Now I can recognize my white privilege
Status I’ve enjoyed has not been earned solely through hard work
Am I racist? The question comes up as evidence of systemic racism surfaces and protests by Black Lives Matter groups persist. Thanks to the Albuquerque Journal’s coverage since George Floyd’s death on May 25, we’ve received news to keep us informed and opinion pieces to challenge our thinking. As a white person who has devoted almost 60 years to teaching, counseling and working alongside persons of color in both paid and volunteer positions, I’d like to share how my thinking has evolved as I pondered this question.
Many readers may feel as I have, that we are not racist because we’ve always tried to treat persons of differences — color, ethnic group, etc. — fairly. Many of us Anglos have worked alongside persons of color throughout our careers and have come to respect them as equals, so we think of ourselves as undeserving of a racist label.
Until recently it was difficult for me to fully comprehend how much my white privilege has helped me because I’d felt that I’d earned my advantages. Discipline and hard work, along with that of my parents, had brought about my success. From the time I was a small child, I practiced delayed gratification, saving money for college. I worked hard in high school and college, foregoing momentary pleasures, to prepare for a career and a self-sufficient lifestyle.
But I’ve learned a lot in the last weeks. First, I was overlooking the fact that many persons of color had also worked as hard as I had. So there was and is something else going on. Now I know that I might be considered racist because the status I’ve enjoyed has not been something that I’ve earned solely through my own hard work. Having stable parents who had benefitted from a college education, and planned for me to obtain one as well, was a privilege of growing up in my Anglo culture that didn’t come so easily to people of color.
I realize now that my parents were able to attend college, even though their families were not wealthy, largely because their grandparents didn’t start out as property of someone else. Instead, ancestors of whites received advantages from the U.S. government, such as being able to travel west and obtain property by homesteading — never mind that the land given them was the home of peoples who had been there for generations before. So Native Americans are others in New Mexico who have suffered from systemic racism. Recent immigrants have also been similarly disadvantaged.
Advantages like this offered by the U.S. government since its founding have allowed whites to accumulate family wealth to pass down to future generations. The result is telling. According to the Brookings Institution “At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly 10 times greater than that of a Black family, $17,150, in 2016.”
Having financial security frees people to put time and energy into productive ways to improve their families’ circumstances in life.
These preferences meant persons of color as a group have not started out in the same place as those in white culture. This is what the authors of “Being a white ‘ally’ may not be easy” (June 15 Journal) want us to recognize — our white privilege. This recognition acknowledges systemic racism and helps us be seen as less racist ourselves.
Educating ourselves about the ways institutional racism persists and supporting businesses of Blacks and browns are other steps for whites who want to address inequities. We can be better listeners to persons of color and link our power with their power because “our lives (together in this country) depend upon it.” All of us want a more peaceful and law-abiding society. The way to get there now is through working together to make our flag’s pledge a reality — “with liberty and justice for all.”