How white am I? I am so white that Saltine crackers look tanned. I am so white I once had to visit the emergency room after a ten-minute trial in a tanning bed. Apparently translucent doesn’t tan. Skin color is genetic so, obviously, I am the progeny of two lily white parents.
If my parents were aware of white privilege, they certainly never talked about it. Had they known they were privileged, they most likely would have had college educations. My dad would have worked a white-collar job while my mom spent her days at an exclusive club. A nanny and housekeeper would have handled things at home. As it were, both parents worked blue collar jobs; or, in my mom’s case, a white shoe job. She was a nurse’s aide and spent her days changing diapers in a nursing home while my dad worked as an electrician. We couldn’t afford a nanny or housekeeper, so we lived in a messy house and, after my siblings and I were old enough to be without a babysitter, were on our own. Meals were whatever we could scrounge out of the cupboards. Bologna sandwiches covered in mustard were a delicacy. White bread was a staple. We were privileged enough to eat the store-bought kind that came in a bonus plastic bag. The bags we recycled as snow boots in the winter months. Fastened around the legs with rubber bands, they didn’t offer much for warmth, but at least our feet were dry. I was a teenager before my parents bought me a pair of Moon Boot snow boots. It was the first time I remembered my feet being warm in the winter. No doubt white privilege provided those luxurious boots.
When it came time for me to go to college, there wasn’t a chapter of WWWP (Wonderful World of White Privilege) in my town to pay my fees and send me on my way. There was no trust fund or slush fund or even a savings account to fall back on. I went to a state college with government financial aid (paid back in installments) and what money I could earn myself. White privilege did not go to classes or study for me. It did not take tests or earn my degree. I did that on my own. Later, when I earned a master’s degree (graduating with a 4.0), I did so while I worked full time and paid the tuition without help from the government.
These days liberal (aka: progressive, Democrat, socialist, communist) politicians are telling me I should be paying restitution to people of color to make up for the slavery their ancestors endured. According to these folks anything I have, no matter how little, was given to me on account of my ‘white privilege’ and anyone other than a white person has less than they are entitled, no matter how much they do have, because they lack that advantage.
There is not a doubt that black people in the United States fought a long hard battle out of the bonds of slavery and the racism that followed. What seems to be forgotten is that black and white soldiers fought alongside one another during the civil war to end slavery. Not all whites were slave owners and not all blacks were slaves. From president Abraham Lincoln declaring all slaves in the United States free in 1862 and the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s, whites have shared that battle. The day a black man was elected president of the United States, considered one of the most powerful people in the world, that battle was declared won. American Blacks are movie and sports stars, politicians and advisors to the elite. They are the ultimate American success story. The race card has expired.
America is the home to a multitude of ethnic backgrounds with skin colors ranging from translucent to ebony. Those who succeed do so with a combination of hard work, perseverance, and sometimes, plain good luck. What isn’t included in an American success story is finger pointing and excuses. ‘White privilege’ is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors to cause division and hate in our great country.
