This is my husband.........and I agree............. White Privilege.....My Thoughts.... This new seemingly derogatory term is a mystery to me. For most of this year it has come up over and over and got me to thinking. I wonder if it is true so I looked back at my life to see if I missed something. As many of you know, I was born in 1949 and spent my earliest years in South Gate and Huntington Park, part of the Los Angeles suburbs, average working class neighborhoods of the time. I was much too young to be allowed to explore beyond the edge of our front yard, where my tricycle could take me on the sidewalk, but I clearly remember there were all kinds of people on our street. Whenever we would drive somewhere I remember all the homes looked pretty much the same as ours. This where my mom gave me my first lesson on race. I remember it clearly even though I was only 3 or 4 years old. Mom and I had to take the trolley into downtown L.A. to shop. There were no malls or supermarkets in the suburbs back then. We were at the trolley stop on a bench waiting for our ride home when I noticed a man at the end of the bench with the blackest skin I had ever seen. I asked her in the usual loud kid voice, why he was so dark. That man looked at us and Mom simply said, I dont know why honey, I suppose that is the color God decided to make him. I remember that man smiled at my mom and tipped his hat to her. White Privilege lesson there? Not that I saw. A couple of years later my parents crossed their fingers, took a chance and bought their first house. It was in Lynwood and if I remember the street name correctly, it was the corner of Clarendon and Imperial Hwy, behind a Chevron station. My dad worked here as a second job so they could afford the house. To say it was a fixer-upper is an understatement. 22 trailer loads of trash and debris from the back yard alone. I remember because even as a 5 year old I was expected to do my part to help. The Chevron is gone now. Last time I went by there it was a strip mall. The old house is still there. Those of you that know the area know it isnt safe there for anyone anymore and those of us with White Privilege are not welcome around there day or night. Still, in those days, early to mid 1950s, it was just another working class neighborhood with all different kinds of people.As a big boy starting school, my boundaries were expanded to 3 houses up our street but only my side of the street. I was not allowed on the other side of our driveway because busy Imperial Hwy. was right there. It was plenty because those 3 houses had kids my age so I had plenty of new things and people to experience. I remember 2 of those homes were Mexican families and the other was a black family. The only differences I can really remember was their kitchens smelled deliciously different. Other than that, back yards had swing sets and playing together was a great time. Was there any White Privilege then? Maybe.....I always felt privileged to go play with my friends and to have them come to my house. I think we were all just privileged to be kids then. After spending my first grade year at home recuperating from a bad car wreck, we moved again. This time to a new housing tract in Compton. Remember Watts and Compton? Well I lived there 1957 to 1959. Here was the only place I ever lived in an all white neighborhood. At least from my perspective that is. I was only in second grade then and I was allowed to roam just my own cul-de-sac after Mom and Dad rolled the dice and bought our first new house. I was just happy that it was new and all we had to do was plant front and back lawns. To second grader this was just good dirty fun helping Dad after work and weekends. Loved it when we would come in the house and Mom would hold her nose from the cow manure smells we had acquired getting the grass planted. It was here that I experienced racism for the first and only time I can remember growing up. About a year or so after we moved there, my parents decided they had bit off more than they could chew and put the house on the market. Several months went by with the for sale sign in the yard until there was a solid buyer. It was a black family. Nice family. He was a middle manager somewhere and she was a teacher. They had 2 kids younger than me and the money to buy the house so of course my dad said yes. This did not sit well with our neighbor who said some evil things to my dad about lowering property values. I of course had no idea what that meant but what my father said is what stuck with me. He told that neighbor that he was an ignorant asshole and that the buyers money was as green as anyone else. He went on to say that if he didnt like it, to reach in his own wallet and buy our house himself. Of course he didnt write a check and I was proud of my dad for standing up. I may not have totally understood but it felt right to me. Besides I never liked the neighbor anyway. We moved a couple more times from Compton to Brea and LaHabra in Orange County, always in mixed communities. I finished grade school in Brea where my friends ranged from Italians to Jews with every other kind in between Lots of adventures and lessons along the way but never anything like White Privilege. Just families and kids all tossed together as neighbors and friends. In upper middle class Brea our biggest adventure was occasional trips up to the top of the foothills to visit a Nike Missile site that was fully operational just above our homes. It was the height of the Cold War and they used to demonstrate