As our national crisis deepens, and with it a cacophony of both uplifting and dispiriting commentary, I was wondering if I had anything to say publicly about the state of the world. Last night I decided I did not.
Then something simple and obvious happened, and I would like to share it.
My stepmother has been recovering from a bad accident and I have been looking after her full-time this week (after my wife had done so for six weeks in a row). My stepmom is not yet at the point where she can go outdoors, so I had to pick up one of her medications that could not be delivered to her.
As I set off to perform this small service for her, she asked how I would make the co-payment for her meds. I said I would use her credit card, which was simpler than using mine and getting reimbursed. She understood why my wife had been able to do that. But how would I be able to use it given her distinctly female first name and my obviously middle-aged male appearance?
I said, “Because they won’t check to see if I am the person named on the card.” She looked puzzled, and said, “I guess they are getting lax these days.”
And then a light went off. I said, “No, it’s because I’m White. If I were Black and tried to do this, they would check the card and I might get arrested (and God knows what else once I was in custody).”
She saw my point and sighed. We sat silently for a minute, realizing this was a tiny microcosm of the ever-present oppression that our Black brothers and sisters experience on a daily basis.
Some of my White friends may not think this is the case, or may simply believe it doesn’t really matter much that white privilege lets people like us get away with minor transgressions all the time without any consequences, while our Black and Brown fellow citizens are often unable to.
To those who harbor these doubts, I share this message with all humility: You have some work to do. We all have a lot of work to do to make this a more just society and to get out of this mess, since none of us is blameless. But you have even more. I hope you have the courage and wisdom to begin that work.