A lifetime of white privilege, along with personal obliviousness, blinds us
As a white man, I have been racking my brain. What can I write during days of protests and nights of violence after the police murder of George Floyd?
Maybe, nothing. Or at least very little.
In the same way that I refuse to ‘mansplain’ women’s reproductive health, I can not know what it is to be non-white. I am not even sure I can imagine.
What I have experienced from my childhood to now, is a cycle of ignorance and white privilege. All too often, I accepted it without thought.
My parents did not work at instilling bigotry, but I nonetheless grew up with unconscious racism. It was and is deeply systematic in Jacksonville, Florida.
There was ‘nigger town’, or only slightly better, ‘colored town’. The homes and businesses there could only be called shacks.
We had a black maid who had to ride the bus an hour to our home. I don’t remember her being called ‘girl’ but I often heard black men referred to as ‘boy’.
My churches and schools were all white. There were white beaches, they allocated only certain areas of the ocean shore to blacks.
I wasn’t until I was in graduate school and had black classmates that I realized how much prejudice lurked in my subconscious. Thanks to the generosity of a few of them in small group conversations, I saw how oblivious I was.
I have come so far and felt so supported in this journey away from ignorance that it is easy to forget how different that is for the black experience.
I am 80, white and male. What if I was black?
In this time of outrage and violence, it would fill me with hopelessness and despair not only for me but as much so for my country. Too many times before when the hurt boiled over, we didn’t learn and change.
Yet, now I see the postcard on my office wall: “I always entertain great hopes”. Can I? Can you join me? If so, we have to change ourselves first. That is the work we must do.
Words from Warren 