how it would work by standing the launchers up. All us kids were awestruck of course! I didnt find out until just recently that those missiles had small nuclear warheads on them designed to detonate in the middle of a flight of Russian bombers and take them all out. If those birds had ever flown, there would have been a nuclear blast above us that would have killed us all, black white or whatever. Not seeing any White Privilege in that. LaHabra was where I attended junior high school 1962 and 1963. In 1963 I experienced the great loss of JFK. I clearly remember our mothers were all crying in our neighborhood. Our fathers all came home from work grim faced to comfort their wives. All us kids were confused, not knowing what to think so we all met up in our usual place, the lemon grove across from my house where we talked and comforted each other. Wasnt any racial divide that day. Just Americans with broken hearts........ 1964 started my high school years. After just 1 semester we moved for what for me would be the last time as a family, to Fallbrook in San Diego County. Big shock to my system. Had to go from a city boy to a country one. Same bottom line, very mixed community. My new friends were from all walks of life plus military kids from Camp Pendleton and one new race, Native Americans from the Pala reservation. Didnt make any difference to us. I learned to work in the groves alongside the Hispanic kids picking citrus and avocados. Learned some carpentry with the white and black boys and generally competed with all of them for other jobs and in sports. We were all equal. Jobs and places on teams went to those best qualified and those who worked hardest. Not a hint of White Privilege. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed. I admit that I was taken by surprise that this was needed. I and many others had no knowledge of forced segregation or Jim Crow laws.but we were happy to see it corrected and we became interested and involved in the movement. I for one listened closely to Dr. King and still believe in his dream to this day. In 1968 three things happened. In April the nation lost another great man. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. In June my high school days were over and in November I put on the uniform and served my country for the next 6 years.I learned many things during those years but the most important thing I learned is that war is the great equalizer. I watched men of all colors die. I saw them all bleed in just one color and I saw them blown apart and there is no difference. I heard them cry out in their last seconds in English, Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian. Through interpreters I learned that at the point of death, all men cry out to their God and to their mother. Skin color did not matter. There most certainly was no White Privilege in those rice paddies. Life after all that, through two careers, four wives, three children, 7 grandchildren and one great-grandchild has been pretty much the same. Work has had me travel back and forth across this nation both as a trucker and a telecom tech, more times than I can remember. From Alaska to Maine and from Hawaii to the Florida Keys I have found people to be the same. For the most part they are gloriously unsophisticated, warm decent people, working and hoping for the best for themselves and their families. On the other side of that coin, thankfully, assholes have been few and far between and skin color has nothing to do with it. Like Dr. King I will not judge anyone by the color of their skin. I choose instead to judge people by the content of their character. In other words I will not consider anyone to be an asshole until they have had ample time to remove all doubt. So the question remains, White Privilege. Do I have it? Have I ever experienced it? I have to say I have been privileged. I was privileged to be born to my wonderful Mom and Dad. I was privileged to be raised by them and to receive the life lessons they shared with me. Privileged to grow up in the times and places that I did. I am Privileged to be an American. Privileged indeed to have served as a United States Marine serving beside the finest men I have ever known. That includes a salute to my brothers in the Army and Navy that I had the great privilege to know. I have been and still am privileged to have been able to see all I have seen of my fellow Americans and the spirit they all have shown me. Believe it or not I consider it a privilege to have run into the few assholes that I have just so I know the difference. Lastly I have had the best privileges of all. The love of a great woman, my 3 children, 7 grandchildren and great-grandson. Appears to me the answer is no. I have never had a leg up because my skin has less melanin than somebody else, Never made a damn bit of difference to me nor anyone I ever knew growing up. I have no idea what White Privilege is and I wager nobody in the media can show it to me or anyone else for that matter. My success or failures in life have all been due to the path I DECIDED to take. My life is the product of those paths and so is yours. You can decide to walk the path of a victim or the path of a man. A victim will blame everyone and everything but himself, never looking inward to find the true fault. A man looks inward to find himself looking back and makes the changes necessary to correct his course. SEMPER FI
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 01:02:49 +0000
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