse. All these snippets were entertaining. But it was her definition of privilege that took my breath away. On a recent visit to her hometown, while standing on the beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, an elder said, this is where our ancestors stood and watched the slave ships sail by on there way to America. It was then she realized that her privileged was growing up in her home country of Africa, unlike her African American brothers and sisters who were stolen from their homeland.
As I continue this journey and find myself sitting in some uncomfortable spaces, I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to explore the meaning of the word. Not the definition, but the many layers of the experience.
