I am not white privilege

First, let me tell you a little about myself and why I believe white privilege is not only real, but how it harms the country as a whole. Now I know that most people will say that white privilege is not about the color of my skin but what the color of my skin gets me. But is that not one in the same? So I would like to tell you why "white privilege" doesn't make sense. In order for me to do this I need to go back to my childhood.

I know, people say it's not about child hood or life experience, it's about what it gets you and how you are treated. But it's not; plain and simple it has nothing to do with the color of your skin. That's not to say that police do not or have not mistreated or treated black people and minorities in general as a lesser human.

But those are individuals and individuals do not represent a race. However, let me get back to my childhood. My childhood to say the least, was horrific. I can't lie from 2 to 6 years old it was not bad. I had my mom who loved my sister and I very much, and a dad who I thought for the longest time was my real father but as a kid you don't think of that so he was my dad.

It wasn't until that man sat me on his lap one day and told me that he was leaving and never coming back and that he wasn't even my dad. He said that my mom lied to him and though he never told me the lie, knowing my mom I don't think that was even true at all. But after that day it all changed.

My mother had me at 18 so she was still young and I the man she was dating was almost twice her age but she loved him and I believe deep down he did love her as well. So my mother dating this man for years, I think she just was in a rush to find someone else.

Unfortunately the person she did meet she couldn't see the Evil this man had in him. Now I was around 7 years old when this man gave me his first "spanking" over something stupid like whining about my dinner. I remember it like yesterday. It was in an apartment complex, the simpsons were brand new and playing on the t.v.

My mother told me to go in the corner and I remember him yelling at my mom for the first time in front of me and said "he needs a F'n beating not put in a corner". My mom didn't even have time to say anything before he grabbed my arm lifted me by my arm and carried me in the bedroom, layed me over his leg, pulled my pants down and I can't remember if he just had a belt ready or took his off but either way he beat me until my mom yelled at him to stop and he literally threw me off his knee and told my mom she's to soft on us kids. Sorry to say she had no idea what he meant by that.

Now I don't know what caused the next thing to happen but something caused this man to take my family ( I say kidnapped because no one knew where we were ) and move us out somewhere in Eatonville Washington and to this day I don't know why or if he even knew prior he was doing this.

What I do know is he moved us into a truck camper that you put in the bed of a truck. It was so small that at 8 years old I could touch both sides of the walls. Not only that we had no heat, electricity, and an outhouse, literal outhouse for a bathroom.

I was 8, my sister was 6 and my mom was around 26. This "man" would put me to work doing things grown ups would do like digging a draining ditch so rain wouldn't swamp the camper and again I was 8, an 8 year old is around 3 or 4 feet tall and I had to dig a ditch 20 feet long and 4 feet deep. Trust me, I never forgot the words he told me and fear was the reason I never forgot.

If I wasn't working fast enough I got beat. Not with a hand but with anything, belt, shoe, fist, branches, basically if he could see it he used it on me. Also we had to hunt for our food. an 8 year old went hunting with a 12 gauge shotgun for food. I look back now and sometimes ask what is this the 1800's? So we went hunting one day and without getting into it he decided to add molesting and rape to his accolades of abuse.

I watched my mom get beat for sticking up for me, I got beat for sticking up for my sister and the fear he put in us I will never forget. An 8 year old should never have to recognize the face of fear on their mom. But I do, it's seared into my head to this day. But my mom, knowing she could get killed did the bravest thing.

She told him she was leaving to go somewhere (I wasn't around for that conversation) and he left right after and told me the same crap if I don't have at least 4 feet of that ditch dug he was going to kick the shit out of me. The next day Dennis left to go hunting and my mom told us she needed to leave and I remember both of us begging to go with her and she was crying telling us it was going to be alright and we needed to wait here.

she left and then about 20 minutes later my grandparents came pulling up. my mom risked her life to call them to get us out of their. I don't know what happened when dennis came back and it was just my mom and him. But what I do know is I was out of his reach finally and maybe could have some resemblence of a normal childhood.

White Privilege?

The reason I wanted to go to my childhood is I wanted people to know I didn't have any "privilege" as a child whatsover. I had a childhood most people wouldn't believe or could live through with my outcome. So what happened after my grandparents came and grabbed me from Eatonville Washington? They moved me to Coeur d'Alene, idaho which was about an 8 hour drive if I remember .

we moved into a single wide trailer which still compared to what I lived in prior was like winning the lottery. My mom in order for Dennis (the name of the man who kidnapped us) to keep him from coming up and literally killing us stayed with him. so it was just my grandparents and I living in idaho.

