Sankofa Processing #2

One reason why it's been difficult to process through Sankofa is that it seems like so much has happened since then that is also pertaining to race, or racial righteousness, or discrimination. Maybe it's that I'm looking at everything through a different lens. I don't know, but check this out:

• The very next day a dog-walking neighbor and I were talking, and she started railing on the people in her building (she's White - they're African American and southeast Asian) and I had nothing to say in response
• Our whole group got an email from Mona, one of the event co-leaders, about her son who was almost arrested for DWB (driving while Black)
• My son's and my less-than-fabulous (yet oh-too-common for many) experience at Cook County Hospital
• Seeing the homeless guy at 7-Eleven
• Reading Eugene Cho's blog entry about the Spanish basketball team taking a picture making slanty-eyes, and all the comments it's engendered (p.s. all of Eugene's blog is a worthy read, btw)
• Telling a friend that I don't think a joke is funny because it has racist undertones
• (From before I went) Refugee families from Burma (Myanmar) continuing to come to our church; council trying to figure out what we can do for them, as their needs are great
• Wondering why my son can't seem to get a full time job, and wondering if his race is working against him
• Listening to the advertisements for This American Life, where they were telling a story about BWB (biking while Black)

And just tonight I finally read a paper called White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack. Man. It is deep. It says so much in a relatively short paper. We talked on the bus about a number of the points that Peggy McIntosh, the author, writes about.

Her list of privileges is incredible. This is the stuff we, I, White people, don't have to think about, and often refuse to think about. And many of us have no idea, no freaking idea, that we have it so well.