Privileged

I’m an external processor, but

Words may fail me this time.

Because how can I be seeing this in my lifetime?

When generations before me have died to eradicate

this kind of hate, I

am Privileged.

I know and have known white privilege for my entirety.

From the moment I breathed air,

From the moment of conception, in fact.

In fact, I am Privileged

and entitled in ways that I can’t fully observe, comprehend, measure, and …

I grew up in a home considered less than. Less money, less peace, less parental love.

Being female, poor, pained by broken relationship can make life harder. But still, in fact, I recognize I live

with Privilege.

I can’t pretend to understand what it is to live without white privilege, but I can acknowledge: It Exists.

That privilege, against the backdrop of unnamed, rarely named, inhumane discrimination in the hidden and the extreme, pervades our everyday reality. In fact, it invades our identity.

Yes, In Canada.

The horror of Virginia is blatant.

I will not ignore

the glaring blemishes of our own communities, neighbourhoods and cities.

Help me to see them. I want to see them. I wanna see you.

I wanna hear you. I’m listening.

It’s time to, for awhile it’s been time to, get real.

I acknowledge, that there is a thing, that is present, in every fibre of my white existence,

I am Privileged, I won’t deny it.

Acknowledgement.

It’s power at an hour when silence means joining the wrong side, because there are not “many sides”,

Because it could happen here, too.

Because it does happen here, too.

I live and breathe beside you.

But I wanna breathe with you.

I’m listening. Your words won’t fail you, this time.

Because it’s happening in our lifetime.

So, I’m listening.

Tell me more.

Written in 2017 following the Charlottesville, Virginia rally and car attack.