Are you amazed or what? 30 Recs and no dissenters. And almost 1000 people looked at it. Or some people looked at it several times.
I think she had me when she named the languages we know... or don't know. It tickles me that so many Africans know at least 3 languages. But their languages are not taught in any of our schools.
I was looking at an actress, Uzoamaka Aduba, who was explaining her name in a routine she called "It's OK to Be Me". When she was young, no one at school could pronounce her name. It was a beautiful Nigerian name. It translated to "The Road is Good". And when she got tired of hearing her name mispronounced, she went to her mother and said: "Can I be called Zoe"? Her mother looked at her and said: If white people can learn to pronounce Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo and Dostoevsky, then they can learn to pronounce your name.
A piece of white privilege is to have your culture celebrated every day in every way, in every curriculum in every field of study. In nearly every statue, in nearly all of the art galleries, in most of the commercials and mass media. To have it repeated over and over that your people did great things. When I think about white supremacists, I think they are fighting against the idea that they have to share the stage. When I think about the average white person who says "I haven't benefited from being white", I realize that they just don't see it because it is so pervasive. But if the full 10% or 17% of ads and mass media showed blacks and Hispanics, some white people would FREAK OUT. Not even half. Just 27%. 32% if you add Asians. So, OK, if the media showed 1/3 people of color... some white people would lose their minds. It's funny. For most of my adult life, I have judged mass media based on how often they put people of color on their covers, in their ads, on their TV shows. None of the 6 people on Friends were people of color. Same as Jerry Seinfeld. Would it have been so hard? And then there is Big Bang Theory. The Indian guy can't find love to save his soul. He should be married by now...
There are all sorts of ways that white privilege manifests. Some white people think it's only us whining about police. No. Every single white person in America benefits from having his or her whiteness reinforced as "normal". And way too many white people are so used to associating "white" with "normal" that if they see a person of color in a place they think is "white space", they get uncomfortable.
And if you don't think it's a privilege to have "normalness" reinforced, daily, everywhere, look at how some white people are freaking out when they have to share the spotlight. To accept that black people are "normal" and can and do go everywhere and do everything that white people do. To accept that Asian people are "normal", and not always Fresh Off the Boat, but may have been here for more than 5 generations. To accept that Latinos are "normal", and are probably US citizens.
OK, rant over.
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