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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've often thought about one of the issues that's come up here, and I'm not sure I can express this correctly, but, to me, it boils down to the point that white people are often treated badly by other white people, but they can assume that they're being treated badly because the person they're dealing with is an incompetent a**hole, while black people are often correct in assuming that they're being treated badly because of their race (even though sometimes they may be incorrect).

I've had a few experiences where this uncertainty was there, and I saw how hard it can be to know. One that comes to mind was when I was waiting for a table at a busy restaurant with some black friends.  We seemed to have to wait an inordinately long time, and I started to get mad because I suspected the race of my friends was a cause.  However, it could have just been that we were two families and needed a couple of tables pushed together and it took a while to make that happen. I remember that being made to wait was annoying, but the thought that the cause was racism was infuriating. I'll always think of it that way, but maybe it wasn't?

Another incident I think of was when we were in a Range Rover dealership looking at cars.  For whatever reason, unlike most car dealerships, and even that dealership on other days, we (a white couple) were being completely ignored.  A black man came in, and after waiting longer than you usually have to  to have a car salesman latch onto you, he said something about not being greeted that made it clear that he thought it was because of his race. I said something like "Yeah, I don't think they want to sell cars; we've been here a while and no one has talked to us, either."  We then had a friendly chat about the cars, and salesmen soon helped us both. He wasn't being irrational to assume that he was being ill-treated because of his race, but that day, it really was just that they were busy/oblivious/whatever.

The problem is -- there will always be people who are jerks. I honestly don't know how racism ever gets ameliorated to the extent that black people ever get to have the privilege of just assuming that the other guy is a jerk in a general way vs. a racist jerk. You can't prove a negative. How do we get out of this endless loop?  [/quote]

I think if you’re buying a Range Rover, it’s pretty safe to assume that [i]you’re [/i]the one who’s a jerk.[/quote]

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