I AM White Privilege

I read a heart-felt post from @shaunking this week. It led me to make this statement. You see, I am White Privilege. I am the very face of White Privilege in America. Allow me to explain. I was born into white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. I am the picture of "whiteness". I know this. I was raised in a Middle Class neighborhood. I attended a good school. My parents were married and stayed together. My father worked hard to take care of us all financially and my mother dedicated herself to raising her children. Yes, I had two loving parents. We were afforded things that many are not. We were afforded sports and programs like cheerleading, dance, gymnastics, swimming, baseball, basketball, and football. I was the fresh faced teenager walking around in a high pony-tail and a cheerleading skirt. We were never hungry. We had a nice house in a safe neighborhood. We had plenty of home cooked meals, nice clothes to wear, and access to medical professionals when needed. We were surrounded by loving family members, and good friends that could be counted on. As I child I had everything I needed. My parents gave me all the tools for future success. We were not rich, but we had what we needed.

Now I am a grown adult. I am still the face of White Privilege. I worked my way up the ladder into a great career. I am a mother and a business professional. I am well educated, and connected socially. I have never had a job interview where I did not get the job. In fact, I admit that I've gotten three jobs in my lifetime that I was sorely unqualified for. I got these good jobs based on three things: 1) My looks, 2) My personality, and 3) My ability to bullshit my way in the door. I am respected in my profession. I dress nice, have a warm home and a decent car. My family is never hungry. Do we struggle? Yes. Of course. We struggle from time to time to pay the bills, to buy things that we need or want. We are not rich. I have never been rich. I am not part of the White Elite you hear about. But I am definitely a product of a certain privilege that many others do not have. I have been afforded certain opportunities that simply do not exist for others out there. I know this. I appreciate this. I do not take this for granted. I am either who I am because of this, or in spite of this; I've yet to figure that one out. I am also one of those crazy Lefty Liberals you hear so much about.

The thing is, too many people like me are so insulated that they fail to see or acknowledge that others exist who are not as lucky. We stop looking. We don't listen. We bury our heads in the sand so that we can pretend we don't know what others are going through.We sit up in our warm homes flipping through our 2000 channels on flat screen televisions and we ignore the people outside our door; outside our neighborhoods. Let's be honest, I have never been homeless. I have never been racially profiled or the victim of a hate crime or hateful harassment based solely on who and what I am. I have never been afraid of my neighbors, my schools, or my local police officers. I cannot even imagine what others go through. But I try. Oh yes, I try.  If we continue to ignore those forgotten in society, those marginalized minority groups, those living in poverty, it will come back to us ten-fold. It's already happening. If I ignore them, I am not living up to the task that God Himself has given me. I am not holding up my end of the human contract. I am, in fact, letting all of humankind down. Sounds like major stuff, right? That's because it is!

We are all tasked to take care of the Flock. We are required to notice, to help, to offer support, charity, concern, and compassion to our brothers and sisters of the human race. We were not meant to put ourselves inside a bubble and ignore the pleas from lose less fortunate. Have I insulated my own family from many of these issues? Yes. Yes of course I have. To the best of my ability, I have set my family up for success. But at the same time, I cannot LIVE inside that bubble. It is my safe place, yes. But it is only one small part of the world. There are people out there, right here in my own state who are looking for a place to sleep tonight. I read today that there are over 1,000 public school children in Fayette County (Kentucky) who are homeless right now. This is the real world right outside my front door. This is not something that is happening in a Third World country. This is right in my own area. I cannot ignore this. Neither should you.

If you continue to live only within your bubble of White Privilege, you are letting down your fellow man. You are letting down God. You are letting down your children. We must endeavor to teach our children to leave the bubble. We must show them the real world out there. Yes, we will try our best to keep them safe and give them every opportunity we can. But we must ensure that they know the truth as well. We cannot ignore this and expect those other groups out there to respect us. We cannot excuse bigotry, racism, poverty, homophobia, and other types of hatred. We cannot excuse these things just because they are not happening to US. I am not saying this politically. I am talking personally....as one human to another. We must stand up for our fellow humans. What hurts them must also hurt us. If they are in pain, we must try to feel it - or at least acknowledge it. We must fight for them and with them when we see injustice. If we let them fail, we too are failures. We must not go quietly into the night. We cannot. We are all one race. We are mixed bag full of many different shapes and sizes and types. We are rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, male, female, transgendered, city folks, country folks, privileged and persecuted. We must remain as one. We must have each other's backs. We must be united against anything that threatens to tear us apart as the human race. I am White Privilege. But I am many, many other things as well. What are you?

~KLA