White privilege is …
- Not worrying you’ll wind up dead if the police pull you over for failing to signal a lane change or for not having a front license plate.
- Not worrying you’ll wind up dead if the police stop you on suspicion of shoplifting.
- Not worrying police will kill you for selling cigarettes on the street corner.
- Not worrying police will kill you for carrying a BB gun in the toy aisle of a Walmart that also sells firearms.
- Not worrying police will kill your son for playing with a toy gun at a neighborhood park.
- Not worrying the volunteer neighborhood watch captain will kill your son for walking home at night after buying candy at a nearby convenience store.
- Knowing you and your friends can safely show up in body armor and carrying semiautomatic rifles in a predominantly black community where angry protesters are confronting the police.
- Knowing you can safely show up with your semiautomatic rifle slung across your back at a public event where the country’s first black president is speaking.
- Knowing you can kill nine black worshippers at a historically black church and the first question people will ask is whether you are mentally ill, not whether you are racist.
- Knowing that when pundits, politicians, and the media panic over extremism, the dangers of radicalization, and the threat of homegrown terrorists, they’re not talking about you or your group.
- Knowing that if you are a celebrity charged with the horrific murder of your ex-wife and her friend, the last thing you have to worry about is whether Time Magazine will doctor your mug shot to make your skin look darker.
That’s white privilege.