Walking down Main Street at 10:30pm, I glance around, checking my surroundings. I do this each time I go out alone. A salty reminder of my own defenseless security. A habit I learned too early on in life. I watch the shadows behind me as to not swivel around, to stop the potential assailant in his tracks. My own fear mingles within the same realm of my shame. The man walking behind me could be an attacker and yet I am feeling guilty. So, instead, I pretend to hold an imaginary can of pepper spray and walk a little faster; looking behind me with each step.
The man behind me catches up with my stride and for a minute my heart rate picks up. He must have sensed my fear; must have seen my hurried steps. He gives me a smile, a dark skinned Arabic man with a heavy accent. He asks me where there is a good place to eat in the city. I am choking on my words right about then and I am immediately smacked with regret. I cannot help but think that this man caught up to me to prove that he was not a man to be feared; choosing to ask a meaningless question just to appear safe. A feeling he probably knows all too well.
It is not my fear that brings me shame, per say. I understand the amount of precaution that goes along with living in a city. I am justified in wanting to be safe. It is the man’s perception of me that brings me guilt. I am not running from him on a dark street because he is a black man. I am hurrying my steps because he is a man and I do not have the luxury of walking down the street without fear of attack. However, the black man that stopped to speak with me does not know this and for that I am guilty.
I know that I should not even think of race but I was born into a society that has constantly and subliminally told me that I was superior. Whether it be from a lack of representation in government or entertainment, I was brought up thinking that racism was a thing of the past. That Jim Crow was a thing of the past and racism died in the 1960’s. So, it makes sense why recognizing your own privileges can be a hard pill to swallow. Especially, when you throw in the concept of the American Dream in with the whole ‘racism is dead’ concept. You are eventually going to cook up a whole big pot of apathy.
I still have a hard time recognizing my own privileges. The things I take for granted, the civil liberties I possess, are all aspects of my own privilege. When I put on a dark hoodie, I do not fear for my life. I can buy band-aids that actually match my skin color; not to mention make up. When I walk down a busy street, people do not look away from me. People do not define the actions of one member of my race as a reflection of my entire race.
There are so many examples to give and each one that I realize comes to me in a sense of shocking disarray. Some things are so simple and yet I never seemed to acknowledge them. The America that I grew up in and know to be true is not the same for everyone else. Again, this is hard to realize. However, I learned through listening.
In order to be an ally and to better your own conscious is to be a good listener. I know at times it seems hard because no one wants to intentionally hurt someone and there will always be the fear of saying the wrong thing. However, this is how one grows. More than likely, you will say something racist but you will be corrected and you will go on. Ignorance is not bliss. Staying in the dark is maintaining a system of apathy.