One of the greater things about white privilege is that it affords a white person the chance to be heard. Everyday, people of color protest the injustices and racial abuse that they experience, and find troves of white people relentlessly downplaying their reality, calling it a “victim mentality” and chalking it up to another example of people segregating themselves. Citing examples of poor white people who in their eyes have no privileges and are just as unfairly treated as people of color. Calling it classism and not racism, saying that the media has blinded us all and is forcing us to see racism where it doesn’t exist. In their happy little Bob Ross painted worlds, racism is a thing of the past and people of color are polluting the American culture by dredging up these psuedoracist incidents, further dividing an already divided world. In their eyes, we are the culprits, the element of society that won’t let America heal, constantly chipping at an old wound, making it bleed afresh every time they try to forget about their shameful heritage.

To those people, I present the aftermath of the Jenny Lundt facebook post. If you go and see her post, you will see tons of people praising her, showering her with adulations and admiration for being a hero. A true revolutionary who wasn’t afraid to speak the truth and expose the racism that still exists in American society. To those people, I ask, where is this response when you see black men being incarcerated everyday while white men walk free for the same crimes or more? Where is this overpouring of attention when black children are being shot by the police everyday, while your own white children are being raised in the ignorance afforded by their skin? Where is this praise when black activists march up and down the city squares all over the country screaming “Black lives matter” and all they hear back is All lives matter. Where is this immediate acceptance of the truth when I tell people that I have been consistently racially profiled every time I fly in from India, because of the melanin in my skin, my hair, my beard? Why do we face the suspicion while Jenny Lundt gets the praise?