It’s the elephant in the room and an ugly, inconvenient truth that some whites attempt to simultaneously deny and justify: the pervasiveness and power of White Privilege. As a woman of color who covers the topic often, I have encountered more than my fair share of folks who love to tell me, from their non-Black standpoint, that it’s not as I see it, hear it, feel it or experience it, because they aren’t responsible for racism and we Blacks should blah blah blah ad nauseum. Summarily, I’ve attempted to break down the obvious time and time again, with dissenters either apologizing for their ignorance, going completely silent or, more often than not, reverting to childish insults and insinuations that they hope will absolve them of error and guilt. That’s why it’s SO refreshing to read of a white man who gets it, owns it and even better, DEMANDS that his white peers hold one another accountable to change the climate. Brilliance!!!

“…..White privilege is especially the responsibility of white people to fix, not because we’re all racist schlubs like you are, but because white privilege itself means that we’re the ones who have the power to change it. Black people don’t have that power, again because of white privilege, and not because they aren’t sufficiently careful in the way they phrase their complaints about being mistreated. It’s our problem and our responsibility as white people to fix not because whites are collectively guilty, but because it is the responsibility of ALL PEOPLE to fight for decent treatment for ALL PEOPLE. It just happens that, because of our shithead ancestors and a helping handful of historical accident, we white people are the ones who can do something about it. When the finger on the trigger is white, it’s pointless to ask a black guy to lower the gun.