sapphiredoves:

I seriously put a lot of thought into this, and this is what I came up with:

When you’re born White, your entire life is privilege, and not necessarily the type of privilege that gets you a free brand new sports car for looking pretty for the salesman, or being in the same race as the salesman, but the type of privilege where your beauty is never questioned, it is never challenged, it is certain and direct where you live and everywhere you go.

When you go to job interviews and there’s a Black person also there for the job, you feel the shift in your favor when the person interviewing comes out to greet you both. You feel that intangible second pat on your shoulder ensuring you you’ll get the job, regardless of whether the Black person gets hired or not. Your spot is secured. When you walk into your job and pass through security, you feel the slightly more relaxed demeanor the guards have with you than the Black person behind you. But why note it? Why stop it? The shift is in your favor. When you go out to the mall with your friends, you notice how calm and friendly the store associates are when you enter, pleasant, aren’t they? But you know that had your skin been 10 shades darker, the welcome would’ve felt a little less welcome and the smiles a little less genuine, and you would’ve been silently trailed throughout the store to make certain nothing found its way into your pockets or bags. But your skin buys you that trust that you won’t. And after seeing how Black people are often so easily caught shoplifting, you think they are rightfully so treated this way. After all, way less Whites steal, you can all afford what you want. At least, that’s what you’ve been taught, isn’t it?

You can turn on the TV and find yourself in anything. Commercials, TV shows, advertisements are all geared toward you. You are the star consumer. You are the mandatory customer base they must have. Blacks, if shown, are only there to keep the race problem to a minimum, and you know this, and you understand it, but it’s not your problem. Why would it be? You’ve heard Blacks called name after name, maybe only on TV, maybe from your grandparents or even your parents, even if it’s not the explicit “N-word”, you’ve heard the way they speak about them without trying to sound racist. “We don’t want you going to those parties,” “Why can’t you make some normal friends?” “What are you wearing? You look like a hoodlum,” all while fiercely protesting their racism and you agree, because what their saying is true. You know in the back of your mind that those hoodlums are nowhere near as high on the totem poll as you. And you’ve lived this way for so long, it’s normal, it’s expected, it’s accepted, and it feels sort of earned even though it isn’t.

And now the Black Lives Matter movement is the first time you don’t see yourself included as the mandatory client. You are not the focus of this ad or movement. You are actually, excluded, in some aspects, and you don’t know how to be excluded. Your entire life Black people have been the one person in the background of your favorite show with one or two lines that make the stereotype that we all have little to no regard for the English language and believe the “thug life” is the only way of life. But we get representation, in your mind. We invaded every aspect of your life with our token Black characters, and because we afforded you that possibly tiny bit of discomfort when our faces flashed across your TV screen, you feel we should be happy with that, because we were “included”. But you can’t find yourself in the sea of Black faces chanting and protesting. You can’t find one person screaming and rooting for you in the midst of the madness. And you shouldn’t. But that aspect keeps you awake at night because for the first time in your entire life, you’re experiencing exclusion that you don’t feel is fair. You feel a sense of entitlement to be included in everything now because it’s been that way your entire life. You don’t know another way of life. “But I’m not racist!” You’ll yell until your throat is raw, and I can honestly say your constant need to force yourself into this movement makes me not believe you. My advice, learn to live with your first encounter of exclusion based on your race, it may open your eyes just enough to see why we’re chanting in the first place.