We were poor, I mean really poor. No thanks in part to their gambling problem of course, but even without that we would be no better off. I remember having to wear the same clothes over and over again while getting teased at school for it. Then my grandparents in order to pay rent had to pawn all of my stuff I was saving up like baseball cards a guitar my mom got me for a christmas present.

We were so poor I ended up having to work at 14 to keep money for me and to help when needed. Which meant I had to drop out of school. Cops got called one day to our house for a concern of the living conditions. the cops literally looked at us didn't go inside and left. White privilege?

It wasn't until I finally saw my grandparents talking to the landlord and they explained someone broke in and stole the money they had saved up for christmas and rent. Which of course was not true, they gambled and lost it. I know that because my grandpa told me "gosh doug, I don't know what I'm going to tell our landlord about our rent".

This is where I make my arguement about white privilege, I was 14 and decided I did not want this life. I knew I would have it if I didn't do something about it. Every member of my family is on some sort of welfare for a reason that they shouldn't be on it for. I know I would be as well if I didn't do something.

What made me different was my childhood. Dennis told me I was a piece of shit, I would never be a man, I would never make it as a person in life and so on. Then the kids in school said basically the same thing I was poor, I was a joke, I should just kill myself, you know, teenage stuff. I use to say I got sick of people telling me that I would fail and I was worthless that those things inspired me to prove them wrong but it wasn't the reason

My life was the reason, I didn't get the chance as a child to become my own person. How could I know if I was going to be a piece of shit if I didn't know I really was a piece of shit? I got inspired because I wanted to know myself if I really was a piece of shit. So that's what inspired me to join the military at 16.

I made a hard decision, a choice most people in my situation never makes. I see people all around me using their surroundings as an excuse to rationalize the person they are and honestly I get both mad and sad. Mad that they take the easy route blaming everything else for their failures and sad that they don't have the confidence I see they could have.

I'm not a magician, I'm not any different than anyone else, my only difference between people is the choice I made. But not one time did I have any privilege for it. Cops didn't give a shit about a poor white boy. people didn't care that I was even human because I was poor. I had to make myself the person I am.

Throwing the word privilege around makes your whole point mute. when a single white person can show you they have had no privilege then why do you insist it still exist? People look at the court system as white privilege as well. Well look at it, Dennis didn't even spend a day in prison for the rape and molestation he did to me. NOT ONE DAY. Wheres my white privilege for that?

It's unfortunate that some black people get looked down on but not all of them. It's also unfortunate that some black people don't have the confidence to know they can be whoever they can but it takes work. I'm going to be blunt and yes it's going to really make some of you mad but it is the truth and sometimes the truth hurts.

Using your surroundings as an excuse to be the person you are today is not an excuse. If it was I wouldn't have joined the army, wouldn't have a full retirement, own my home and my vehicles and be happily married. It's the truth. That being said not everyone is the same.

Thats why white privilege is completely false and hurts America. It divides us and gives each other an excuse to hate the other. Police have a tough job and honestly if you walked up to a car with people wearing colors and playing music talking about killing the very person you are, would you walk up to that vehicle with open arms?

Maybe in a perfect world but this is anything but that. At the same time how many perfectly normal looking white people ended up shooting at police and fighting back? tons, so police have no idea who the person they are walking up to are.

However we know who they are, we know we have rights and we know how we are suppose to act around them. It's as simple as this, if you do what you are suppose to do, listen to the officer, don't do something you know you shouldn't do then you should make it out alive and fine.

That's not white privilege is knowledge. If your rights are violated then don't fight back, sue the crap out of them. You may not know this but each time they get sued the insurance to insure that department shoots through the roof if they keep that officer.

What I'm saying is this, white privilege does not happen to everyone and if it doesn't happen to everyone then you can't label it for everyone. I can't label all black people one thing when an entire race doesn't fit into one category. Not all white people get this white privilege thing.

Not all white people support how the police have treated African Americans, not all white people are racist. Not all white people feel scared around a black person. If you want to label a person then label "a person" not "people". But that still does not solve any issue we have in America.

I don't have an answer and anyone who says they do is pretty much either lying or tricking you into something. Don't follow someone who says they do. Don't follow anyone, do what you feel is right and open your eyes and realize we all are not a label. we are a people, Americans.