Poor Poor Privileged Me

I had different topics that were scheduled to post last week, but due to the massive protests following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, those topics seem unimportant and disrespectful. Instead, I was silent. Out of respect, I’ve been reading and learning more about the systemic racism in our country and saving space for important voices to emerge. I hope you see the sarcasm in the title of this story, Poor Poor Privileged Me.

I’m a Pro

Of course, as a former human resource professional, I have a lot of experience working with diversity initiatives.  In fact, I taught diversity awareness, and discrimination and harassment prevention classes to our management teams every year. I was also required to attend training for myself every other year, in addition to my required re-certification hours.  I have skillfully moderated disagreements between employees of all walks of life, and my biggest division had the highest percentage of minority employees of any of our lines of business, nearly 60%.

The Humble Beginnings

Even though we may have started from the same humble beginnings, I’m very aware that I’m privileged.  My parents were mere teenagers when I was born, and my dad worked nights while going to school during the day.  Mom worked too.  We lived in the projects in Mar Vista, California. I’m sure this time of our lives was hard on my parents.  Still, we had opportunities others in the same neighborhood didn’t have.  My parents worked hard, and I was taught to work hard too.  But I was white and pretty, and I was treated different than others because of that. 

The “De”-Segregated South

My father’s job took us to Florida in the mid-60’s, and although I was only 4 or 5, I still remember a big lesson I learned when playing with a black girl on the beach.   I remember my friend was grabbed by the back of her swimsuit and was yelled at by a white woman because we had gone to get a drink at the drinking fountain…the white drinking fountain.  My mom watched this happen and came charging through the sand to rescue us. 

Mom was very mad at that other lady, and she told her what she thought of her.  She then told the two of us little girls to head on over to the blanket to play where she could see us. I still remember mom’s animated gestures and angry body language as we watched their interchange from the blanket.  I don’t remember where my friend’s mom was, or even how it happened that we started playing together.  But I do remember that was the first day I understood that life was different for me than for my black friends.  I didn’t even know there were separate drinking fountains, and changing rooms, and other stuff, before that day.  I was embarrassed for my friend, but I was ashamed for that hateful white woman. And I felt guilty that I got my friend in trouble, albeit unknowingly.

Almost 50 Years Later

My privilege was front and center in my mind as I covered for an employee who had to sleep in his car with his mother and little sister because they had to leave in a hurry due to violence in the home.

An employee called me for resources after his brother was shot and as the “patriarch” (at 26) he now had to help provide for two families, in addition to their elderly mother.

A trans employee counted on me to help navigate the awkwardness in the office, to help work through leaves of absences from surgery, legal name changes, advice on speaking with parents, and even professional attire recommendations.

This was all just part of the job. I hired, championed, mentored, and endorsed scads of minority men and women over my 35 years in management.  It was my honor to be entrusted with their stories, their experiences, their professional successes.  To be invited into their personal lives made me feel like I made a difference. I know that I did for many.

With complete confidence, I have been comfortable in the knowledge that I am not a racist.  I sincerely love people, all people, and rejoice in our differences.  But I can’t say, with complete confidence that I’ve never insulted someone out of my own ignorance.

If You See It, Say It

I’ve always spoken out when someone said something racist in my presence.  How could I let that slide?  More often than not, though, the person didn’t realize they were being racist…like the time a friend said, “You’re free, white, and 21.”, from the lectern in a training class. Ummm…my friend…that’s totally not cool.  Think a minute about what you just said.  Yikes.  She was appropriately embarrassed, and apologetic.

Like my friend, if you are a person of privilege, I bet you step in it sometimes, too.  You accidentally say something that has always been “just an old phrase”, without really understanding the deeper meaning of what you said.  We need to understand the origin of those old colloquialisms.

That’s why it’s so important for us to stop denying our racism and our privilege.  We need to stop avoiding the subject.  We have to be willing to take a deeper look at ourselves and each other and call it out with love.  For love. During this week of listening and learning, the trending idea is that it’s not enough to not be racists.  We must be anti-racist.

Poor Poor Privileged Me

Please don’t point to your challenging life and say that you’re not privileged. I get it. Life is really hard sometimes, and unfair! But I want to tell you a few stories that I have witnessed firsthand.  My daughter was married to a black man, and when we were travelling to the Caribbean for their destination wedding, my son-in-law was “randomly” searched at every TSA checkpoint we encountered along this journey.  Every. Single. One.  There were 4, coming and going. 

He was casually dressed, just like the rest of us.  He was clean cut, just like the rest of us.  The only difference between him and any other person in our group was that he was black.  Had this truly been random, each of us might have been detained, but it was just him.  Honestly, had each of us been detained at different stops, I still wouldn’t have felt that was random.  What are the odds in a small group that each person would be detained?  But the same person each time? How is that random?  I was annoyed and offended for him.  He just shrugged it off because it was a normal part of his life.

