I keep forgetting my white privilege

Photo by Nicole Baster on Unsplash

Here is something I am afraid to say out loud: I can’t stop forgetting my white privilege.

Not long ago, I checked in with the senior leaders of a corporate team I support. In each one-to-one video call, they told me about their struggles to balance family and work, their anxiety, their fatigue. They felt like they should be more grateful for their health, more focused, less out of sorts.

Time to coach!

I reminded them how unusual this time is for us.

Thousands of years ago, I explained, our ancestors’ brains evolved a potent threat-detection system. That system kept them alive, telling them not to take risks that might result in, say, them being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

Today, with our day-to-day safety largely secured, we use those threat-detection systems for social interactions. Did my boss throw me an angry look in that meeting? Do my direct reports trust me? Is my spouse angry at me for something?

No wonder this pandemic is hitting us in a deeper, exhausting way, I explained. We’re feeling something we’re not used to: physical threat.

Each of the leaders nodded along, said that made sense, explored with me the sensations moving through them, said goodbye, and went back to their work.

Like me, each was white.

But during one conversation, when I delivered my punchline about how feelings of physical threat are new to us, the leader just stared at me.

Unsafe all the time

In those few seconds of silence, a wave of nausea spread through my belly and two words came screaming up from my innards:

Oh. No.

Because the leader is African-American. And I knew what she would say next:

“Chris, in America I feel physically unsafe all… the… time.”

She worries for her body. She worries for her boyfriend’s body, especially when he wears a mask to comply with COVID19 guidelines. She worries for the bodies of her friends and her family.

She worries for the bodies of people she has never met. People whose brutalization might never be known — or might be captured by a cellphone camera, shared widely, sparking calls for reform and, inevitably, leading to no change at all.

Black people have never felt physically safe in this country.

Because Black people have never been physically safe in this country.

“To my very core I am tired. To just exist when black is exhausting.” — Tolly, May 26, 2020

How could I forget?

I know that the United States of America was built on the back-breaking labor of people of color.

I know that white supremacy continues to define every facet of our society: public health and safety, wealth distribution, criminal justice, media, and more.

I know that when you are Black in America, every drive could result in a traffic stop that ends your life.

I know that every walk or jog through a neighborhood could end in you being shot by white men who felt threatened.

I know that every bird-watching expedition, barbecue, pool party, or trip to your office gym could set off a white person. Someone who, because of your blackness, feels you must be up to no good.

As the quote that tears open my heart every time I see it on social media says: “When the color of your skin is seen as a weapon, you will never be seen as unarmed.”

For a little while there, I forgot.

I forgot that this senior leader I work with, a highly accomplished woman, would live with the constant weight and stress of physical threat.

I forgot that a black person wearing a mask might feel even more worried than usual of frightening white people. And when white people get frightened, black people often die.

How could I forget?

Here’s the thing: Inherent in white privilege is the fact that I can regularly forget my white privilege.

“Denial is the heartbeat of racism, beating across ideologies, races, and nations. It is beating within us.” — Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

I try so hard not to

My ex-wife is a woman of color, with Chinese, Japanese, and native Hawaiian ancestry. So many conversations during our 22 years together taught me to be more empathetic and attuned to the Black and brown experience in this country.

I learned the importance of being a white person who will strive to do better and push other white people to do better.

I learned the importance of deepening my ability to see America as it is.

I learned the importance of enriching my life by carefully curating it with perspectives different from my own.

I listen to podcasts and read news articles about non-white culture, intersectionality, housing policy, and systemic racism.

I reach out to my Black friends to check in on their hearts during weeks like this one.

I accepted my last job at Apple because my boss was Lisa Jackson, a brilliant Black woman who inspired us every day to bring more justice to the world.

I serve on the board of the Alameda County Community Food Bank, which works to nourish the most underserved communities. I tutor at poorly resourced elementary schools. I donate to justice organizations like UnCommon Law, Equal Justice Initiative, and Color of Change.

I attend lectures in San Francisco by black intellectuals like Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Dawoud Bey, Wesley Morris, and Jenna Wortham.

I read. In the past two years, I’ve read dozens of books by authors of color: James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, Joy Harjo, Oprah Winfrey, Trevor Noah, Sandra Cisneros, Vanessa Hua, Ross Gay, Priya Parker, Terrance Haynes, Kamila Shamsie, Tommy Orange, Tayari Jones, Ada Limón, Min Jin Lee, Nayyirah Waheed, Ocean Vuong, Esi Edugyan, Dinaw Mengestu, Don Miguel Ruiz, Elaine Welteroth, Susan Choi, Laila Lalami, Wesley Lowery, Luis Alberto Urrea, Mohsin Hamid, R.O. Kwan, Zora Neale Hurston, Ali Wong, Terese Marie Mailhot, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Samuel Park, and Saeed Jones.

“How do you sleep when you know that soon you’ll need to tell the story of the death of yet another black man?” — Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All

It’s not enough

I tell myself I’m trying.

I tell myself I’m a strong ally.

But I’m not.

I’m not trying hard enough.

I’m not strong enough.

Because I keep forgetting my privilege.

America works so hard to surround me with white voices, white institutions, white ideas.

I haven’t yet learned how to shake those voices for good. They keep coming back, clouding my thinking, making me miss things.

Am I giving up? Hell no.

I’m staying committed to justice. To learning. Growing. Supporting. Voting. Campaigning. Protesting.

And pushing other white people to do the same.

Read up, fellow allies.

Speak up, fellow allies.

Act up, fellow allies.

Because if we are not being anti-racist, we are being racist. If we are not fighting white supremacy, we are supporting white supremacy.

That’s something we can never forget.