Originally posted by NARCassist
when i was a kid i got beat up by four pakis coz i was white
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Originally posted by S6x
"Irish need not apply"
and Affirmative Action.
Let me tell you a little story about race and privilege.
Today I had two notable experiences with public transit. In the first instance, I was waiting at the bus terminal for my second bus to the university. There's a wait of approximately fifteen minutes between buses for the 1C line, and I had probably been out there for about ten minutes. It was around 0 degrees (Celsius) in Windsor when I was out (windchill making it feel like -6), and I was in fleece leggings that weren't doing much for me. Anyone looking at me hunching over into my scarf and shivering could tell I was cold. Here comes this middle-aged white man with one of those reusable grocery bags. I had a feeling he was going to stand in front of me and try to get on the bus first, despite the fact that myself and one young man had been waiting there longer than anyone else and had been given the unspoken priority space by the other commuters who came after us. However, the man went somewhere behind me, so I figured I was in the clear. A couple of minutes later, the bus shows up. As it's slowing down in front of us, the man marches up and plants himself in front of everyone else, even though he was one of the last people to show up. (Typical white male entitlement.) The aforementioned young man who was waiting as long as me was second, but he let me on ahead of him because he could likely tell I was really freaking cold. And, oh yeah, he was probably an actually decent human being. The douchenozzle middle-aged guy went on to take up two seats despite being perfectly capable of fitting in the space of a single bus seat.
Skip forward about an hour. I get on my second bus to come back home. I sit a couple of seats over from a young black man. I have my headphones on and I'm listening to music. A couple of minutes later, I can see he's talking to me, so I take my headphones off. He asks me if I can spare a toonie for a coffee. I tell him sure, and pull out my coin purse. He goes on to tell me that he's waiting for his Tuesday cheque to come in so he can buy some food. He says he has a guardian who's handling his money, and that when his birth certificate comes in from Detroit he'll be able to get some money to go to New York and try to make a name for himself. He's smiling the whole time, telling me excitedly about a trip to Florida over the summer when he got to meet Taylor Swift, and how he wants to be able to support his girlfriend in the future. He told me he came from the streets and that he was an orphan, but during our whole conversation he was so optimistic and hopeful. When my stop came up he told me his name, and I told him to enjoy his coffee (or two Boston cream donuts, as he told me "they're so good!" and he might get those instead). He thanked me and told me to enjoy my music.
Society tries to make us think that some people are more valuable than others. We're encouraged to believe that white middle-aged males are the neutral, the emblem of human experience, and that they don't do anything wrong - they're inherently moral. We're taught that we shouldn't give money to the poor because "they're probably just going to use it to buy drugs". We're led to believe that young black men are violent and rude, and are going to hurt or inconvenience us.
Yet my experience today contradicts all of those things that we're supposed to believe. There's a chance that the young man I spoke to on the bus might spend that money on cigarettes (he did admit to me that he smokes) because a nicotine addiction is hard to overcome; however, seeing his fingerless gloves and hearing that he hasn't eaten in three days, I can believe he's really going to Tim Horton's for coffee or donuts. As for the white man from earlier today, he's probably manspreading on another bus, asserting his privilege and showing everyone around him that he thinks he's better than them.
I don't know how the lives of these two men have gone, but I do know that the entitled white man, who has the privilege a warm coat and food (since he was holding a grocery bag and also appeared overweight), chose to be rude; and the poor black man, who asked for only a toonie and just wanted to have a friendly conversation, chose to be kind. Both of them have reason to act the opposite of how they did, due to their circumstances. Their choice of behaviour speaks volumes about the errors of social stigma.
