I have lived my whole life with white privilege. I haven't had to think about my whiteness and how it affects myself and others in modern society. I've never been denied school admission, a loan, or been racially profiled by the police. I live in Portland, OR, once described as the 2nd whitest city in the US, and had one black classmate and a handful of Asians in my graduating class of 350+ people. For most of my life, my privilege has been invisible to me. It's been the water that I swim in. As I've grown older and made friends with people of different races and began to have an awareness of how different our life experiences have been, I have been able to become mindful of my privilege and the opportunities that this has afforded me. Once mindful of my privilege, I have been able to actively chip away at the inertia and insulation that has kept me from experiencing the broad racial injustice that still exists in the US today. I am now quite open to listening to the experiences of people of color, empathizing and joining hands with them as we, together, attempt to create a society where skin color is less and less a predictor of level of education, health outcomes, and economic success.
