I’ve often been amazed at the things people will say and defend.  Amazed.

For most of my life, I was accused of being too sensitive.

I love that.

Too sensitive.

I am too sensitive when I care about others feelings.  Or the impact my words or actions may have on another.

Wow.

Now I will be the first to say, I am not responsible for another person’s feelings.  Most of us aren’t in touch enough with our own emotions, yet are quick to take on the baggage of someone else’s.

That’s not what I do.

While I can’t control how another may react, I can increase my awareness around certain words or phrases, especially when dealing with someone different than me.

See, my sensitivity muscles were built around cultural issues.   They were easy to develop.  Trust me.

Here’s how:

When I was growing up in a community that was 98% Caucasian, I’d wonder why the white kids felt so comfortable comparing tans after summer break and saying in my presence, “You’re as dark as a nigger.”

Oh yeah…and the time I went to meet a friend’s parents for dinner and they apologized for not serving watermelon or fried chicken.

Uh-huh.

Oh, and there was the time that a boy’s family forced him to back of a date with me because the Bible says, “tribes don’t mix.”

And my all time favorite, whenever I would meet someone in a corporate environment whom I had been working with exclusively over the phone, “You don’t sound black.”

Yes, people are a trip.

Of course, they never mean anything by it. How dare I be “offended.”

For a long time, I was.  Now, I just wonder when we are going to get it.

Here are 3 quotes from news stories I’ve read recently:

“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” Hoh said.

“It has nothing to do with racism. I’m not doing it {asking his Spanish-speaking employees to Anglicize their names} for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don’t know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything,” Whitten says.

“We’re getting to the point where you can’t say Merry Christmas anymore,” he said. “Anybody who looks at these things and applies some common sense to it, I have a hard time seeing people saying it’s something bad.” (Frederick Maryland mayor’s response to display of 3 faceless dummies hanging in a willow tree, reminding some of the good old lynching days.)

I’m curious as to why a peacenik (pot-smoking or otherwise) who wants to see world peace is a bad thing. (Oh yeah, cause that cultural of violence and war is serving us so well.)

I wonder why I would be upset if someone asked me to change my name to Pedro because was Lisa was too confusing for others to say or pronounce. (Heaven forbid I try to learn something new or expand my horizons past Podunk, USA)

Hmmm…and if I lived in an country where lynchings were attended like a Saturday afternoon barbeque, why anyone might be offended at even the “joke” of a hanging. (Didn’t you know that they  postcard I have of the family with a dead man hanging from the tree behind them is a freakin’ collectors item?!)

Silly me.

And really, saying Merry Christmas isn’t offensive at all.  I guess I can now safely assume that Happy Hanukkah will be well-received by non-Jews this season.

Here’s what my buddy, Tim Wise, recently posted about the hotel owner’s position.  I see it as a response to anyone who thinks “political correctness” has run amok.

…here we see a few of the biggest problems with some white men: a sense of entitlement to do things as we please, to hell with others; a sense that others have to change to suit us, rather than ever having to change ourselves; and a belief that our way of doing things is best, even when it might well be racist, not to mention, stupid as hell.

Yup, stupid as hell.

Seriously, people. No one is asking you to tip toe around.  Just be willing to see things from another’s perspective.

Geesh…it isn’t that hard.

Seriously.

Many of  you know of my previous work as an internal diversity consultant in a conservative Fortune 50 company.   Few concepts moved me as deeply during my training as the concept of “white privilege”.   Having grown up in a predominately white environment in NW Ohio, I was all too aware as a child of how it plays out, but  I never was able to put it into words.

Tim Wise, a self-described “angry white male”,  was recently introduced to me by a dear friend.  Over the next few posts, I will be sharing some of his views.

It’s time for us all to THINK.  Not react, not be led, but to THINK for ourselves.  Inside, we know the truth.  Own it.  Face it.  Then be the change you wish to see.

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A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Tim Wise, www.TimWise.org

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s–while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do–like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor–and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college–you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a “light” burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.