Adult Discussion Topic

If you have experienced "white privileges" as a result of being perceived as white, how has this affected your life?

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As a person who is perceived by most people as "white" but identifies as a whiteblack woman, I have a particular sensitivity to the issue of white privilege. Although I have heard my share of racist comments and have experiences racism throughout my life because of my African American heritage, i find it necessary and important for me to also come to grips with the fact that I too benefit from white privilege. When my family and I go to a restaurant or store, I am the one that gets asked if I need help, whereas my sisters and brothers who have a darker complection get ignored. When I get accepted to elite programs or colleges, people don't assume that I got accepted based on affirmative action and not merit, whereas my friends who are darker-skinned have ignorant people telling them that they only got accepted becausgo to an ATM e the school needed to "diversify." I can drive my car in peace, whereas my black boyfriend is harassed by the police when he's driving or out at night.

As a member of a multiracial family, white privilege isn't some new concept to me (unfortunately some whites are only now starting to wake up to the fact that they are implicitly and explicitly benefitting from institutional racism in this country). However, I find that I do benefit from white privilege, whether I like it or not. In order to fight it I must continue to speak up when people do or say ignorant things, or try to set me apart and treat me "better" than those of a darker hue. I'm glad we've opened the discussion about white privilege and institutionalized racism....I find it's something that we don't talk about a lot in the multiracial community. What is our role in the struggle? What "communities" do we organize in? Does the way we identify ourselves deconstruct or promote white racist ideas? Will their ever be a "multiracial movement?" Some things to ponder......let me know what you think.

I love this question. It's really something that happens. Being given "White" priviledges has happenned to me before. A lot of people expect you to act or be a certain way if you look a certain way. I've been accepted more by Blacks for acting "Black" if that's what you want to call it. It's never a question that I look "White" since 90 % of people assume I'm a White man! It can be funny sometimes at the reactions although in the past it has been hurtful moreso. To be honest, Blacks don't usually give prefence to you if you look White. However, White people will give you prefence if you look White. In any event, most of the time, I'm a person who tries to keep a respectable reputation.

White or any kind of privilege is self defined I am finding out. As I lean more and more into a new self-identification, bi-racial and not black, I find that life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am not saying that racism does not exist. I AM saying that once I decided I was bi-racial; i.e. not black, Life opened up for me. I started taking my cues from people who were successful in ways I wanted to be. Those people simply happened to be overwhelmingly white. Does that make me wrong or bad or somehow someone in denial? Heck no. It makes me a reasonable, responsible, striving person. I have discovered that I can claim that white privilege just fine. It is just a matter of believing I deserve only the good stuff that I deserve success, respect AND inclusion, then going out there in demanding it in a quiet, non-confrontive, very firm way. It works for me. I am living proof of it. I guess after watching my partner and her three white male sons, how they are raised and what they are taught to expect from the world, I decided, hey... I am going to put myself in a white male's shoes and see how the world responds. Amazingly, the fact that I am in a bi-racial female's body seems to not matter anymore. What does matter is what I expect and demand from people by what I project from the inside out.

So yeah, I got some of that white privilege and it is real and it does work and basically, ANYONE can have it.

I also feel that I am "cursed" with this issue. I say "cursed" because lots of times I think that it gets in the way of me having more Black friends. Because I am light,I think many African-Americans resent me for it, which of course, is only my perception most of the time(not always)and is not grounded in fact. So I can't separate reality from perception. Hence, a "curse." I feel ashamed sometimes, because I think that they're thinking this white priveledge thing and I feel like apologizing for it. This makes me mad because I shouldn't apologize at all for any aspect of who I am!

I don't know if this really counts, but my friends think I benefit from "white privilege". When ever we go out, to eat, or submit a complaint to a store manager, they often ask me to do it because 9 times out of 10, the manager is White and tends to be a little nicer to me, perhaps by giving us our meal free or getting a discount. They swear if they tried to return something or complain, that they wouldn't get the same results because they are Black. Personally, I'd like to think it's because I try to handle things rationally. I've also had it worse too, I've had some Black waiters or managers, who roll their eyes and slam my plate down, sigh in annoyance, or what-ever, when they see me.

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