"white like me"

I read a chapter in the novel “WHITE LIKE ME” by Tim Wise” called privilege. That chapter was about white privilege and how common it is. I agree with a lot of what Tim is saying. Tim gave an example about how there have been 12 studies that show that white teachers will punish black students more often or more severely than they might punish a white student. I believe that. At my old school where blacks and Mexicans were more dominate, I could see how my teacher would spend less time trying to answer their questions and although my teachers would be nice to all the students, the second a child of color would do the smallest thing wrong they would be punished but at the same time there could be a white child who is the class clown and goofs off and gets away with it every day.

 A personal example of white privilege, I went out to the mall with 3 of my friends (all white girls) and as we were leaving a store beside a black mother and her two children, the alarm went off. We of Corse stopped to go back so the store clerk could check our bags but they stopped us and told us we were fine and they didn’t need to check our bags. But they DID check the mother with her two kids. As we walked out of the store again the sensor went off again so we knew it must have been something in our bags and we were right. The sales clerk forgot to take off one of the sensors from my friend’s shirt that she had just bought. The black women whose bags were checked had a disgusted and disappointed look on her face because she knew that the only reason why they suspected her was because of her race. It was really sad but this sort of stuff happens all the time.

 There was an example given in the book where were told to pretend we are a white man/women and we just got a new job in a billion dollar company and we chose not to pay off a company’s debt because that debt was from before we were hired. I think this is a horrible example of white privilege. That example isn’t an example of white privilege at all and a very unrealistic example. If you are hired to co-own a billion dollar company than you sure as hell know what you’re doing and you know your responsibilities. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would assume that even if they were to inherit a debt that was not originally theirs that they don’t have to pay it off. And I also don’t see how that example is only being applied to whites. That example could be of any race. Il admit that we, the white community still have a lot of apologizes to do for the black community for what our ancestors did 400 years ago and I have to own that. I feel awful for what my race has done to people. I think that even though I don’t want what other people did 400 years ago to be on me, I still need to show that I’m different than them and I do not believe in what they did. At the same time, I didn’t put anyone into slavery, and the blacks who are living today also weren’t in slavery and I have no personal connection to the matter. So no, I don’t think that I have to give an apology to every black person I see as if I had personally put them or their family into slavery but I do think that a public apology should be made from the whites to the blacks. I personally feel terrible about what happened but I do take responsibility for what my race has done. I think that blacks deserved a public apology years ago. Why they haven’t gotten it? No idea. I will do everything I can to treat people equally and not be biased towards one race. I hope that one day the black community gets the apology they deserve.