Re Post from Smoking Hot Politics’ Julie Driscoll (Friend of the TPI). we are also posting a video that is rapidly moving around the internet. We call it the “Old Guy!”
I WISH I COULD HAVE SHARED MY WHITE PRIVILEGE WITH TRAYVON
Posted July 14th, 2013 by Julie Driscoll
I would give anything – anything – if I could have bequeathed to Trayvon Martin, on that dark night in Sanford, Florida, the white privilege I’ve enjoyed all my life.
If only Trayvon would have had, that night, what I have. I could have walked down that street in a hoodie, kicking back, talking on the phone, and as soon as Zimmerman saw my white face, he would have moved on. I’ve never been randomly stopped because I’m a white female, and he wouldn’t have dared do it that night – my white face, and its attendant privilege, would have stopped him in his tracks. I could have walked down that Sanford, Florida, street totally unimpeded, and I would have made it to that home and I wouldn’t have been shot and killed.
If only Trayvon would have had, that night, what I have, he wouldn’t have had to feel the thrill of panic when he realized he was being followed. He would have known – arrogantly, maybe, but as the result of a lifetime of taking white privilege for granted – that he had all the right in the world to be wherever he wanted to be. Had Trayvon had what I have, he could have confronted Zimmerman in outrage – as I would have – and Zimmerman would had to back down in the face of an authority far greater than even his own.
I live in a diverse, largely urban, community; we share this community with other whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians. I’m so accustomed to young black males at my house, walking down the street with friends, playing music, behaving as all young kids do everywhere, that it’s not a blip on my radar. I live in this community, but I’m separated from it too – I’m white, and I’ll never know the black experience. Not really, not ever.
Our hearts are sick and sore at the “not guilty” verdict rendered by a largely white female jury; we rage at a faceless society that would allow an unarmed young black man to be shot and killed and not require anyone to be held accountable for it; we realize that it’s never going to make sense to those of us who are, truly, color blind in our dealings with other human beings. And part of my rage and pain and anguish is because it occurs to me that if only I could have bequeathed to Trayvon Martin what I have, what I take for granted every damn day as “Wendy WASP,” he would be alive today. If only he could have morphed into me, for ten fateful minutes, he would have turned and gazed at George Zimmerman, and George Zimmerman would have likely driven off into the darkness.
I want to live in a country where young black males don’t have to be me – a white person – simply to survive.
End Julie Driscoll
We are going to end this with a rather brash but apropos video of a guy who held a camera and told George Zimmerman what he feels about the developments since the night Trayvon Martin was stalked and killed.