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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Activities like this just make me angry. My teen had to do one at school and came home so confused because they kept talking about white privelige and so many of the things didn’t apply to him, even though he’s white. It’s a difficult conversation to have with your kid when he’s made to feel embarrassed that he’s white and further embarrassed that he’s not coming from storybook circumstances. [/quote]

It's a difficult conversation, yes. His discomfort is at being confronted with the privilege he never considered he had, even though he has all of it. It's important to overcome that instinct to internalize and say, "Who? Me? I'm not a bad person! How dare you!" and come to terms with what privilege actually means. Your language -- "he's made to feel embarrassed" is troubling. He isn't a victim. And it's incumbent upon you to reinforce that. He needs to listen more, drop his defenses, and not view a discussion about the zeitgeist as some sort of personal attack. And if he has moments where he feels like his input is not valued or that his station in life is being attacked, consider that a lesson in how other members of other races and ethnicities feel frequently in our society. [/quote]

So now white people arent even allowed to be embarrassed? They should just completely deny their own emotions and focus on the plight of those less priveliged? [/quote]

My son came how and expressed the same feelings and also expressed confusion as to what he was supposed to feel.  I shared my own experience and talked openly.  I explained that this wasn't about whether you were "bad" or "good" but that rather it was about awareness and empathy.  My guess is that you probably don't worry about the police stopping your son and questioning him.  Do you worry that when your son walks in your neighborhood someone will call the police and report a young black male casing houses?  These are things that have happened to black boys I know in my predominantly white neighborhood.  I will say that class is often what interferes with white people understanding that white privilege exists because there are also privileges that come with wealth or being in different classes.  In the US we "pretend" that everyone is mainly middle class.  It's weird.  Someone who makes $40,000 is middle class and someone who makes $200,000 considers themselves middle class.  That is where it gets messy.  A white working class kid who has to save up to buy soccer cleats because his parents can't afford them is frustrated that someone is telling him that he is privileged because he is white when he has black teammates from wealthier families that can afford to buy cleats and all sorts of other things for them that the white kid's family can't.  That is a class/wealth issue.  The thing is, that same white kid can walk into Starbucks sit and wait for someone without anyone calling the police on them.  Try to talk to your son about the differences.  If we can all do that we would all be better off as a society.

I am also not trying to start a class war.  I am just trying to say that we need to talk to our children about these issues if we want them to have a better, more accepting world than the one we grew up in.--Signed a white mom from a working class background who is now in a different class than the one I grew up in[/quote]

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