Lately, people are getting sick of the word "racism" and sick of everything becoming "all about race." But let's get real: racism is a problem. Consider how frustrating it is to talk about racism every day and imagine how frustrating it is to experience racism every day. Thank God you don't have to be on the fatal side of all of these news stories. Activist, Jamala Rogers stated, "The discomfort that people are going to feel is going to be real, but nothing compares to the daily life of [African Americans]."
As a white person in America, I can assure you that hearing about racism and racial issues on a daily basis is so minor compared to what all people of color deal with in America. I have never felt the need to start a video on my phone when I am being pulled over for fear of it ending fatally. I am never "randomly" searched in airports. I do not have to worry about being turned down for a job because of my skin color. So yes, acknowledging your white privilege can be uncomfortable, but just remember that people of color cannot ignore it. They cannot escape from the world of racism. That is another luxury that they do not have.
In a recent tweet, a group of young white women showed that after being pulled over for speeding, they explained that they were simply chasing the sunset. The kind police officer proceeded to escort the girls to watch the sunset. While this story seems like a nice one, someone noted on Twitter that it "sounds about white." People were upset that the story was suddenly made to be about race, but from the view of people of color in America, they know that they would not receive this treatment.
Black people in America are so accustomed to receiving unfair or unkind treatment from law enforcement that black parents are teaching their children how to handle an encounter with police. This advice goes beyond what I have been taught as a white person in America, which is simply to abide by the police officer's requests. The issue is not that black people don't follow directions; the issue is that it doesn't make a difference in today's society. One mother asks her daughter, "Why would a police officer assume that you did something bad?" To which her daughter replied with tears in her eyes, "Maybe because of my skin color." These parents are worried, because they know that extra precautions need to be made for their children to avoid police violence.
