Coming Face-to-Face with My White Privilege

Typically, I start Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday with a social media post of a picture and one of his inspirational quotes. Check.

Then I put on my Girl Scout uniform and head to the Sterling Community Center to volunteer with my Girl Scout Troop at the Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast. After an hour or so of greeting community members and handing out programs, our young girls head their separate ways and we all enjoy a day without school or work. Check.

This year we decided not to host a group service project because COVID-19 cases have hit an all-time high in our area. Instead, we provided the girls with a biography about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and each girl is doing an individual service project sometime before the end of the month to honor his life and legacy. Check.

This morning, my husband's schedule was filled with patients and Madi is spending the weekend with her dad. I found myself alone in the house. For hours, I tried repeatedly to write something meaningful... poignant. But every time I started, the words came up short. Today I found myself unable to “check the box.”

As a young girl growing up in poverty in the south, I never considered myself privileged. There were days when we didn’t know where our next meal would come from. I was bone thin and hungry all the time. I put myself through school, working full time, and graduated with my doctorate still buried under a mountain of debt. My life felt like a far cry from … privileged.

But sometime during this past year, an awareness started drifting to the surface of my consciousness. At first it was subtle. I watched in horror as racial injustice played out on my social media feeds and on my living room television. I started questioning my complicity in it. I hurt for my Black and African American friends. I was scared for them.

So, I did what I do. What you know me to do. I immersed myself in words. I read everything I could get my hands on. Soon, my own implicit biases that were once just out of my cognition’s reach, were slapping me in the face and yelling at me to wake up!

Today, sitting on the floor in my home office entrenched in thought, but at a complete loss for words, several things became very clear.

I cannot and will no longer just “check the box.”

I will not be a good-intentioned white person in denial of my privilege. Acknowledging my white privilege does not minimize my struggle or my story.

I will continue to check my unconscious bias.

I won’t ask what I can do. I will continue to grow by learning and by finally, truly understanding.

I will teach my daughter what I learn. I will teach her tolerance. I will teach her about her privilege. I will teach her that the only way is love.

That is how I will honor this important day. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Silence is not an option. It’s time to get uncomfortable.