Privilege

 I was exposed to white privilege through my white family. I was shocked that Long Island was red politically but after really thinking about it, I wasn’t surprised. It was incredibly confusing to be a black child in a white family. I love my family but they had no business raising a black child (I was born in 1985.) I missed so much. I’m very familiar with white, American culture. Things (behaviors) that would work for a white person do not work for a black person. My family was incredibly adversarial and so am I. Being adversarial works just fine for a white person but it fails miserably for a black person. 

I worked in a restaurant corporation and I had all sorts of problems while I worked there. In a meeting the white man who owned it came in and deemed us with his presence. He called another white manager a “black bitch” because she had a tan! Why did he feel so comfortable saying that? I was sitting right next to her. One of the reasons (among many) that my job was so difficult was because I was telling others what to do as a black female. I tried to tell my white, male supervisor this and he obviously didn’t get it because he said that he “respects women.” Right. That was exactly my point. That men don’t respect women. There was a giant difference in how Brett Cavanough was treated versus how Ketanji Brown Jackson was treated. Why do you think that is?

Being woke is now a thing. Maybe people will be able to see racism, sexism and ableism in the places that surround them. I certainly won’t hold my breath for that to happen. Marginalization on top of marginalization. I just can’t win and it is so frustrating.