Privilege

I've been mostly numb for almost a month, since May 25, 2020 when George Floyd was murdered and our country caught fire. Just as the pandemic caused us to collectively re-evaluate our country's health care system, political and governance systems, retail, dining, gambling, cruise ships and more, this is a switch to focus on basic flaws in the core of the United States of America. We are a country founded and largely built on the back of enslaved Africans who were literally kidnapped and imported. Many of our key institutions were created by white people for white people, and much of the country's wealth was created by black people. For white people.

One of the reasons for my numbness is that I'm reckoning with my own privilege, and the possibility that there is racism in me.

Clearly, I have benefited from being a while male American. My parents went to college, and my dad has a PhD. I had access to all the advantages, and I was able get a masters degree from a decent university. I have lived in very white, safe communities all my life. I have known people of color, and have called several of them friends. But that proves nothing.

My tastes in music, and how they have evolved have shown me things that have bothered me as I've reflected. When I was growing up, early in the 70s there was a choice between the Jackson 5, the Osmond Family, the Partridge Family and some other kid-friendly acts. The Jackson 5 was the best of them from the standpoint of musical quality, but not my choice. I have good taste in music, so this bothers me. I'm pretty sure it just felt like it wasn't my music.

Through college my musical tastes became more varied than in my upper Midwest small town high school world. But my favorites were white for the most part.

When the Beastie Boys released Licensed to Ill in 1986 I remember specifically why I disliked them. I felt like they were white guys doing black music and that was fake. Hip hop wasn't their music. I didn't even listen to it! Now the B Boys are one of my favorite bands. Started loving them 10 or 15 years ago. That makes me feel ashamed. It makes me feel like maybe part of me was, and who knows maybe still is racist.

Long before the racially motivated police brutality dumpster fire of the last month, I have been drawn more and more to hip hop. Beastie Boys were my gateway drug. Public Enemy became a big part of my play lists back in November or December. That led to De La Soul. Which led to A Tribe Called Quest. Which led to Wu Tang Clan.

My bored pandemic-boy mind was drawn to hip hop. And James Brown, and the J.B.s, and Johnny Lee Hooker, and John Coltrane.

And now here we are. I'm still listening to that music. Would I have called it 'black music' back in the 80's and 90's? I was not listening to it, because I didn't think of it as my music. Which implies that I thought it was their music. Those people. Them, not us. What the fuck. That sounds a lot like racism.

Privilege. White privilege is a sin that the USA has been committing since before even the Revolutionary War. The core of the sin is that it steals from anyone who is not white. It steals potential, and real estate, and money. And it comes with a whole different experience with authority. We the privileged have no fucking idea what it's like to live as a brown person. Every traffic stop is a chance to have a nightmare. Bankers look at you differently. Shopkeepers look at you differently. You know they do.

Those of us who have seen the light of this issue of privilege owe it to our fellow citizens of all races  to call it out when we see racism. Because racism makes the world a worse place and it's a problem only white people can solve. So if the cops seem to be overly aggressive to someone, film it. Make them explain their actions. Be a witness. If you see somebody being rude or hassling someone of color, get involved. Be a witness. You need to feel safe of course, but this is something that is important enough to bear some risk. Being silent is being complicit.

And you know what, honky? You need to be prepared to call yourself out. Because you just might have a tiny grain of racism in you that you didn't know was even there.

In my evenings during this troubling, anxious and largely solo time I've been having a beer and listening to hip hop. It calms me. I'm going to put on A Tribe Called Quest and open a cold one in a while. And I'll be thinking about my duty.