The Young Seminary Student

Another time, our church hired a young seminary student as a pastoral intern for a semester.  Brad was an excellent student of one of our full-time pastors who also was a professor at a nearby Christian university.  This student was black, and our neighborhoods were predominately white.  One night after a mid-week evening church meeting, he walked home by himself. 

Brad was dressed like any other student in an affluent beach city, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, vans sneakers, and a zippered hoodie.  He didn’t have the hoodie up over his head, like so many young people do.  He looked like the nice young man that he was, walking home from the church.  Yet the police stopped and harassed him, demanded I.D., made him sit on the curb while they ran background on him.  For no other reason than he didn’t look like someone they expected to see in the neighborhood.  Shameful!

Have You Had “The Talk”?

My friend James is a natural born leader.  He’s a great man, father, son, brother, and leader in his community, his church, and his workplace. James is also black.  This week he held a zoom meeting with the young men in his family to have the following conversation, because they want their young men to always come home alive.  They teach their boys some of the following. 

• Don’t put your hands in your pockets
• Don’t put your hoodie on your head
• Don’t be outside without a shirt on
• Check in with your people, even if you’re just down the street
• Don’t be out too late
• Don’t touch anything you’re not buying
• Never leave the store without a receipt or a bag, even if it’s only a pack of gum
• Never make it look like there’s an altercation between you and someone else
• Don’t drive with the music too loud
• Never leave the house without your ID
• Don’t drive with a wife-beater on
• Don’t drive with a dew rag on, don’t go out in public with it, either.
• Don’t stare at a Caucasian woman
• If a cop stops you randomly and asks questions, don’t talk back, just compromise
• If you’re ever pulled over, keep your hands on the dash and ask permission to get out your license and registration.

Of course, we all teach our kids some of these things.  But we don’t have to sit our kids down and have “the talk”, unless we’re referring to the birds and the bees.  We don’t have to ruin our children’s faith in humanity by teaching them that racism and discrimination is to be expected.

Nobody Spoke Out

Another story.  A well-known online entrepreneur, Patrice C. Washington was invited to New York to be on a talk show.  She was super excited to have been put up in a suite at a historic first-rate hotel.  The morning of her interview, she broke a fingernail.  Patrice called around to find a salon to get her nails done.  She put on her hat, because it was raining, and jumped into the elevator to head to the lobby.  As the elevator descended the many floors, Patrice greeted each passenger who got on, because that was how she was raised…to always say good morning to people. 

Ms. Washington chit-chatted with a youngish couple for several floors, and then others got on.  Finally, an older man and woman got on the elevator.  When they got to the lobby level, the older man stepped aside and said, “Ladies first.”, as he guided his wife and the other women off the elevator.  Finally, the black influencer went to step off, and the old man blocked the door with his umbrella and said, “I said, LADIES first.” 

She had every reason to feel as if she had “made it”.  Partrice is a young, beautiful, self-made entrepreneur. She’s smart and rich.  She is a sought-after speaker.  Any of us would feel like we were worthy to be staying in New York at this iconic hotel.  This Influencer was shocked and embarrassed and didn’t know what to do or say as all the rest of the men, looking sheepishly at the floor, got off the elevator.  Finally, she was the only one left, and she stepped out.

It was obvious to her that the rest of the people on the elevator were uncomfortable, and shocked as well.  She was used to experiencing these kinds of slights.  But the thing that hurt the most, and continues to infuriate her, is that nobody said anything.  Not even the couple she had enjoyed the nice chat with.  Nobody came to her aid.  Nobody said, “That’s not cool.”  I can’t even imagine.

Patrice Washington writes about chasing purpose, not money.  Her website is here: https://patricewashington.com/

You can hear her powerful story here on her Instagram post from last week.

Let’s Promise to Learn More

So, during my week of muted silence, I spent time really listening to stories.  The micro-aggression, the major injustices that black people deal with in their daily lives.  I’m so, so sad to think that people I really care about have to deal with this kind of racism every.single.day.

You won’t usually hear me talking politics or social issues, other than the occasional woman’s interest story, but today I felt it important to share my feelings about this critical topic. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable for real change to happen.

I am anti-racist, and I hope to never be that person who unwittingly offends another person with an ignorant comment.  I hope you’ll let me know if my unconscious bias is showing.  I’ll do the same for you, with love, of course.

We have to fix this.  Call it out when you see racism.  Educate yourselves so you aren’t unwittingly “that person”.  Treat ALL people with the same respect you’d give your grandmother.  I’ve written about the influence women have, but don’t use.  Let’s use it!

Let’s help each other do better.