Three things White Privilege takes away from Black people, and I'll scale these for you:
Small: Freedom. Blacks can only play Pokemon Go as a game of life and death: some black person will be shot for being in the "wrong" place at the "wrong" time which presupposes when the "right" time would be. Clint Smith tells a story about being 10 years old with super soakers when he was told that he wasn't allowed to be as free as his white friends- the basis of The Talk, which every African American male has heard probably ad nauseum, but necessarily. You may notice that freedom is listed as a small thing...
Medium: Established, codified rights. 2nd Amendment. Despite my less than neutral position on gun control if Phil Castile taught me anything, it's that having a gun on you as a black man is a game of life and death, and having a registered legal firearm wasn't protection as much as fuel for racist hatred that led to his death. Many of my good friends have spoken to me about the need to have a gun, registered and trained, so in case of need I could protect myself. I've always answered that I didn't need to give the cops an extra excuse to kill me- that a gun is no protection against a cop, badge and rule of law. The reason the 2nd Amendment is in place is for people with my fears and concerns to be able to protect myself against un-necessary and/or dangerous infringements of my rights, and that my fear is they'll use the weapon they codified as my right in law as a reason for my modern lynching.
Large: Life in general, and the value of our lives specifically. We're murdered by police, and when go attempt to protest, someone shoots a cop and people of color *know* a war has been started (continued) where despite no deceleration there will still be casualties. We can't even get together to mourn. Independently, it's important to know that the reason these stories made the news is they happen to have been recorded by witnesses and/or victims families. In this same block of time, Delrawn Small was also killed by police in Brooklyn, NY. It, too, was recorded, but he was shot be an off-duty cop, so...i guess it's less relevant...no wait...
So as the media reminds us to pray for the Dallas 5, while we remember Alton and Phil, let's not forget Delrawn and the countless others we never find out about.
Stay safe out in these streets, my people.
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