Lessons from Being White Adjacent
The proximity privilege that exposes exactly what BIPOC folx are missing
Admittedly, it’s bizarre to write about the benefits of being friends with white people my whole life — I even married and divorced a white man. I joke that I was raised like a middle class white boy because my education and cultural context resembled that of my lily white peers. I was marginalized growing up less because I was Black and more because my parents were relatively affluent. Key word: relative. I’m an Army Brat with physician parents, and I have enjoyed the privilege of white proximity my whole life. Now, as a professional justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) worker, I’d be remiss to keep the benefits of the understanding I’ve gained to myself.
My calling is to build bridges across cultural divides and help liberate people from the shackles, real and imagined, that bind them. The lessons I’ve taken with me from my interracial marriage, cross-racial friendships, and white inculturation are manifold —and it’s time that BIPOC people know just how good the white folx have it.
For the record, I’m not a bitter person. I’m an equitable person. I’m not mad at anything anyone else has, nor do I begrudge them the privilege that affords advantage. I have more than enough most of my life — a brief and…
