I’m A “Black” Man And Sometimes I Need To Check My Privilege Part 1 — Introduction
As a person with brown skin living within the mainstream middle-class of the United States, recognizing that you have privilege is difficult to do. At almost any time, “white” people can confront you with direct, overt, disheartening, and even dangerous acts of racism. It’s in your face. You cannot really avoid it. These are everyday experiences for most people with brown skin, but, when you are privileged, they have a dangerous flip side.
Because these overt acts of racism don’t materially affect your life or your livelihood, it’s easy to discount the impact racism has on others. Ironically, as a victim of racism experiencing racist acts, your privilege blinds you to your privilege by insulating you from this most visible form of it. If you aren’t careful, you can end up parroting the same old “I did it, why can’t you?” argument that is endlessly on repeat from racist history deniers. When that happens, it’s time to check your privilege.
Before I move on, although I am writing about my privilege here, I don’t want you to make the mistake of thinking that my life has been free of discrimination. I have experienced many explicitly racist, demeaning, demoralizing, and even life-threatening actions at the hands of “white” people from early childhood through adulthood. Were it not for the privileges I will describe here, many of these experiences could have changed the trajectory of my life forever. However, as my essays will show, these explicit acts of racism have had little effect on my life, and that is why I sometimes need to check my privilege.
Everything I write here represents only my thoughts and opinions. My opinions represent only me and are not representative of all people with brown skin. My experiences, though similar in kind to the experiences of many other people, are my own.
In this series of essays, I will use the term “black” to identify that unique group of people who:
- Are the descendants of people who were enslaved within what are now the boundaries of the United States of America.
- Have continuously resided within the boundaries of the United States of America.
- As a result of how people were selected for enslavement, were treated as property and raped in captivity, and in some cases intermarried after emancipation, have skin colors representing all of humanity.
The term “black” is a marker of ancestral experience, not race. This will upset many people who believe that America elected its first “black” president in Barack Obama. However, while President Obama had brown skin, his father was Kenyan, African, not “black”. President Obama was never “black” and can never be “black”. There is no universal bond that all people with brown skin share. The uniquely American bond of “blackness” comes not from the colors of our skins but the content of our shared ancestral experiences. It is essential to understand this as we discuss solutions for making the descendants of enslaved people whole from the harms inflicted upon them. This is not and has never been about race or skin color. “Black” people are members of a class who were subjugated and victimized for hundreds of years. They cannot be identified simply by skin color. The entire race-based preferences talk track is a distraction intended to deflect from the truth and prevent progress.
With that out of the way, it is time to return to the subject of checking my privilege. I am a descendant of enslaved Africans. My unique family history has provided me with certain attitudes and practical advantages that enabled me to thrive despite the realities of being “black” while living in America. As a result, there are times when I have to check my privilege so as not to lose sight of the long-term impacts of the harms “black” people have suffered in the United States.
In this series of essays, I will unpack my privilege in public. I will share how my privilege has made it hard to empathize with others who face obstacles orders of magnitude beyond anything I’ve personally experienced, and I will share some of the things that help me stay grounded in reality.
First, I will reveal my secret superpower. It insulates me from the in-your-face racism that I experience in my daily life, but it simultaneously creates great philosophical danger.
My privilege enables me to place these experiences in a little box labeled “interactions with ignorant ass ‘white’ people”, which I keep in the room called irrelevant shit that doesn’t matter.
I don’t care what the average white person thinks on the subject of “race”. There, that’s it. You see, 99.9999999% of “white” Americans have absolutely no direct power over me or my life. (I invite you to do the math) They can look at me weirdly, call me names, or maybe make me feel uncomfortable at the bar. However, when I leave that situation, whatever it is, they are still just the asshole at the bar, and I return to my home in the suburbs, which I own, where I enjoy a more than decent life with my family. My privilege enables me to place these experiences in a little box labeled “interactions with ignorant ass ‘white’ people”, which I keep in a room called irrelevant shit that doesn’t matter. It took a long time for me to realize that this mental state flows directly from my own privilege. I don’t spend my days worrying about what white people think of me or might do to me. I live my life relatively “race” free. On most days, “race” does not enter into my consciousness unless some (usually) “white” person brings it up. I’m just busy being me.
These may be the most dangerous words ever spoken by a “black” person living in the United States of America.
The dangerous underside to this obliviousness is slipping into a mindset that underestimates the obstacles other people who look like me face. It is simply too easy to fall into the psychological brain-fuck of “white” racism in the United States and get sucked into that universe of human beings who appear to neither have compassion for nor understanding of other human beings. Racism against “black” people is part of a narrative that is continuously repeated throughout our society, and it embodies itself in this one sentence… All of the problems in the “black” community are caused by their own behavior. These may be the most dangerous words ever spoken by a “black” person living in the United States of America. I admit to being guilty of saying them.
While it is true that “all other things being equal” there are many opportunities available to all Americans without regard to race… all other things are not equal.
As a younger man, filled with passion, energy, a belief that hard work pays off, and a less than adequate knowledge of American history, I held many thoughts about the “real” problems in the “black” community (you know, specifically the one that I never lived in). From within the “middle-class” life that my parents provided, it was easy to look at disadvantaged people and ask… “Why can’t they just pay attention in school, graduate, and get a job?” I mean, it’s not that hard. Right? Setting aside the fact that there is no one “black” community for a moment, this single sentence seeks to erase hundreds of years of American history to support the fiction that “black” people inhabit a level playing field with all other American citizens. While it is true that “all other things being equal”, there are many opportunities available to all Americans without regard to race… all other things are not equal.
All of the problems in the “black” community are caused by their own behavior.
The words themselves are very seductive. They imply that each of us is entirely responsible for our situation without regard to privilege or lack thereof. People who say this are invariably privileged. You see, these words make the false claim that all success is individual, and discount the impacts of privilege or absence of privilege on the success of any person. It’s the ultimate “I did this all by myself”, and it feels good to believe that you are so great that you’ve done everything on your own. Every person prefers to see themselves as a victor instead of a victim, even when they are actual victims. This is why the phrase “victim mentality” has so much power. In discussions about race in America, it’s used as a psychological trick to shame “black” people into denying the existence of racism. There is no room for debate about “black” victimhood in the U.S. Our victimhood is a fact. The only question is, what do we do with that information?
Recognizing and admitting my privilege has been part of a long journey of discovery and growth. Come along with me in Part 2, where I will unpack some privileges and write about how I’ve learned to see beyond them. If I can do it, so can you.