The Rightful Discomfort of White Privilege...

Last week I wrote about my anger over the Dominic Cummings story. I'm still angry. About all the little things that contributed to it, preceded it, or have followed from it. I'm angry at the government's incompetence at handling the Coronavirus pandemic. I'm angry at Brexit and that no one in power will admit the country is in desperate need of an extension to the transition period. I'm angry at the political game-playing by Rhys-Mogg, in his forcing only the well and physically-able MPs to queue all day in Parliament, and the ridiculousness of the Government announcing compulsory facemasks on public transport, eleven weeks after a national lockdown. I'm angry at it all.

Liverpool Tuesday 2nd July 2020.
Story here, photo credit: Liverpool Echo.

But that's a Downing Street-centric list of anger-making events. There's so much more to be angry about, and yet this is where I question how to express it appropriately. The anger I'm feeling is over injustices towards people whose experience I have never had. It's correct that I am angry. It's correct that I'm enraged. But it's wrong to feel like I'm the victim when I'm anything but. The killing of George Floyd in the US has prompted Black Lives Matter protests all over the world. There was one in Liverpool last week. It feels right that people are expressing their anger. Especially when it seems that it's having some effect. (The charges were increased for the police officers that killed or were involved in the killing of Mr. Floyd, a few days after the protests started.) And I get that despite us being slap-bang in the middle of a global pandemic, this is just as important. (As the writer Lucy V Hay* highlighted on Twitter, 'Both COVID19 and racism are pandemics and affect the BAME population disproportionately.') The trouble is, I am riddled with white privilege. I've known this for a long time but it doesn't make it any fairer. I've only ever been stopped by the police when I've been legitimately speeding. I've never been openly viewed with suspicion for walking, shopping, or going about my business. I have never once had to consider the colour of my skin in relation to unfair treatment. It's something I have no experience of at all. Not negatively anyway. I have, however, seen it work positively towards me - if positive is the right word for unfair treatment against others. A few years ago, I took an early morning flight to Portugal. In the quiet of the security lanes, there were three groups of people going through at the same time. Me and my white partner walked straight through within seconds. As we put on our shoes and sorted our bags, we saw the other two groups had been held up for a bag search. A black couple, and a brown family. It was stark and obvious and wrong. 

Exactly this.

I said I'm not the victim, and I'm definitely not. Yet society is worse for all when there's inequality and injustice. It benefits every white one of us to want power structures that ensure justice for everyone, not justice for some. We should all want to eradicate systemic racism, even those of us who don't feel its brunt in a million ways every day. We should, but we haven't quite got round to that yet. That's not good enough. And I think it is possible to empathise, if we try. We must try. I've experienced lots of sexism, and once or twice, real misogyny. I know the feeling of being treated differently because of something integral to my identity, something beyond my control. Perhaps my attempts at empathy are based on that. Because it shouldn't need to be said that black lives matter, but it is needed, and they do. And as a white person saying that, it feels woefully inadequate, but it cannot be taken for granted that everyone gets that as basic fact. Not if they struggle to put themselves in the shoes of others. 

Over the past week I've found well-meaning white people can sometimes sound a bit do-goodery online. Or else they emphasise their ignorance by commenting about an issue they think they know. Like, nothing any white person can say, can be worth hearing right now, surely? And yet here I am, trying to show my support and solidarity, without making it all about me and my opinions. I mean well but that's not enough for a free-pass. It's piggy-backing on someone else's pain and lived-experience. (This article by Natalie Denny explains very clearly what that lived-experience is.) I don't want to push my voice louder than those that protest for their own black lives, but nor do I want to be silent and leave them to it. In her speech to students last Thursday, The Duchess of Sussex said, 'The only wrong thing to say, is to say nothing.' So I won't do that. But I also won't pretend to know the feelings of people that have experienced either blatant racism, or the micro-aggressions of a systemically racist society, every day of their lives. As Sophie Hagen tweeted last week, 'Acknowledging your own white privilege is uncomfortable. It's not meant to be nice.' It isn't nice but it is easier done than you'd think. If you watch the short clip below, you'll see Jane Elliot - who was part of the A-Level Psychology curriculum back in the day - highlight very easily the privilege that white people can struggle to accept. 

So here's one practical thing I have done and others can do too. Donate money. It's a drop in the ocean, but it's something. I chose the Anthony Walker Foundation because it's local to me but there are many more out there. I particularly like the ones where bail funds get split between the different cities that need them. It feels like a positive thing to do. But in a society where some people that share my skin colour are literally getting away with murder, it's hardly anything at all.

Have a lovely week, folks.


*Lucy V Hay tweeted that via her script editing account, Bang2write.