The Virus America Doesn’t Want To Address
In these troubling times where seeking to understand is key, here's an article on Medium.com published by WPNT Ltd. Associate Janice Hayes. Growing up in a bi-racial family her insights are particularly poignant.
The Pandemic of Privilege
What do a hedge fund manager threatening to call the cops on an Ivy league educated black man asking her to put a leash on her dog, a rogue cop digging his knee into the neck of a black man until he gasps for breath and dies on the street, and a father and son hunting down a black jogger in an Atlanta suburb because they thought he was a suspect in a string of home break ins have in common? They are the ugly faces of white privilege in America.
Faces that are downright terrifying to black and brown folks and frankly all too familiar in the labyrinth of American life. They are people who feel that they are entitled to their own set of rules, facts and reality simply because they are white. They have weaponized the privilege of their race to subjugate, suffocate and slander mine.
I wish we could social distance from their entitlement, their exaggerated love for themselves, and their undeserved fear and hatred for us. While Covid-19 is the virus everyone is talking about. Unchecked white privilege is the long simmering ailment that has infected America for the past 400 years and is tearing this country apart.
At this time, when one crisis is colliding with another, we have a unique opportunity to right the wrongs of the past and move forward in a way we can all be proud of. Or, we can continue to pretend like we are living in one nation with liberty and justice for all while black folks are marginalized and murdered.
The ugly truth is that America has had its collective knee on the necks of black folks metaphorically and physically for centuries. The only difference is today we have the atrocities on video so they are undeniable.
White privilege exists because of historic, enduring racism and biases that date back to slavery. Whiteness comes with an array of benefits and the almighty benefit of the doubt. It means white folks can call the cops and they will come quicker, it means they won’t mistake them for the perpetrator and make them the victim. It means living the American dream while being totally oblivious to the nightmare many American are living every day.
Pointing out that white privilege exists isn’t the same as accusing every white person of being a racist. Acknowledging that you might benefit from being white isn’t a form of self-hatred. It is a form of accepting reality.
During this pandemic one reason the virus affected black and brown people so harshly is because many people of color don’t have the privilege of social distancing. They don’t have the privilege of health insurance, they don’t have the privilege of quality health care and they don’t have the privilege of trusting a system that has so often betrayed them.
I glimpsed white privilege for the first time when I was a little girl. The daughter of a black man and a white woman I didn’t know what it was, but I saw how security guards followed my dad around the store while sales clerks scrambled to cater to my mother.
As I became a young adult I realized I was on two teams and one was clearly the underdog. It is why I have a soft spot for those whom everyone else counts out. It is why I stood with Colin Kaepernick when he took a knee to protest injustice and why I can’t/ I won’t sit still until the cop who used his knee to murder George Floyd is brought to justice and the citizens who stalked and murdered Ahmaud Arbery have their day in court.
Privilege is the reason we see time and time again that black and brown lives don’t matter as much as white lives. It is at the rotten head of the fish called 45 who flippantly asks African Americans and Latinos, what have you got to lose? Well, I am asking what you have to gain by allowing systemic racism to permeate our police departments, courts, schools and other aspects of society. Could it be if we are truly given equal opportunity we might uncover your fragility?
Privilege is why the white men, who carried guns and confederate flags to a so-called rally to reopen the country, were allowed to spit on law enforcement officers and walk away. If a black or brown person would have tried that, they would be up under the jail, if they lived long enough to get there.
Before Covid-19 privilege allowed some entitled white Americans to look down on and overlook those who clean their homes, mow their lawns, care for their children and ring up their kale until they realized they couldn’t live their privileged lives without them. Now some of those very same people won’t wear a mask to keep those who are serving them safe. The audacity of privilege.
A friend recently shared a story about a race educator who asked a room full of mostly white professionals to move to the other side of that room if they were willing to receive the same treatment that black people do in this country. No one stirred. It was as if they were paralyzed. Of course, that is their privilege.
Janice Hayes, a Las Vegas-based journalist and WPNT Ltd. Associate, writes on a broad range of topics at Medium.com.