When my husband and I came to Chicago from Israel so that I could go to graduate school, we had no intention of staying here permanently.
But then the second Palestinian intifada happened, and the Israeli government’s entirely irresponsible and deadly response to same, and we came to a conclusion: We no longer wanted to raise children in Israel.
At the time, we only had the one child, a round-cheeked toddler boy, but the fact of his boy-ness sharpened the point. Our choice came mostly out of a desire to educate him differently, to not sacrifice his up-bringing and our values on the altar of occupation and settlement, but there was an unavoidable sense of having also snatched our son from the jaws of war — because in Israel, of course, every 18 year old boy is drafted into the military. Girls go, too, but they don’t see combat. They don’t die.
I bring this up now because I’ve been thinking a lot about all the parents of African American boys who are holding their sons a little closer today in the wake of the horrible, heartbreaking Trayvon Martin case.
My aunt is one of those moms — white as me, but mom to a black man who was once young, a young black man who was stopped for jogging in his own neighborhood, a young black man for whom she would tremble a little whenever he went into the city.
Like every other parent of a young black man, my aunt knew that my cousin could be frisked, arrested, and even killed for little but his youth, gender, and skin.
Like Trayvon Martin.
Like Travares McGill.
Like Sean Bell.
Like Amadou Diallo.
Like Oscar Grant.
Like Orlando Barlow.
Like Aaron Campbell.
Like Steven Eugene Washington.
Like Kiwane Carrington.
Kiwane Carrington was 15 when he was killed. Steven Eugene Washington was autistic. Orlando Barlow “was surrendering and on his knees.”
All were killed by people charged with protecting them, whether as law enforcement or law enforcement support of one kind or another. None were armed.
When I look at my boy — on the cusp of adolescence, at the brink of a teenager’s certainty and stupidity, about to try on the world in the guise of a boy-man — I can imagine what might have been: We might have sent him to the Israeli military, he might have worn that uniform, we might have sat by the phone and trembled in fear.
But we removed him and ourselves from those might-haves. We stayed in a place where just being a young man did not by definition mean offering yourself up to die.
For Trayvon Martin, Travares McGill, Sean Bell, Timothy Stansbury, Jr., Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Orlando Barlow, Aaron Campbell, Steven Eugene Washington, Kiwane Carrington, and countless others, however, there was never a choice.
These days, Americans spent a lot of time arguing about “white privilege” — if it exists, what it means, what its consequences might be.
But I think I know what white privilege is.
White privilege is never being frightened for my son’s life, simply because of the color of his skin.
Crossposted at Emily L. Hauser In My Head.
Unlike alot of white people, you get it.
“White privilege is never being frightened for my son’s life, simply because of the color of his skin.”
Thank you for this. I have often felt that we forget about the reality parents of black males deal with daily.
Many white people don’t get it because they associate the word “privilege” with being wealthy or being given advantages. That’s why you hear them say, “No one has ever given ME anything.” From their point of view, that’s actually true.
What they don’t understand is that they have the advantage of not being mistaken for thieves, drug dealers, and gang members due to the color of their skin. It doesn’t occur to them because they have never experienced it. I’m white myself — until I saw how a black friend of mine was suspiciously observed at an upscale store, I had no idea.
Oh, and the irony about my store experience: I couldn’t actually afford to shop there, but my friend could.
Thank you all and especially the author of this piece for keeping it civil.
Some articles and comments make me feel “clean”. THere has been articles that would have illicited the “uglier” side, but not this.
Thank you all.
Shared it from ELH-ABL has some heinous captcha checks.
Emily, you have put into words what I wondered long and hard about expressing. Well done.
“White privilege is never being frightened for my son’s life, simply because of the color of his skin.” Very good point.
It also means you have no worries that someone will regard you suspiciously as though your skin color is a curse, a defect.
It also means you have no idea of the reality of hundreds of years spent with your relatives and yourself being equivalent to a piece of furniture, or maybe worse, you are disrespected by 10 year olds who see nothing wrong with calling you, ni**er’ even though you are a grown woman or man.
It also means you see nothing wrong with a ‘white’ person who comes up with a term like ‘reverse racism.’
