How many of you were denied employment solely based on your name? Asking for a black friend.
How many of you have been followed by loss prevention personnel while shopping in a department store? Asking for a black friend.
How many of you have been asked to speak on behalf of all people of your race? Asking for a black friend.
I am, and I would venture to guess many of your are, recipients of the white privilege.
The worse example I recall was during my house hunting adventures in Lawton, Oklahoma. A real estate agent lady would only show us houses in predominately white neighborhoods. I asked why we weren't looking in other subdivisions and neighborhoods that my sponsor recommended. She told me we wouldn't fit in those places because we were white. I bought a house with a different agent in a mixed neighborhood. Our neighbors were some of the nicest people I have ever let.
I’ve been passed over for a promotion because of my “privilege”. More than once actually.That is pretty much the definition of Affirmative Action.
My company not only passed over better-qualified white men with seniority for promotion in “craft” positions, they paid thousands in compensation to women and minorities, even ones that had never applied for promotion, and even new-hires in starting positions. Later on near the end of my employment, the second and third-tier management in my area consisted of black women, and when management staffing cuts began, they cut men, all but one of them white men, and left a number of women of color, mostly incompetent, in place. I don’t have a whit of racial prejudice in me, am married to an Asian woman, and the best supervisor I had in the last ten years I worked was a black woman who was also a crack technician. I also considered her a good friend, and if things had been different would’ve been happy to date her.
I’ve been followed around in stores lots of times, dealt with negative comments based on the state I chose to live in (by a black man BTW), and listened to snide comments about people who didn’t go to college. The world is full of azzholes, and various forms of institutionalized bias, and not only black people have to deal with it. When I encounter it, I deal with it, but don’t let it define me, or make a career out of whining about it. I’ve also learned that people of color, when in positions of power, are just as likely as whites to engage in discriminatory behavior. It’s human nature.