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Why Black People Overachieve, White Privilege, and the Cops Continually F*%king With Us
Not all cops are bad. Not all white people are racist. All white people benefit somehow from white privilege, and ALL Black people must overachieve to be on the same playing field as whites. That’s because being white is the norm, and being Black is not. As Emily Bazelon stated in her New York Times Magazine article,
We [whites] continue to act as racial managers, clinging to the job of setting the culture’s terms and measuring everyone else’s otherness against those terms.
White privilege doesn’t mean that your life is easier if you’re white; it just means your life hasn’t been made unnecessarily difficult. For many white people, just as for Black, surviving and thriving in America is hard. Life’s a struggle. Try doing it in skin that’s any color other than white. Being Black every second of every day can be exhausting … and often just one big hassle. Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t trade being Black for anything. I’m proud of what my people have overcome to be where we are today. It makes me who I am. Going from slavery to the presidency, especially given the white supremacist history of this country, is a monumental achievement. But I would like to go for one month, one week, one day without dealing with the stresses that come with being black.
