Blind-spots of Privilege

I drive a 2013 VW Beetle Convertible. It has style and it’s adorable. It also has several blindspots – each roughly the size of Michigan. Since I’ve driven the car for six years I now KNOW this about my car and so when I back out of parking spots I will take excruciatingly forever because it is impossible for me to see whether I am about to run someone over. When I change lanes I put on my signal, and wait, and then look in the rear view mirror, the side view mirror and then physically turn and lean to look directly out the side and back windows to be sure. And then after all that, I will inch over, wincing in anticipation of a horn blaring in aggravation of having been (even ever so gently) cut off.

When You Can’t See

You see, when I first got the car there was a LOT of horn blaring. And swearing.

• Backing out of a parking spot – HONK!
• Changing lanes – HONK!
• Taking a right – HONK!
• Taking a left – HONK!
• Backing out the driveway – HONK!
• That time I hit my brother’s car since it was parked behind me right in my blindspot (clearly his fault).

When It Was Built That Way

And it’s not just me. As Car and Driver put it in their 2013 review of the model: “Significant blind spots exist to either side of the back window, which resembles a gun slit at the end of a dark hallway.”

When It Really Matters

The point that I would like to make is that my car’s blind spots are serving as a (still-deficient) analogy for my decades of white privilege, white supremacy complicity and anti-Black racism. A month or two ago, I wouldn’t have (couldn’t have) acknowledged (admitted) that I was party to white supremacy or anti-Black racism.

Now I see.

When It Becomes Clear

I can’t see all of it. Not yet. But I see enough now to understand that I should have known (should have cared to know) what I was a party to.

I’ve developed a program to provide participants the tools and practice to engage productively in the extremely difficult conversations – that are necessary to have if we are to move forward – about painful topics having to do with privilege, complicity, inequity and inaction. This program is available to UPschool Members. Learn more about the program or UPschool below: