White Privilege

I was faced with my white privilege the other day, privately and alone, while watching a black man being murdered, in public. I’ve watched a few of the recent videos of police brutality resulting in the death of an innocent black person, but with an attitude of ‘well, what can you expect from America, it’s a festering hole in the ground,’ and then carried on with my day. This particular video changed everything. This video broke my heart, as a mother, daughter and human being. Witnessing that poor man’s dying words as he was deliberately murdered made me so fucking angry. I was seething with rage at the injustice of what they’d done to him, an innocent man whose colour was the only reason for his murderer’s hatred of him. A father with children, a man with a mother, who the fuck did they think they were to take his life so calmly, without fear of retribution, despite knowing they were on camera. I wanted to blow their murdering racist heads off.

Then the question arose… what if that had been your son, your father, your brother.? But it wouldn’t have been, because my family are white. Had any member of my family been arrested, they’d have been given a state solicitor and bail, because they’re white. They wouldn’t have been arrested for no reason, much less had the police called on them in the first place because they’re white. And that’s even more infuriating.! That the colour of their skin wouldn’t even allow them to be placed in the position that black man was. My mother wouldn’t lose a child, my brother wouldn’t lose a sibling, our children wouldn’t lose their parent because as a white person, we wouldn’t be treated that way.

White privilege hits really fucking hard when you see the hell the colour of your skin can bring just because it’s darker. I don’t know shit about white privilege, I admit. I know I’ve always had it, I accept that I am privileged because of the colour of my skin and I confess that I’ve gotten away with a lot of shit because of it. I’ve been protected all my life. Other than that, I don’t know shit. Yet. I intend to educate myself. Learn what it is to be black in a white world and use the power of my colour to help make changes to a system that even to a white privileged woman in her 40’s sucks shit through a sweaty sock.! Black lives matter just as much as white lives and while I’ve always known that, I haven’t always been instrumental in making damn sure the powers that be know that I know.

But they will now.