It also means you think ‘affirmative action’ is in place to take away from you as a white person unfairly, when , in fact, two people with the same qualifications, one, a person of color, the other a white person, will be considered equally and the one deciding having to truly consider a person of color equally to you as a white person, and as a white person you do not see affirmative action as not a way to open up and to level the playing field.
Thank you for the article, it was very disheartening to me, but the truth, it needed to be told.
“White privilege is never being frightened for my son’s life, simply because of the color of his skin.” That’s it in a nutshell. It’s unfortunate that in America being black means every person of your race is interchangeable.
I wonder why folks like Zimmerman never perceive unfamiliar white folks as inherently “bad”. Why isn’t every white man Timothy McVeigh or John Wayne Gacy or a pedophiliac Catholic preist? Why are white people given the benefit of the doubt but not black people?
It’s great there are people like you in this country. If only you all had a larger platform on which to hammer this into the minds of Americans every single day. If only you were on CNN this morning to counteract the pompous asshole, whose name I don’t know, who asked one of the coordinators of the yesterday’s Million Hoodie March in NY what he expected news people to do or say about the Trayvon Martin situation before all the evidence was in and analyzed. Soledad made a sad attempt to assist with the response. Yours is much, much better.
Thanks many of us Black Americans needed to hear/read that!
We exist in this veneer of civility, when underneath the surface there is the bubbling hatred. How can we ever have a society that cares, nurtures, respects one another, when what should be impossible – killed because you’re black – continues to be possible?
What happened to Trayvon is that a man, crazy and evil as insane the fact that he was allowed to represent a neighborhood’crime watch’, saw something he feared,followed this kid, started some shit with him, then got his ass beat down,(as I would do if you start following me!, and I’m a woman!)then like a coward shot the kid cuz he was being pimped….But really this race thing isn’t doing a damn thing but exploiting you’re own agenda woven with racial hatred and incite-fullness. If you really care about this boy, you should bring this cause to higher courts, participate in the movement for justice . What if this Zimmerman dude was black?, you can barely stand to say he is hispanic…Call this shit what it is a MURDER by a Psychopath, Cowardly Stalker that did NOT kill in self defense but rather the cold blooded killer of a child that to his surprise he could not merely intimidate, as Trayvon opted to try to defend himself from Zimmerman s probable onslaught of angry, rude commands and questions-Don’t rob Trayvon of the right to have his assailant prosecuted by churning the pot of racial hate. Use another avenue. Otherwise it will be lost in the juice. People will start defending themselves, their race and looking for data on how many Whites got shot vs. Blacks vs. Hispanics, etc. by cops or wanna be’s in the last year. And this young man will be forgotten, and his murder unrequited.
It wouldn’t matter if Zimmerman was black – the race of the shooter isn’t the cause of racism. It’s the race of the victim and how he is perceived in our society. Everything Emily has written is true – there will be no justice for Trayvon Martin and the future Trayvons if we don’t address the ugly racism that runs through our society.
It is not racial hatred to point out that Trayvon Martin was shot and killed simply for his race. Oh, and George Zimmerman is most likely not a psychopath – which is part of the problem. He had just ingested the pernicious notion that saturates our country – a black man is inherently suspicious.
Then you haven’t been in my hood, cuz no matter what your color, there’s always a freak who wants to trip, no matter what our color is. just because they’re freaks and they want to show their ass. And I’ve been harassed by every color of enforcer and wanna be s, so that’s absolute BS. It’s about who they perceive us to be according to our wallet size. When you wake up and smell the stench , you’ll find you do this issue no justice by trippin down that road.I should know… You’re just a hater, nothing more. and that’s how its received. Stand up get honestly proactive, donate some $ and time and get this to a higher court. Obviously there’s no self defense to be had here by Zimmerman, hes a straight up murderer.
I can’t express how stories like this affect me. I am so saddened to know that so many years after the civil rights act we still persecute people for the color of their skin. As a mother, I cannot imagine the pain that these deaths have caused for the families affected. We should be past this kind of racial animosity, but we’re not, and I’m afraid we never will be. No matter what happens in the future, people will continue to hate and kill each other because of their skin color, religion, sexual orientation etc. But when they do, justice must be served. We cannot tolerate men murdering children in the street. We cannot tolerate the hatred and we must act to eradicate it, even if it is a losing battle.
It is really disturbing how many people are struggling to make this a race issue. I’ll leave it at that.
