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 😞

@AgedLikeWine
"from which I somehow managed to earn a place at a good university" many of your BAME classmates with ethnic names managed to get a place at a good university in the 80s?

"Wasn’t Jesus an Arab?"

No, he was a Jew wasn't he? Both Arabs and Jews are Semites, so he was a Semite, but not an Arab.

Every day. Just like every other white person in the UK.

White privilege isn't one off random incidents where you are noticeably treated favourably because of your skin colour. It is systemic and ingrained. And we aren't even aware of it on a daily basis.

I’m aware that I’m likely to receive decent treatment if I need to ask for help at a train station, use customer services in a supermarket or talk to my child’s teacher, because I’m white, female and well spoken. I have a regional accent but I’m polite and can express myself without difficulty. I expect to be treated respectfully and that is generally what happens. The privilege is there in every social interaction with a stranger.

Trick question. The phrase doesn't refer to specific incidents

I have had several office jobs but have never worked with anyone who wasn't white or physically abled.

I will leave the guilt-ridden performative self-abasement to those who have actually experienced privilege.

Imagine how much harder that would have been for you if you spent your life being harassed and targeted because of your skin colour.

Consider whether your skin colour has prevented you from ever getting a job.

Just because you haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

@AgeLikeWine I come from an economically deprived area. Went to a comp, and a non-Russell Group uni. I'm poor, always have been and probably always will be.

I've never been arrested because I fit a profile. I've never been followed around a shop because I "look suspicious", despite the fact that I definitely shoplifted when I was a teenager. I've never gone to bed at night and feared my house being raided and being shot in my bed. I've never had to explain to my children why people might hate them despite their age, because of their skin.

I'm sorry, you and I are privileged. We might have had a rough trot but we can walk down the street relatively unafraid.

I'm sure if I sat down and wrote a list it would span pages, but the one that always sticks in my mind is being about 20 and asking my Indian flatmate if I could borrow some of her foundation. She looked at me confused and said no. I didn't get it at all, just thought she was being rude and asked why. She of course then pointed out that it would be much too dark for me. This was over 10 years ago, back when saying "I don't see colour" was generally held to be a good thing, so at the time I gave myself a mental pat on the back for not having really noticed that her skin was a different colour to mine. Once the language around white privaledge started to get established I thought back on that conversation and realised that not considering her skin colour was an act of privaledge and not virtue. I approached that interaction through the lens of seeing white as the default. It never even crossed my mind that the foundation wouldn't match my skin. But of course 10 years ago the range of cosmetics for black and brown skin tones was pretty shit. Her experience was that almost nothing suited her skin tone. She didn't have the luxery like me of picking up any cosmetic and just assuming it would be designed for her skin. It sounds like a petty thing to have remembered for a decade but I think that was the first time I really "got" the concept of privaledge.

@Fosler
I don’t know if you are currently residing in a facility or not, but are you aware that it is possible to educate yourself for free, using libraries ( now online), radio podcasts etc etc.
I am so sorry for you.

Some areas of the U.K. are very sheltered from the reality of racism.
I was went to a tiny village school in Devon. No BAME children. Then at secondary I can probably count on 1 hand how many BAME kids there were in a school of 2k + kids. So was never aware of racism or how much harder ethnic minorities had it because I was never exposed to it.
Unfortunately we know live in South Wales and similarly my kids go to a small village school where again there are less than a handful of families of BAME origin. One of my best friends is from India as is her husband and I know she experiences racism a lot dispute being a fully fledged contributing member of society, is a GP and her husband a hospital consultant. Our sons are also best friends and it makes me said that her son will have it much harder than mine just because of his name and skin colour.

I also worked in an Indian restaurant for 7 years and once we were raided by immigration. I was never asked for my naked ID, proof of residency/citizenship. I could have been from anywhere without a visa but because I am white I was never given a second glance.

Always, by virtue of being born English.

You do know that English people come in a variety of races, don't you?

I don’t feel like it’s anything I would put my finger on. It’s EVERYTHING. I’m less likely to die from Covid. I’m less likely to die during childbirth. I’m a white, middle class woman who has benefitted from a society built on slavery. I am, like other white people the embodiment of privilege.

The phrase doesn't refer to specific incidents

But it is the case that specific incidences might make it blatantly obvious.

My first was being called to the front of the queue of a nightclub with my friends, past a group of black women. We stayed where we were.

With (then) Asian boyfriend on the tube in the month after 7/7. Police screaming at him to put his backpack down so they could search it but ignoring me. I was terrified he’d be shot (although I can’t recall now if they were armed). I just remember shouting “he didn’t do anything”. They searched his back and sent us on our way.

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.

Pretty constantly... BAME colleague with a v white sounding name had a less than warm reception during interviews each time. I saw it as we did assessment days together.

Also abroad on group holiday, I got in and was like... where are half of us? (We were all v drunk) Our BAME friends and only our BAME friends had been turned away with no reason - in fact none of them were drinking that night whereas the rest of us were pretty sloshed.

In a hotel, one BAME friend was accused of simply not belonging in the hotel and escorted out.

In work, similar perhaps to sexism (but more exclusionary, saw too many talented BAME people excluded early stages). And if you complain you very unofficially get blacklisted.

Maybe I'm not black but I'm Polish after arriving to UK in 2004 I experienced lots of disrimination. My English wasn't good anough and as a young women I was often used and obused by employers and never was taken seroiusly. By the way I'm natural light blond with blue eyes I find out after sometime that everything was OK (I look more German Swedish)untill I haven't open my mouth and somobody heard my broken English with strong Eastern European accent. Now after 16 years I'm more confident I know how to stand up for myself and my English is much better. But I do understand black people and I know what they have to put up with.

So I think I was very unaware of my white privilege - for example I have never been followed around a shop by security and it never occurred to me that it even happens until a friend mentioned an incident to me and was like "yeah it happens all the time". I was shocked....

Thanks @Gwenhwyfar
It’s just interesting that I often find those who talk about this as being a Christian country often have Jesus down as a European. They seem to forget it spread to the uk from the Middle East.

Some areas of the U.K. are very sheltered from the reality of racism. I was went to a tiny village school in Devon. No BAME children. Then at secondary I can probably count on 1 hand how many BAME kids there were in a school of 2k + kids. So was never aware of racism or how much harder ethnic minorities had it because I was never exposed to it.

This was my experience too. No BAME at any school (not even that long ago) I went to so never saw any racism first hand. I've seen it now sadly, even at our local scout group.

I’m sure that there’s been a lot of times when I’ve benefited from white privilege without even noticing. It’s something that’s all around us.

I mean, being able to go through life without ever having to be aware of your colour, or worry about being treated badly because of the colour of your skin is the very definition of white privilege.

I grew up on a shithole council estate in a dump of an ex-mining town in Derbyshire in the 1980s. I went to a bog-standard com

Imagine that. Plus you weren't white. White privilege is an extra layer.

Yes, I think the point is that they are easy and pain-free experiences that you have without realising that POC don't share that same experience by virtue of their colour.

A recent example for me, as a POC. DH (who is white) and I are house hunting. We went to a viewing together and DH wanted to put in an offer but I wanted to see it again because I wasn't 100% convinced. The second viewing was with the seller rather than the estate agent and I felt really hesitant about going without DH because I felt they would respond more positively to a white buyer so we'd be more likely to get it if he was there.

Probably all in my head, but something I'm sure would never cross the mind of a white person.

Without realising it - I've been experiencing this every day of my life (but as a kid I didn't realise it to any great extent). As an adult it's very obvious.