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My Encounters With Racism and Accusations of Racial Priviledge
It was 2019 when someone accused me of being in denial of the privileges I had as a white man. At the time I felt uncomfortable with this. I didn't understand how I had any advantage socially or economically over black people. I knew how I felt about racism, I had seen examples of racism, during the time when Barack Obama was president, when I used a portajohn and saw in black marker above the toilet seat, a racial slur about Obama comparing the color of his skin to human turds.
But i was unaware still of how much white supremacy and racism permeated our culture as high up as our elected officials and government. I was of the belief then, that the law was designed to target discrimination on the basis of race and national origin, but I still held to an outdated view of racial discrimination that did not consider how nuanced racial discrimination could become.
As the months flew by and a new administration came in, I began to notice evidence of racism and white supremacy much more in people's everyday language, even in those closest and dearest to me. I began to have hypersonic hearing.. not really. I began to watch out for these things even more. I began to fear and be cautious of people with these views about non white people and immigrants.
Today if someone were to accuse me of white privilege I would
not be so defensive about it like in years before. I grew up in a community almost all white, most of my class was white, I had no interaction with black people until I was in high school. Even when I was exposed to more diversity, I still mostly had white friends.
So I could not really understand the full story of what black people were going through, because I hadn't developed relationships outside the color of my own skin. I only knew race based on my own perspective, only based on what I had experienced and seen of life.
My accuser was not wrong.
Copyright ©
Ian McCleary
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