White privilege

Graphic from Bangor Daily News

This is my journey and the journal of my journey. So I can be totally honest.  I am starting with the fact that the term "white privilege" makes me cringe.  I associate it with liberal America.  The rich actors & actresses who bail rioters out of jail (those rioters who damaged & destroyed the businesses of working Americans).  I associate the term with academics who are out of the touch with the day to day lives of the rest of us.

But I've started on this journey and I'm seeking to see and listen.

Most of the definitions I read of white privilege left me cold.  Wikipedia talks about societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people. Wiki also mentions an invisible package of unearned assets. When I read this kind of thing it sounds like no white people suffer.  Or  that affluent white people didn't have to work hard to get to where they are at. 

However, I was captivated by the definition that Hill  shares from Julian DeShazier (incidentally I looked up Julian and am quite impressed.  He's someone I want to listen to more of.  Was deeply moved by his youtube Strange Fruit). DeShazier says "white privilege is the ability to walk away, the ability to go back to normal if we choose".

DeShazier's right - I can always walk away.

This reminds of something that a therapist who I was once seeing told me.  That therapist was black.  She told me once that typically nothing is about race for white people but everything is about race for black people.  I never understood what she meant at that time. It's starting to make sense to me now.