Check your privilege

Jennie Ridyard

I’m in a taxi in Dublin, having a rare old chitchat with the driver – a Nigerian. Something unpleasant happened to him based on his immigrant status, and we’re both a little riled up by it.

“You know, that never happens to me, and I’m from Africa too,” I say. A nd then we both laugh. “Because I’m/ you’re white!” we shout together.

And it’s true. I bypass a lot of awkward moments simply because I’m white.

An old lady was telling me how she was in a shop in Dublin, and there were “some immigrants” there too. When they left, the owner told her to check that she still had her purse.

“But I’m an immigrant,” I protest.

“Well,” she says, “but you’re ... you know.” I do know. White. I have an American friend who happens to be black. I didn’t think her colour mattered, but it does.

She lives in a lovely old house, which she and her husband bought furnished from his parents. However, furnished meant stuffed to the rafters with antiques, and she wants to declutter. “Sell it all!” I declare blithely. She looks at me with one eyebrow raised. She has tried, she explains, but nobody takes a black person selling antiques seriously.

“They think they’re stolen, or dealers assume I don’t understand what I have, so they try to rip me off,” she says.

A US study on this sort of racism shows that even a black-sounding name on a CV will get the applicant half as many responses as a white-sounding name.

Black people are charged more when buying cars; shown fewer properties when house-hunting; and are four times as likely to get arrested for smoking marijuana, even though usage rates are identical between black and white.

Black motorists are twice as likely to be pulled over; doctors are slower to inform black folk that they need lifesaving heart surgery; politicians are less likely to respond to letters from black constituents.

But none of this would ever impact me if I were there.

Is it because I’m white? Absolutely.

And if you’re making excuses or think I’m over-simplifying, then check your privilege, because it’s probably because you’re white too.