Understanding My White Privilege

This essay was originally featured on Leadership Austin.

I have a confession to make. I am a 33-year-old, white, straight man and only in the last year have I started to understand my white privilege.

I am embarrassed to share that it has taken me this long. I have been naive. I have been the person who said, “I don’t see color.” I have been the person who would say, “I grew up with mostly friends who were of color.” And sadly, I have even uttered the words, “All Lives Matter.”

My wife, Ashley Alaniz-Moyer, has really helped open my eyes to the inequities in our country. I would like to tell you that my eyes started to open the moment we met, or when we said, “I Do.” But that would be a lie. Over the early years of our marriage, I was still the person I mentioned above. I still just didn’t get it, and I guess maybe I didn’t want to.

I have always believed that anyone can be successful by having goals and taking action on those goals. If you just work hard or want something badly enough, you can make it happen. I believed in that “American Dream” thing and that it was for everyone.

A few years ago, Ashley was selected to serve on Mayor Steve Adler’s Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities. While she was meeting with this group, I got to hear about her experience. It was at that time when I’d say my eyes began to open. But not fully.

One of the strongest recommendations from the Task Force was that the Beyond Diversity training be made available to the Austin community and not just the Task Force. Leadership Austin came on board to help make this a reality. Now in Austin, this important training is available in our community.

Ashley urged me to attend this two-day training when it first started being offered, but I did not attend right away. Truthfully, I was scared, embarrassed, and just not ready. When 1,000 people in Austin had gone through Beyond Diversity, Ashley said to me, “I can’t believe 1,000 Austin leaders have done this training and you are not one of them.” This was the push I needed and I signed up.

My experience going through Beyond Diversity was eye-opening and emotional. I realized that I do see color. I came to better understand my own white privilege. I started to better understand that our country was built on the backs of people of color. People who look like me, white men, used people of color to get what they wanted and this is still happening today. Sure, this country was built around freedom, but only for certain people.

As a man with very few emotions, I left the Beyond Diversity training nearly in tears, finally starting to own my white privilege. I felt the urge to make improvements in my community, but I was concerned that I was the wrong messenger. I spent months learning more about racial inequity and sharing my experience in Beyond Diversity with those I am closest with. But I feared doing anything more public.

When Leadership Austin put on Beyond Diversity II, I was one of the first to sign up. This training was different than the first. We spent two days learning how to really have conversations about race and how to be an advocate for racial equity. Ashley and I attended this training together. The most powerful part of the two days was at the end, when we split up into two affinity groups. White people were in one room and the people of color in another. I felt my emotions getting to me more than ever before, as I watched Ashley leave the room with the people of color.

After attending both Beyond Diversity trainings, reading books like White Fragility and Between the World and Me, and continuing to see the impact that racism has in this country, I have decided that I can be silent no more.

I have recognized that my belief in being the wrong messenger is unacceptable. It ignores the power and privilege I was born with as a white male. I want to be a champion for racial equity and I will start here in my community of Austin, Texas.

Our city is at the top of a lot of lists, one of those lists being the most economically segregated cities in the country. Austin is a city that is flourishing…for some people. For others? Well, they are being pushed out of the city. We have a declining African American population. We have schools on one side of town that get closed, while those on the other side of town have all the resources in the world.

My reason for this long confession is to share a message to all those who look like me. To all the white people who are reading this, it is time that we own our privilege and that we step up and finally make real change when it comes to racial inequity. We can be silent no more. This country we live in is one that is not the same for everyone and that is unacceptable.

White person to white person, I hope you will join me in the fight that our friends of color have been fighting since this country’s white forefathers wrote the words that have yet to ever really be true…“That all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”