I am white. And I benefit from white privilege. Before I wrote this, I spent a lot of time soul searching trying to decide how I felt about it. I know that some of you will have a knee jerk reaction to this — especially if you're white. I know you aren't used to being defined by your race or singled out because of it. I also know that you will probably bristle at the word privilege. Privilege makes it sound like we are part of high society, that we've never had struggles and misfortunes or that we've always been treated fairly. Privilege in this sense doesn't mean any of those things. Some in the media purposely confuse privilege to mean you haven't worked hard or earned the accomplishments you've made. They use privilege to mean that everything's come easy to you. I have struggled with my health - I get CT scans for cancer every several months. I have
struggled economically - due to health reasons I lost my business, laid off my employees and had to declare bankruptcy. I have struggled socially with personal relationships - I am divorced. Many Whites in my boat would probably say, "Hell man, if there's one thing my life ain't - it's privileged." And they'd be right. But I still benefit from white privilege. I don't feel guilty for being White. I also don't feel guilty for benefiting from white privilege and neither should you. I'm not here to race shame you. My goal is to help you understand, as I have understood, some ways that I have it easier because of the color of my skin. For those of you who are still feeling defensive, how about instead of acting like we gain a privilege for being White, let's frame the argument in a different way — Blacks lose privileges for being Black. In this way we avoid discussing it as…