Being white saved my life

Dear Fellow White People,

I don’t know about you, but being white has saved my life.

My childhood and youth was peppered with many experiences that plague the black community, but thankfully my whiteness bought me out of a lifetime of repercussions.

I was born to teenage parents and put into foster care. I had repeated sexual violations and was gang raped at 14. I spent many months living in an inpatient treatment facility for teens. And because of all of these traumas, I was ripe for the picking for a sex trafficking ring disguised as a youth group in Washington, D.C.

See, trauma is compounding. And I am certain deep down in my hard-earned gut that the only reason my life is what it is today, is because all along the way I had access and the benefit of the doubt.

My adoptive parents had money and connections. I was able to hide my trauma from the world in a pretty, well-to-do suburb of Northern Virginia. I was able to act as if I was ok, because my outsides were ok and that mirrored most of the community around me.

I had access to great healthcare, which afforded me the blessing of easy access to birth control, which thankfully kept me from pregnancy. I had access to great therapists, both when I wanted nothing to do with them, and when I decided I really needed them.

When I stole a car at 14 and totaled it, my parents were able to make the car theft and the driving underage go away. When I ran away and the police found me and the marijuana in my backpack, the officers sent me home to my parents.

When I needed a change of scenery in an attempt to have a fresh start, I transferred to an expense private Catholic school. When I needed an impressive internship for college, my dad got me one.

When I woke up at 22 and realized I had not in fact been in a youth group for the last seven years of my life, my parents foot the bill to get me out of one of their homes and into a new place to live. Part of that awakening to the reality of my circumstance, happened on my semester abroad in Italy.

Had I lived this same life as a black girl, my outcomes would not have been the same. First and foremost, I wouldn’t have been so quickly adopted out of foster care. Not by the parents who adopted me at least. I can’t imagine that my run-ins with the law would have been so easily overlooked and forgiven.

It would be foolish, and downright dishonest for me to claim I made it through on sheer will and determination alone. Yes, I walked through fire to save my life, but only because there was a huge pool of water always waiting for me on the other side.

So do not ever buy or try to sell the argument that white privilege doesn’t exist because someone’s life “wasn’t easy.” It’s the very point that life isn’t easy, but if you’re white, you’re likely to make it through just fine.

Now that that’s out of the way…

I’ve written before about my awakening to my contribution to racial injustice before, in hopes that others in the white community might see themselves and have awakenings of their own.

The reaction I received from white friends and colleagues astounded me. People who I believed to share similar values because they publicly claimed so, questioned why I would I confess these things, as if I was sharing the family secret.

“Do you think black people don’t know this happens in the minds and mouths of white people?” I would ask them.

The other response I struggled with was accusations of “white guilt.”

We need to get clear on this term.

When I hear “white guilt” I am instantly flooded with images of Carmela Soprano.

A mafia wife enjoys a certain lavish lifestyle, the means of which she either overlooks and justifies, or perhaps harbors “guilt” over. But she enjoys and continues the lifestyle all the same.

When friends accused me of having white guilt, what I heard them trying to convince me of was much like what Carmela tried to tell herself about being married to Tony Soprano — I’m a good person. I’m not doing these awful things. I don’t really know what goes on anyway.

It’s easy to post things on social media and even use philanthropy to try and buy our way out of white guilt. But we must do more. We must leave Tony.

Much like philanthropy, most solutions to racism and injustice lie in systemic change. But we often use that fact to justify doing nothing.

We must own our privilege. Then and only then can we prep the country to share it.

If every single one of us owned that we were highly disproportionately positioned for life, systemic change has the room to follow.

Do not be so afraid of saying the wrong thing, that you say nothing at all. Speak with a well-intended heart, and allow yourself to remain open to correction from the black community. Then thank them for the insight. It’s ok to be embarrassed or ashamed. We’ll survive.

Do not fear the eye roll from those around us so devoid of humility and a basic curiosity for anything outside their deep commitment to their own bubble. Do not cling to the Southern notion of “minding your own business”. We have that luxury, that privilege, of pissing people off and not getting killed for it.

This post was originally posted on my blog at https://aphoward.com