Our country is in an uproar. The on-going and growing threat of Covid-19 has kept me house-bound for 3 months. Millions of lives around the world and here is the USA have been severely disrupted. The swirling social unrest, first aroused to protest police brutality, has morphed into much more- some of which is very disheartening and inappropriate. Near the top of the list of matters to contemplate has been the topic “White Privilege”. I have reflected upon that topic and have once again become aware that I have indeed been (and continue to be) someone who has benefitted from White Privilege. I decided to make a partial list and to share it. Here it is.
EDUCATION I went to excellent Lutheran elementary and secondary schools. Neither one would have allowed my enrollment had I been black. To the best of my knowledge there was not even a black public school available within 10 miles of my home which I could have I attended had I not been white.
PROFESSION I became a Minister of Religion in The Lutheran Church. Had I been black I would have had the option to attend one very low-quality Lutheran College in Selma Alabama. But If I graduated from that school there is no way on earth that I could have served in any white church organization if I had not been white. I cannot conceive any of the positions that I held in the first 30 years of my ministry as being open to a black person-even if somehow or other that person had a PhD degree.
HOUSING I lived for years in rental housing in areas in which there was strong agreement that the owner would rent to whites only. When I bought my first home in Crestwood, MO it was in an area where all agreed that no house would be sold to a black person.
TRANSPORTATION Much of my transportation while in high school and college was via hitch-hiking. Had I not been white I would have stood in vain on the side of the road with the thumb sticking in the air. When I took public transportation, I could sit in front of the bus while the Blacks had to sit in the designated area in the back of the bus. When I took the train to go to college I rode in the “whites only” coach. In the train station I drank from the “whites only” water fountain and used the “whites only” rest rooms Interestingly enough just a few years ago I was on an international flight from the Middle East through India. When I boarded the flight in Abu Dubai I noticed almost all the passengers were of a skin color other than mine. We had been aloft only a few minutes when the white flight attendant came to my seat. She said, ”Sir, I have an open seat up in first class. Why don’t you come sit there?”
POLICE Fortunately I have not had not many encounters with the police. I think I have been stopped about 8 times and got 2 tickets for speeding. Each time the police were very professional. They never asked me to step out of my car. While I cannot prove it, it is my fear is that had I been Black it might very well have been more threatening. I suspect (but cannot prove) that I encountered White Privilege.
Thank God many of the privileges I enjoyed are now available to all. Unfortunately, that does not mean that all disadvantages for people of color have been overcome. I need only to look at the topics like education, profession, housing, transportation and police to see that there continues to be inequality in access.
I reflect on all of the above in this week of the 4th of July. I thank God for the privilege of living in the United States of America. I make a vow that I will make an extra effort to do my part that the vision of our wonderful constitution, “to form a more perfect union”, might become a reality.
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