Shortly after I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in social work, I volunteered to run an open gym for youth once per week on the eastside of Kalamazoo, MI. During my time there, I developed longstanding relationships with the youth and their families. In fact, many of them, who’ve become amazing adults, are still a part of my life. The more involved with this program I became, the more time I spent in similar neighborhoods throughout Kalamazoo. I grew comfortable spending time in communities mostly made up of African American families. I walked into corner stores, most of my white friends were afraid to drive by, with confidence and ease. People began to recognize me in these communities, which only reinforced my comfort level. However, one day while driving home from the northside, I passed a store called the Polar Bear. This store was surrounded by vacant lots and had an infamous reputation for being “dangerous.” For reasons I can no longer recall, I decided to stop and get something to drink. Immediately upon walking inside, I felt a cold, suspicious stare from the African American couple behind the counter and I remember thinking, as vividly as it was yesterday, “they just don’t know who I am, they don’t get I am not racist like other white people.” Nearly 20 years later and thankfully, much further along in my understanding of white privilege and racism, I am almost embarrassed to admit this. Yet, it wasn’t until many years after this occurred, when I would look back upon that moment and realize how far I’ve come and how much distance in my journey I have yet to travel.
While sitting in an anti-racism training in Denver in 2006, one of the facilitators summarized the common practice of white people who work in African American and Latino communities, believing they are “the good ones.” They think working towards social justice somehow makes them exempt from being racist or exempt from the benefits of privilege. As I heard this, I was transported back to the moment, standing in the Polar Bear feeling the discomfort of being scrutinized for being white and I realized this is exactly what I believed. I thought, “if they only knew the kind of person I was, they would be more welcoming of me in their store.” I had such little understanding of the privileges I carry in the world and how they impact others. I didn’t understand being an ally and an anti-racist doesn’t erase my privilege, nor does it change the fact I am vulnerable to being racist because I am socialized to be so on a daily basis.
I have been reflecting on privilege more than usual lately: white privilege and economic privilege to be exact; particularly in the wake of a fatal shooting near the office where I work and the shooting of Trayvon Martin. During the candle light vigil, while I was standing on the corner where the 19 year old was killed in broad daylight, these thoughts hit me like a sucker punch to my stomach. As I listened to community leaders and the victim’s father speak, along with many others, I felt invisible, insignificant, and was so painfully aware of my privilege. I was overwhelmed with anger, for my ability to leave and go back to my peaceful, quiet, paradise surrounded by the mountains knowing no one else on that corner could escape this reality. I was pissed off at all the white, privileged, people who never enter these communities; people who believe what happens here has no bearing on their lives and that there is no connection between their lives and the lives of the children standing on the corner, eyes already filled with despair. Yet, for me it became so crystal clear: violence is a consequence of the privileges the rest of us enjoy.
As I looked into the tearful eyes of a community who lost yet another one of its young people, the lack of access to safety, education, food, justice, and to nearly everything most of us take for granted was palpable. I realized the neighborhood I was standing in, like so many similar to it, is the reciprocal, empty, vacuum of the plentiful resources I enjoy. In that moment, I got it, clearer than it has ever been. I got that until we all understand how poverty, oppression, violence, and racism are directly related to how little we let go of the privileges that perpetuate our power, we will forever maintain the grave disparities in this world.
“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” ~Jane Addams
