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This is my open letter to black lives matter and all persons of colour.In my own life I am constantly in turmoil as I negotiate my white privilege. While learning about this concept in school I went through interesting stages of defenses The first stage was denial. " What do you mean I suffer from white privilege and it hurts those who are not white? I am not racist! Denial is powerful and keeps us stuck in the comfort of our delusions about ourself and the world. Yes my inability to examine my own white privilege was hurting others. While I was not directly or openly hurting colored persons I was in fact hurting them like it or not.The second stage for me was anger. How dare I be accused of such things! I learned that everyone was the same and that we should ignore each other's differences. Well just like marriage that doesn't work! Instead I must acknowledge that I am different before I can truly humble myself to understand racism.The third stage for me was sadness. A profound sadness that this was the world I live in. THat racism is beyond my white privilege and embedded in systems that reinforce racist ideologies and policies that we as a society still live by today.As Bobby Kennedy said best, " oppression breeds violence." Isn't this what we are seeing?To unpack white privilege is a journey of intense emotions that is difficult to negotiate.
