To ask when you’ve experienced white privilege

[Whitepriv]

Sadly I know I have. In East London at a high rise, was checking into an Airbnb and couldn’t find the lockbox despite instruction so was looking extremely dodgy, looking under lots of the block of flats windowsills. There’s a young black man hanging out a few metres from me smoking a cig.

Police come by and ask me if I could do with any help and if I’m okay. I tell them that I’m fine but thank you. In less than a minute, I see the same police moving on the young black man for hanging around outside the flats, with a ‘you can’t loiter here’. Sad 😞

I've seen the reverse in action. I'm white, BTW.

I once had a relationship with a British-born man of Bangladeshi parents. If he came to collect me from work and parked outside the gates to wait for me, he was regularly asked by passing police cars what he was doing there. (My workplace was close to the police station so this happened almost every time he came to meet me.) I saw it happen on several occasions as I was crossing the road - he was the only waiting partner/friend to be approached. If I was getting into the car, the police never stopped.

Additionally, most of colleagues assumed he was a taxi driver because of his ethnicity. He was a criminal law solicitor.

Donald Trump is an example of Male and White Privilege. If a woman or ethnic minority was that ridiculous, there is no way they would end up being president of the U.S.A.

In Australia. Used to work with an Italian guy - dark hair and tanned. Saw him barred from pubs on more than one occasion. No problem for the rest of us to go in (although we refused).

All day, every day. Just not thinking about your race 99.9% of the time is part of it. Specifically, a few incidents, one that stands out is getting through UK immigration with the wrong paperwork. I'm completely sure that if I had been brown I would have been deported. Now I have sons who are young men, I never felt the need to tell them how to behave when they get stopped by the police so they can avoid getting killed. I never worry that they will be targeted because of their race.

I've not experienced a specific incident that I can think of.
However I've never been discriminated against for being white and that's really what it means, so my lack of experience is my privilege, if that actually makes sense!

For every day of my live I’ve not had to think about my race, is a day I’ve experienced white privilege.

life

Any time I’ve been to an airport or a place where you can be checked with my Asian boyfriend. Anytime we go to an airport he’s ‘randomly’ checked. We went to Scottish parliament. Me and my white children got through security no problem. He buzzed on his way through wearing shorts and a tshirt with nothing in his pockets! He gets checked. About to board a ferry another time we are ‘randomly’ checked. I am pulled to one side and asked if anyone has asked me to do anything I don’t want to. It really really infuriates me but he is cool as a cucumber. Like this is just his life. He has been called a terrorist or told to ‘go home’ numerous times. He was born in England! It’s horrid.

All day every day.

The most noticeable one for me was when we started to travel with the DC on longer flights - DS1 has Autism and can occasionally struggle with the change, the excitement and the whole thing. We were going through BHX a few years back and as you walk through Security there are armed officers next to a (I assume) two-way tinted window. DH and I had spoken to DS1 about the whole thing, the possibility of armed guards and how their role is to protect us, the security measures, the whole thing. But we hadn't mentioned the window. He ran straight over to it, hammered on it and shouted "hellooooooo is there anybody in there". Next to us coming through the security gate was a black family we'd been speaking to while we waited who were going to the same destination as us and as I ran towards DS1to stop him banging on the glass, the officers also swiftly ran towards him, past the black family.

Every member of that family visibly flinched. My white autistic son, my white non-autistic son and my white husband all smiled at the officers and it was laughed off with a little talking-to in the loveliest terms from the officers - my son is now 14 and still interacts positively with the police because he remembers that incident and it holds a positive memory for him. But the other family genuinely expected a different outcome when they saw armed officers running towards them; and as much as it absolutely wasn't the officers fault, it opened my eyes to something so much bigger than my little white-person life.

Just a brief enlightenment

@Freezerrr that's really sad that you that's just life. If everyone thought that about being black no one would be saying anything.

But people are saying something. That didn't used to happen, people used to say that's just life but things started changing when people spoke up. Don't settle for that. I think you can be formidable too! Get friends and family involved show your discrimination. When I've been had a go at in the street based on the colour of my skin I report it. Immediately. It will never change otherwise. I wish you well

I think White privilege can just be that if you’re white you’re starting in a position of not being disadvantaged just because of you’re black. .
Correct me if you are a person of colour and i have this wrong.

@FelicisNox

Not sure if it's the same thing but I often use my posh surname to get around people and often, it works.

My husband is black and has been asked for ID as they often don't believe the surname matches the person standing in front of them.

2 sides, same coin.

What's a posh surname when it's at home?

The only time I have ever experienced prejudice as a white woman is when I had a bad black eye and a face that looked beaten up. Lots of people were very judgemental and even made disparaging comments towards me in the street. It was a massive shock. And very strange to be judged unfairly on my appearance. I feel really bad for people who have experienced this a lot. I know in general I have been treated with preference as a middle class, fairly attractive white woman.

(As I now realise) when I tried to pay for some textbooks for my son with fake £20 notes. They'd been given to me by DMIL, who must have got them from the building society (she wouldn't have got them in change as she wouldn't have had a £50 note to pay for anything). The guy held them up, took them off somewhere, ran them through a machine, came back and told me they were fake. That's it. No police, nothing.

I have not had to have the same talk with my teenage ds as parents of black and mixed race children do. This is white privilege every day.

Went to Belgium many years ago with a black friend I'd known since school. We were in Brussels attempting to catch a train to Bruges. Since my friend spoke French better than I did, she went to find a guard, but he apparently didn't want to stop to help. So I found a guard, who very helpfully gave me all the directions we needed. As the guard walked away, my friend whispered to me that it was the same person.

Wish I'd called him out on it now.

There's too many encounters to post : but the majority of my friends are black and whenever we've been out for dinner or to a nightclub , they've been given attitude not me , they've been searched not me , one restaurant even demanded we pay before ordering , I've never had that happen before. I've never been pulled over for driving a nice car but almost every black guy I know has told me stories of it happening. Unfortunately for my black friends it's a daily occurrence

Also had an Italian Nigerian boyfriend who's first language was Italian but when we went to Rome he refused to speak Italian if he didn't need too because when he did he was ignored, most assumed I was the Italian over him because as one man commented he was simply to black to be Italian

Well all the time. I’m a young looking white woman, people usually ‘take pity’ on me, as I’m probably the least perceived threatening demographic. I’ve been spat on, kicked and had a drink thrown at me because I’m ginger though, as well as several comments from friends and strangers which I’ve not liked but I put that down to weirdness/bad sense of humor, it’s not racism as I’m white.

Did anyone watch noughts and crosses? Where whites were the lower class and blacks the rulers? I thought that did a good job of showing what all the little things that blacks go through every day, things like not having a plaster to suit your skin tone. Someone wiping their hand after shaking hands with you.

Yes, I did

It was an interesting conceit - and when black female lead called the white man “Blanca” (obviously the inverse of nigger), and there was shock, it made me realise how there just aren’t the same loaded words for whites.

I did like the statues etc, all showing black symbols / black people - and ,ade me realise we don’t have that

Not sure if relevant but my husband was waiting for me outside a shop which sold a variety of things in a town. At that time he had a steri stripped head injury from playing football. He got moved on by the police as he was scaring the shop owners. He was only looking at what baking trays we could purchase for our new house😳