Are you able to walk into a store at any time of the day, wearing anything you want, without getting a second look by any of the workers? Are you able to shop for "nude" colored items with the secure knowledge that NUDE means YOUR NUDE? Are you able to buy birthday cards, watch movies, and aspire a career with people of your skin color being represented? If the answer to any of those questions was yes, then you are benefiting from white privilege.

Black men die an average of seven years earlier than any other group of people in the entire world. Their leading cause of death: heart disease. Is my own scholarship advisor, friend from school, and/or my best friend's boyfriend supposed to be expected to continually be stressed about getting killed? No, they're not. But the reality is that African-American individuals are SYSTEMATICALLY, RADICALLY, INTENTIONALLY, denied what we, as white people, get without even trying.

In addition to that realization above, I realized something very important. BLACK LIVES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHITE FEELINGS. Take that in for a second. BLACK LIVES are MORE IMPORTANT than WHITE FEELINGS. Police violence and the hatred around this world is founded on the belief that white feelings matter so much more than any life. That's clearly a problem.

It scares me every single day that goes by that those I love are going to be killed because no one sees them for who they really are: human. My roommate/best friend, mentors, friends, classmates, and so much more have to live a life I will never be able to know because they live in a fear I don't have to experience because of the color of my skin. There is nothing right about that sentence.

Not a minute in a single day passes by that I don't experience white guilt. I feel a guilt within my soul because of the simple fact that I have so much more privilege because of my skin color than others have. I can walk into a store without being looked at or followed around. I can enter a building and not have people ask to touch my hair. I can do things that make me feel unbelievably guilty just for being myself.

The reality is that that guilt will never be comparable to the feelings that others feel because of their skin colors. Moving past that guilt is the only way in the world that anyone will be able to enact any kind of change. And that is exactly what I plan on doing.

It is time for a change to come.