All of us have been hearing the narrative about white privilege for so long. It seems to have been a long-standing thing but the first time I became aware of all the turmoil was with Collin Kaepernick taking a knee in 2016. He said he could not stand to show pride in a flag of a county that oppressed black people. Kaepernick and his teammate, Eric Reid, wanted to bring awareness to the issues of racial inequality and police brutality.
In the past, I felt that I personally had dealt with racism against me but according to society now, it was not actually racism. Number one, I was white and number two, racism is not racism unless it involves power. It is simply racial prejudice which alone is not racist.
I remember being in 7th grade. I was old enough to walk home after school on my own. I did not live far enough away to ride a bus even if I wanted to and both my parents worked so I was on my own. Shortly after starting 7th grade, I started getting followed home by a group of 5 or 6 girls. I did not know these girls personally but knew of them. I would not think this next part is important but every single one was Hispanic. This was not strange as I grew up in a predominantly Hispanic area. I never thought a thing about it until these girls started calling me every name in the book and had to extend the “stupid white girl” into everything they said. Yes, they made it clear they didn’t like me because I was white.
It started with yelling, then pushing and before long I was getting jumped by these girls every single day after school. I was embarrassed to say anything. I also had a horrible attitude about it before long and tried to fight back but I won’t lie, I was a twig. I took it daily, not necessarily brutal but never a pleasure. I didn’t want to tell my parents because I knew they would freak out and I definitely didn’t want to be the rat because I knew more would come later if I did. I felt more anger than anything because I felt I had no control. I hated going to school and would think of every reason not to. I ditched a lot!
Finally, one day, a death threat came to my home via phone and my mother answered. They, me knowing who exactly it was, told my mother that they were going to kill me. My mom never gave me details, but I know she was visibly upset and shaken. I broke down and told my mom and let her know it had been going on the whole school year. I begged her not to call the police and in exchange, she took me out of school and homeschooled me.
This was just a glimpse of some of the things that I went through at that early age for simply being a “white girl.” I’m sure you could attribute it to just a bad bunch of girls, but it happened to quite a few other people I knew. I have heard every excuse in the book for why they acted that way, but I knew they hated me because I was white. I was shocked because growing up until that began, I never realized that I was a minority or even anything different than anyone else. From that age on though, I realized I was not always liked and that I was a minority in my area. Someday I might share more about other situations that made me aware.
I’m glad to know that according to the woke community, I was never a victim of racism and that my instances did not attribute to anything other than some prejudice. I’m glad that because of my skin color, my feelings are less important and less relevant. Woke society rocks.
Let us know your thoughts.