Heard on the 911 tape:
“they always get away”
“fucking coons”
But no, it’s not racial at all.
Hey, Jackass. When a dude keeps calling in to the police every black male he sees walking in his community, when he calls the young man he later kills a “fucking coon”, when said DEAD black man is even denied the dignity of his family being notified because the police don’t care enough to use his cell phone and contact someone-it’s a goddamned race issue.
It is really disturbing AND infuriating how many people are struggling to make this NOT a race issue. I’ll leave it at that.
It’s not really much of a struggle, really. Not much more than opening my eyes.
Exactly, E. The real struggle comes in NOT seeing it like such as we see in certain comments above. The mental gymnastics involved must be exhausting.
You know what else is white privilege? Having been told by your parents to act “good” just so you won’t make white people uncomfortable. And then later realizing that your efforts to act like the “Good Negro” are futile and that racism is never rational.
I think The Black Snob explained it better than I could.
http://blacksnob.com/snob_blog/2012/3/20/no-apologies-on-the-killing-of-trayvon-martin-and-being-good.html
Maybe I was lucky, always having been discriminated against cause nobody could figure out what color or race I was, so I got it from all ends! And I held my ground against it all, at 5 I knew ,I wasn’t puttin up with any shit from anyone..But one thing that was clear to me and my crew was, it was about MONEY, fricken -a money. There is the havers and the have notters, and the havers got justice while us have notters got none. We couldn’t afford it. But ok, it’s all about you, nobody else, you can’t stand for me, cuz now I guess you can’t be sure what skin i’m in.
About five years ago, there I was, standing in the cereal aisle of a grocery store, scanning my options, like you do, trying to find what I wanted. Down a little ways from me was a black woman, whose entire manner broadcast that like me, she was middle class.
Suddenly down the aisle came a black woman cursing like crazy into her cellphone, apparently about a babysitter who had been hitting kids, telling whoever was on the other end to not leave her kids with this woman. Her entire manner spoke of working class. As she passed, I thought how great it was that she was acting to protect some kids I’d never meet.
After the second woman had passed, the first turned to me and said “We don’t all talk like that.”
I was dumbfounded and mortified. I mumbled something about “I was just thinking how great it was that she was trying to take care of those kids,” and somehow or another, she and I exchanged another word or two and went on our ways.
And I still don’t know how to make sense of a society in which that conversation happens. In which a black woman might feel the need to try to make sure that that some random white lady feels comfortable with other random black people.
While white, as a foreign-born person, I can relate to that lady. Society expects members of racial or ethnic minorities to represent their group, a situation in which one cannot win, regardless of whether one does or does not confirm the stereotypes associated with one’s group.
The only way not to go nuts is to stop caring whether people think that “we’re all like that.”
I didn’t even contemplate Zimmerman s racism initially. I was talking about all the hate being spewed out to Whites and Hispanics, whom btw were not part of this lynching! My point is Zimmerman is the killer, a psycho, a sociopath, which usually graduates to murder. Obviously now that I see his verbiage on that 911 call, it’s obvious he’s a racist pig! But the rest of the USA can’t be blamed for his sickness! My question is if he historically called in shit like this, why was he never removed from whatever neighborhood watch program he was a member of, who is in charge? and why the Police hadn’t charged him previously for some sort of hate crime or stalking or something??? How could he carry a loaded gun and maintain a license for that if he was a loon? There are clear lines of responsibility to hold others accountable to in this sad situation, as well as Zimmerman. Right?
It looks like the police had a hand in an attempted cover up. They ignored multiple 911 calls that made Zimmerman look suspect. There’s no telling how long he had his gun. He could’ve gotten it as soon as he turned 21. He was never registered with a Neighborhood Watch. He gave himself that title. There were many problems with the police in that area(a cop’s son is on camera beating up a homeless guy). The feds are looking into it now.
You can look at it as a problem with the USA. That boy didn’t get shot in a vacuum. Black folks and identifiable non whites have a given set of issues to deal with.
What shocks me is that people are actually suprised this could happen! Really?! Wake up kiddies, WE LIVE IN A RACIST SOCIETY (health disparities exist for a reason, unfair housing, white supremicist-based education, internalized racism etc etc). Laws have changed, but too many hearts and minds are still schackled by thoughts of black inferiority and white superiority.
