The Chameleon: White Privilege & Poverty

Megan Johnston
Aug 25, 2017 · 4 min read
Public Domain Photo Credit: George Hodan

Right now, I’m in Japan. My online voice is the only thing I’ve got right now. I want to participate. I want to do more, but there’s only so much I can do outside of my home country.

I want to do my part when it comes to the “heavy lifting” of education and changing hearts and minds. I’ve made mistakes and bungled my words and will probably bungle more, but I want to do the best I can. Right now, I want to try explaining “white privilege” in regards to being poor and white in America. This is my background. This affects a lot of people close to me and in my community. Being white and poor is a real thing. Poverty is an excruciating and dehumanizing experience. The reality of white privilege does not erase that. It is not a threat to you or your experience. I want to try and paint a few examples to facilitate gentle understanding, and I hope that you can open your heart and mind to what I am trying to say.

I’ve often heard, and said to myself in the past “if I have privilege, then why am I poor”? When we talk about privilege we aren’t talking about some kind of invisible coupon you receive at birth and can cash in when you are ready to succeed in life. No, that is not how it works. Instead, I want you to think about a chameleon. Bear with me for a bit.

I went to a private Christian school. If I never opened my mouth, other people might think I was rich, had a great home life, and lived in a nice suburb. I’m sure there were other kids in my same situation, but I didn’t hear them talking about it. In fact, like a chameleon, I got pretty good at pretending to act a certain way in certain settings. With the right clothes, no one could even tell the difference! Having that ability, to be in that kind of setting and blend in perfectly, was a special kind of privilege in itself. When you are a talented “chameleon” who looks just like the majority on the outside, you have a lot of chances to get ahead.

Now think about this. Jackson, Tennessee is nearly 50/50 when it comes to the black and white population. However, in my school there were scarce few black students. You can think about why that was on your own. For now, I want you to put yourself in the shoes of that black student. Do you think they felt like a chameleon? That with the right clothes and attitude, they could blend in with the rest of the student body perfectly? Why don’t you ask them sometime?

Now I want you to imagine a very scary situation. The Klu Klux Klan is roaming your neighborhood. They are rounding up all racial and ethnic minorities. They knock on your door, ask you a few questions and pass you by. What did you look like? Perhaps a chameleon? You were lucky today.

You may say “slavery is over, we should move on”. Do you remember 9/11? Of course you do. No one could forget that. I was 11 years old and I know exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. That was 16 years ago. I don’t think we will forget about that in 50 years, even 100 or more! The Emancipation Proclamation, the document that ended slavery on paper, was just a little over 150 years ago. The Jim Crow Laws, like black people can’t use the same swimming pool as white people, were only abolished in 1964. Black people couldn’t even vote until 1965. That was only a little over 50 years ago. Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend a white school in the South, will be 63 years old this September. A lot of my peers have parents that age. Like a virus, a lot of those systems from Ruby’s time are still here in America but they have mutated, and not just in the South.

In this world we have certain systems in place. Religious, cultural, customs, and so on. These systems are passed down over time and become “traditions”. Some things change, some things stay the same. There are certain American systems that have withstood time, even though they might be deeply flawed. However, a lot of people might benefit from this flaw, and so by and large it stays the same. I want you to think about this. These systems continue to negatively affect racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities and they are crying out.

White, Caucasian people make up more than 62 percent of the population in America (in other words, the majority). Systems by nature are most often established with the majority in mind, the United States is no different. Many white people today are worried about becoming a minority. Why is that? Are minorities treated somehow differently than the majority?

Let’s go back to the chameleon idea. Even if you are poor, uneducated, and unqualified, a clever and hardworking chameleon who outwardly looks like the majority will by default have more connections and opportunities to blend in than someone who doesn’t. Let’s face it though. Getting ahead is difficult, and sometimes impossible in America regardless of skin color (systems, remember? A lot of them don’t benefit you! America was founded and organized to benefit wealthy landowners, not the unfortunate souls looking to catch a break.) Despite this, you gotta admit that some chameleons have a bit more luck on their side than others just because of how they look on the outside.

That, my friends, is what white privilege is all about!

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