It happened three times in one week; things that would have happened very differently to people of color. First came a real, seriously sizable pack – yes pack – of teenage boys running down California Street after dark, screaming and cursing — looking maybe like all of them were chasing the first one. Except for the dog and me, nobody seemed to care. No one yelled “slow down” or “quiet down” in this family-rich neighborhood. No one called the police to report a dangerous group of boys intent on making, if not trouble, at least way too much noise — and on a school night! Did I mention that they were white?
This morning, for the zillionth time, a very large off-leash dog came at our very large, protective, on-leash one. He feels helpless when he’s on a leash and approaching dogs aren’t, and gets very agitated. When I called to the owners to please call their dog back toward them, they yelled at me! Why does this matter? The park trail is strictly for dogs on a leash. Almost no one follows the rules. When we moved here, I asked our dog walker about it; she smiled indulgently and told me to “just turn around and go the other way.” Each culprit, it seems, sees this particular infraction as ok – for them, and raising the issue would do no good. Did I mention that they were white?
Finally, there’s this: California law requires drivers to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks. Our non-commercial street is pretty busy despite being almost totally residential. At least one in four drivers rush right through even when pedestrians are already into the street. At night it’s more than that, and since they don’t see people as quickly in the dark, far more dangerous. Did I mention that many of them are white?
We live in this neighborhood because it is diverse. Signs in the library are posted in three languages (see below) and we hear more than that on the street, including Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Russian. Even so, the people involved in this law-breaking — did I mention that they are all white?
For months I have had the privilege of listening to sisters of color speak and write among themselves and to the rest of us of the moment after moment, incident after incident, that are part of their lives. Many are desperately terrifying or heartbreaking, or both. Like the ones described here though, they are automatic assumptions of white privilege, of the right to break an inconvenient law without consequence and to censure people of color for similar infractions. As small as these examples are, or maybe because they are, they teach us how much we all presume, how automatically we assume it’s ok for us to break the law or the social contract. What they haven’t taught us yet – horrible huge assault or small presumption, is how much each one diminishes us all.