What My Bike Has Taught Me About White Privilege - great blog post

[cleduc]

13. I don't mind the post

It's something one who has ridden a bike can relate to.

It tries to address a key problem with white privilege: if you're white, it's hard to relate because you haven't experienced being black.

That reminded me of an effort in the early 60s and one before that:

Black Like Me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me

Black Like Me is a nonfiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin first published in 1961. Griffin was a white native of Dallas, Texas and the book describes his six-week experience travelling on Greyhound buses (occasionally hitchhiking) throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia passing as a black man.
...
Griffin became a national celebrity for a time. In a 1975 essay included in later editions of the book, he described the hostility and threats to him and his family that emerged in his hometown of Mansfield, Texas. He moved to Mexico for a number of years for safety.

Ray Sprigle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Sprigle

In May 1948, Sprigle, using the name "James Crawford", took a thirty day, four thousand mile trip through the Deep South pretending to be black. He was supported in this investigation by the NAACP and accompanied by John Wesley Dobbs. He wrote a series of articles based on the journey, which appeared on the front page of the Post-Gazette under the title I Was a Negro in the South for 30 Days. The articles formed the basis of Sprigle's 1949 book In the Land of Jim Crow. Sprigle's work predated the more famous John Howard Griffin's similar investigation, reported in Griffin's book Black Like Me, by over a decade

It also reminded me of my favorite musician when I was 4 years old: Fats Waller and a famous tune he contributed to that helped provide some perspective on this:

(WHAT DID I DO TO BE SO) BLACK AND BLUE (aka BLACK AND BLUE)
(Thomas "Fats" Waller / Harry Brooks / Andy Razaf)

Out in the street, shufflin' feet
Couples passin' two by two
While here am I, left high and dry
Black, and 'cause I'm black I'm blue

Browns and yellers, all have fellers
Gentlemen prefer them light
Wish I could fade, can't make the grade
Nothing but dark days in sight

Cold, empty bed, springs hard as lead
Pains in my head, feel like old Ned
What did I do to be so black and blue?

No joys for me, no company
Even the mouse ran from my house
All my life through I've been so black and blue

I'm white inside, it don't help my case
'Cause I can't hide, what is on my face, oh!

I'm so forlorn, life's just a thorn
My heart is torn, why was I born?
What did I do to be so black and blue?

'Cause you're black, folks think you lack
They laugh at you, and scorn you too
What did I do to be so black and blue?

When you are near, they laugh and sneer
Set you aside and you're denied
What did I do to be so black and blue?

How sad I am, each day I feel worse
My mark of Ham seems to be a curse, oh

How will it end? ain't got a friend
My only sin is my skin
What did I do to be so black and blue?

Here's Louis Armstrong performing it in '65 (without all the lyrics)

I think if people keep trying to find ways for others to relate, more people will understand and modify their behavior accordingly.

On one hand, I feel notable progress in my lifetime has been made. On the other, it can be painfully disillusioning to see places like Ferguson continuing to oppress blacks still exist. It says to me "we still have a lot more work to do to wipe out this atrocity".