In what nuanced ways did you NOT realize you had white privilege?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I interviewed for a job at my current fed employer and I have significant relevant experience. There was one other person who I was competing against, and he had no experience and little more than a HS diploma. I found out that the manager on the interview panel selected me, but a higher level manager selected the other candidate to promote diversity and inclusion. This is actually policy at more than one fed agency.

How, exactly, did you have background on the other candidates? Fed here, and we don't share personal info about other applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really freaks me out as a POC when I see white people open packages and eat things or give things to their kids to eat or to play with in stores BEFORE they pay for them. Doing that could so easily get me arrested.

I’m white and those people disgust me too and they should be arrested.

Only if they try to leave without paying for what was consumed.

I'm white and those people disgust me too, and I also think that someone should speak to them about theft. It's basic decency that you don't use/open/consume things until you pay for them. It's also basic decency that you don't walk around a store with your fingers in some food, licking your fingers and touching things (even if it's 'just' the shopping cart) while you're eating. Other people have food allergies and they also don't want people putting grubbing, greasy and/or sticky fingerprints all over items for purchase or store fixtures/fittings.

It's a class issue. You can't buy class.

Of course you can, it is 100% about money.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t realize until lately that working hard so I could excel academically and then build wealth, while others blew off hard work and sought immediate gratification, was actually all due to white privilege. Silly me. I do hope we have enlightened leaders of color soon who’ll look for ways to confiscate most of our savings for reparations just so we don’t wallow in our ignorance too much longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep the receipt for Fetch and for my own budgeting. I always thought that grocery store can pull up my receipt based on my credit card and the customer number. Not keeping the receipt to prove my purchases.
I have been blond most of my life but went brunette for 3 weeks. They were miserable 3 weeks because nobody offered to carry my groceries like they always had. Just joking, but the difference in treatment was so big, I don't want to color my hair dark ever again.

Gosh, you must not be very pretty if hair color made that much of a difference in your treatment.

What a stupid comment. Does everybody must be pretty?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I interviewed for a job at my current fed employer and I have significant relevant experience. There was one other person who I was competing against, and he had no experience and little more than a HS diploma. I found out that the manager on the interview panel selected me, but a higher level manager selected the other candidate to promote diversity and inclusion. This is actually policy at more than one fed agency.

How, exactly, did you have background on the other candidates? Fed here, and we don't share personal info about other applicants.

I worked with him. I've yet to find a coworker that is ok with the policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Italian-American. My grandparents were born in Italy, and they never learned how to speak English. When I was a little kid, my grandmother on the other side of my family would tell her mother to speak English. That's the difference, I think. My family realized the importance of learning how to speak English. Plus, law enforcement, especially the Feds, were suspicious of immigrants who spoke Italian instead of English. I probably have experienced advantages from being perceived as "all white." However, I do remember what it felt like to be treated differently because my family was different in our culture and language, until we started to blend in with the tossed salad that is America.

Oh please. Italian or not, your family, ancestors, etc are all WHITE.

You have no idea about discrimination. None.

Exactly! That Italian individual is a privileged white person! I don’t think she understands the thread topic. There aren’t different levels of privilege for white folks. You either have privilege, or you don’t.

Hopefully she isn’t too fragile to realize this, but that sort of thinking needs to be corrected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me , my patients trust me more. It probably took me about 6 months into my career before a co-worker was complaining about it. It never occurred to me that those of another race would face difficulty, especially with the elderly population. Now it is something I notice and holy crap it is so prevalent.

I trust Indian doctors more than white doctors. They are more studious and take school more seriously. They are less materialistic.

OMG, thanks for the model minority stereotyping.

[Anonymous]

I have a hillbilly accent and people think I'm a hillbilly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t realize until lately that working hard so I could excel academically and then build wealth, while others blew off hard work and sought immediate gratification, was actually all due to white privilege. Silly me. I do hope we have enlightened leaders of color soon who’ll look for ways to confiscate most of our savings for reparations just so we don’t wallow in our ignorance too much longer.

Delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought I was WOKE because I went to all-black schools. We all got along (and still do) and racism did not seem to play a prominent role at my school.

I realize now how misinformed I was. I didn't see racism as an issue at my school because I am white and never experienced racism against myself, and I never saw my friends experience it because we all mostly stayed within the boundaries of our school's culture. I was totally unaware that the sad state of our school was due to white flight and subsequent defunding of our public school system. It didn't occur to me that, academically, I benefited far more than my classmates by being white and middle class. The list goes on...

This is exactly my experience too. White woman, went to majority black schools, thought at least in my schools/social bubble, racism wasn’t a big problem. Until I realized the reason my schools were majority black and were underfunded/faced budget cuts, was due to white flight. Also, in looking back at my yearbook recently it hit me that the top performing academically kids were almost exclusively white and Asian kids even though the school is 85+% black.

All the white and Asian kids were in honors and AP classes it seems almost by default. Teachers would call on white or Asian kids for the answer and generally expect them to do better academically (I remember even a lot of the black teachers seemed to do this) whereas black students made up almost all the suspensions, detentions, often getting singled out and blamed for behavioral issues that white or Asian kids could’ve easily gotten away with...I think a lot of this is also classism at work not just racism but racism was certainly still a problem and where privilege was real even at a majority black school. Sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I kind of feel like we’re now supposed to identify any interaction in which we are treated with basic human decency as “White privilege”. Because isn’t that kind of it in a nutshell?

It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I kind of feel like we’re now supposed to identify any interaction in which we are treated with basic human decency as “White privilege”. Because isn’t that kind of it in a nutshell?

It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago.

It is also self destructive for a society to create a situation where a baby has more of a chance of going to prison that another baby born of the same time in a different color. Understanding White privilege requires realizing that a White child will never have to move through this world worrying which "issues" he encounters are because of his race. Everyone will have issues. However, if my teenage Black son gets caught with a joint, his life will probably be ruined. If your teenage White son gets caught with a joint..."kids will be kids." Even the ability to be naive or dismissive about the fact that this world was built differently depending on how you look is an example of this exact privilege. Admitting it doesn't mean that you like it or purposely had a hand in making it like that. It took centuries for things to be this way - starting with colonialism. Why is there such an issue admitting that and realizing that you can walk through the world differently than I as a Black person can? No different than me realizing that I can walk differently through the world differently than someone who is disabled (my mother was disabled, so I'm extremely familiar with using my privilege for someone else's benefit). This is not about distinct situations. But, about how you walk through life. For example, no one had to legislate that the hair coming out of your head is "ok" in a professional setting (and that's in 2020, not 1950).