Wow, the racial shit here aint doin a damn thing for the victimized vato…Good luck on your hate plight; I’ve already donated and am doing my part to bring the shitbag to justice…do yours.
WhosUrMama,
1) I can vent my frustration and I thank you for taking notice as I have certainly noticed yours.
2) I appreciate anyone who stands up for Justice but I do not appreciate one assuming to know something about me of what one is not privy too.
3) I am not on a hate plight, no need to go there, but I DO live with my eyes and ears wide open. Perhaps you are young, but time will teach you Her lessons….
The disparities you bring up, made me think of two things regarding whites and blacks, or people of color, and they are this: The welfare rolls mostly have a higher percentage of whites on welfare, and it stands to reason, as whites are in the majority. But take that same notion and apply it to the prison system where minorities are incarcerated at a higher rate though being a minority. Why is this? It makes no sense until you introduce the idea of institutional racism into the mix, since as a ratio, I doubt that there are higher numbers of those in the minority who are criminals, yet they are in prison in higher numbers. People of color are no more criminally minded than any other group, so why are they overrepresented in the prison population, except due to the inherent racism in those in charge of the justice system. As when Geraldo says that only gangsta wannabees wear hoodies. He is putting his racist view of so called ‘gangstas slant’ in the mix, and of course they are people of color in his narrow mind, Hell, he looks like a wealthy druglord to me and I think he should go back to Mexico, which is my racist slant on him.
Oh, and WhosUrMama, lighten up, will ya’, you are like many who downplay the impacts of racism that goes 0n by wanting to move on, sweep it under the rug, and get it out of the way, when it should actually be addressed NOW!
Saw on the news the Sanford police chief stepped down “temporarily”.
WTF? Coward can’t stand up for what’s right so he’s going to blame it all on those angry blacks converging on Fl. and demanding justice for Trayvon.
Yeah he stepped in it alright and temporarily ain’t good enough. If he can’t do the right thing, and we all know he didn’t, he needs to be gone permanently.
Please google “Victor Steen Pensacola” for my city’s contribution to this madness. The comments in the local newspaper were unbelievable. Why is privilege such a difficult concept for some people to grasp?
Thank you for this piece.
I’m of dark skin myself, and one of the most unnerving moments of my life was when I was just sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a bus to go to work (I was 17 too at the time) and a police cruiser stops right in front of me and a police officer looks at me with utter disgust and suspicion and continues to stare me off :( I knew it had to do with my colour, as there was nothing conspicuous about me so as to arouse suspicion or warrant the attention.
Guilty, if ever proven innocent, such is the fate of many black man and it is hard for many of my non-black friends to relate, when I complain of racism–because its something putrid, one has to experience it to really know how foul it is. I say this even for whites who have experienced racism at the hands of blacks, often as a sort of racial retribution.
We’re all niggers to the police. As a Chicagoan you should know better than most that in many places in this country the police can do whatever they want up to and including murder and reasonably expect nothing to happen to them. Would you post a list of white people they killed? I think you are deluding yourself if you think you’re safe because you’re white – the only color that matters to them is Blue.
Some of us have been long aware of the trend of out of control police. The drug war combined with municipal contracts making it almost impossible to fire police along with ridiculous reporting have combined to cook up this problem.
White people who have never, as a general rule, experienced oppression have no idea how slavery impacts subsequent generations, who have had it instilled in them that they are defective in some way, and deserve the bad treatment they get. The 13th Amendment rid the country of slavery, right? Check it again, see how there is a loophole big enough that you can drive a Mack truck through. And it is the phrase ‘except as punishment for a crime…’ Which Southern leaders figured out was a way to put black people back into slavery, all they had to do was make minor laws punishable with out of kilter penalties in the form of long prison sentences for minor offenses. Then they hired these mostly black prisoners to work as miners, loggers, and any work situation employers deemed worthy enough where there was a profit to be made. Slavery back in place for almost another 80 years. And all perfectly legal, but morally very wrong. pbs.org has an online video called SlaveryByAnotherName that everyone should watch and cry as I did having thought that the only injustice that former slaves, my black brothers(I’m white, and was born in the South, so what?), had to endure for far too long was the Jim Crow laws.
This Trayvon Martin issue broke my heart.