Thank You For Joining Me In My Outrage - Now Can We Talk About My Privilege?

This post was originally written May 22, 2020

I made the decision to close my big studio in Racine, Wisconsin and work from home for the rest of this year. It wasn't the easiest decision to make, I wrestled with it, and finally came to a peace. A knowing, that this was the right next step for me to make in order to better manage my healthcare in the face of the ongoing pandemic crisis. But that isn't what this story is about.

An incident happened on my way to the studio, where I had a full day of tearing down and organizing my stuff planned. If you're in my network on Facebook, you might know what I'm talking about already. I'm just going to copy and paste my post here to save us both some time:

I drove up to Wisconsin to start tearing down my studio and forgot my water. So I stopped at a gas station- very few people wearing masks coming in and out. I’m sitting in my car with my windows cracked putting on my mask and one guy going in looked at me and spit on the sidewalk, so I wait until he leaves and the guy parked next to me on my passenger side comes out, looks at me in my mask and coughed in my fucking window!!!

I can’t form an appropriate post right now- I’m too livid! I’ve seen so many people share these incidents but I thought they were the exception to what is going on out there!

What is wrong with people who do this?!!!!!

As of this moment, 10 hours after I posted this to FaceBook, there are nearly 300 reactions, almost as many comments, and over 40 shares of the post, along with a couple of texts, and a smattering of private messages all chiming in about what an outrageous incident this was.

And it was! It was an absolutely shocking and OUTRAGEOUS experience!

Water in hand, I went to the studio and busted ass, fueled mostly by adrenaline and rage. My thoughts were on overdrive, thinking of all the things I would have liked to say to that man. All the things I wished would happen to him - if only I believed in Karma!

My body was literally shaking as the shock of the moment wore off. 

I pushed furniture around the room like the incredible hulk. Anger pulsating through my veins at the inhumane treatment, the blatant display of cruelty. The entitlement of that man!

A mask! A piece of fabric draped across my face! Why shouldn't I be able to make this decision without fearing assault??? Aren't I a citizen of this free country too?? 

Heaving heavy boxes of books out from under the table, I thought of his jeering face. Saw his deliberate cough into my window over, and over, and over in my mind. 

My heart beat rapidly from rage as I tore down tables and booth walls. I slammed items destined for the trash onto the cart. 

A weird sort of shame crept up my face at the memory of myself just sitting in my car watching him drive away. What kind of coward just sits there?? 

I berated myself internally after the fact, but in the moment it had happened, I instinctively knew that anything I said or did could provoke him to lean further into my window, what if he started screaming at me, spewing his hate and droplets into my car? What if I made the situation worse by reacting? What if he had the virus and really wanted to infect me?

At some point the adrenaline rush has to wear off. And it did. My thoughts slowed and my breathing steadied. My focus began to return along with more rational thinking. And that is when it really hit me -- 

This is what discrimination feels like!

It is shocking and it is outrageous. And it is what nearly every people group in our country who isn't straight, able-bodied, and white deals with on a daily basis. 

All of those feelings in my body,  the shock of being on the receiving end of such hate, adrenaline surging, heart pounding, fear of making it worse if I made the wrong move, wondering if I was going to encounter even more discrimination for wearing my mask into the gas station, the shame I felt in the remembering, the helplessness, the injustice of it-- that is what it feels like to be "othered".

Tonight I am thinking of my black friends, my LGBTQ friends and family members, the woman who delivered my dinner, the one who always smiles and waves when he drops the groceries on my doorstep, the Latino children playing on my neighbors lawn, and my heart is grieved. 

I experienced just a small fraction of what any one of these people have to worry about on an ongoing basis. The thing is, I know that I can choose to take off my mask and I am no longer a walking target to the discrimination I encountered today. That folks, is what it means to have white privilege. Not that bad things have never happened to you. Not that you have never had to struggle or needed a hand up. Not that you have all the same opportunities as the elite of this world, but that you will never have to worry about any of those happening, because of the color of your skin or the orientation of you heart. 

Reading through the comments to my post when I was still very much triggered, I felt cynical reading so many comments saying I should have called the police- like they would actually take this seriously. Later, after all the energy from the experience had worn off, I read these comments through a different lens. This too is a display of White Privilege. Maybe the officers would have taken me seriously, maybe they would have laughed it off, but one thing I wouldn't have to worry about is whether they would mistake me--the victim who had called them, for the perpetrator when they arrived on the scene because of the color of my skin and the biases so predominant in this country. 

I had a lot of conversations with my kids when they were little about the dangers they would encounter in the world. I taught them to look both ways before crossing the street. How to react if a stranger offered them candy. What to do if ever there was a fire in the house. One conversation I never had to consider was how to behave if they were ever pulled over by the police. I didn't have to warn them not to reach for their wallet, to keep both their hands on the steering wheel, and not to raise their voices in exasperation if they disagreed with why they had been detained. It never even crossed my mind. 

It probably never crossed the minds of the people who responded that I should have called the police today either. Scanning those comments again confirms, every single one who said they would have called the police was white. White people, I don't want us to have to worry about our own safety if we ever have to call on the police. I am not saying that police protection shouldn't be an option for us. I just want my black friends to have the same peace of mind. 

I want to keep my freedoms. I want to remain able to go about my daily business without fear and without incident if I choose to wear a mask, or even to forgo one. Even now, reliving all of these emotions as I write this post, I can feel the outrage rising. Even now, I still hear the notifications dinging from the FaceBook tab open on my computer, letting me know that you are outraged too. 

Thank you. Thank you for that collective outrage. But please, please don't be outraged that discrimination was directed towards me. Be outraged at discrimination period. 

And let that outrage move you to vote.