Subtle Insidiousness of White Privilege
The first time some one suggested that I, as a white female settler person, experienced an inherent privilege, I was offended. My instinctual defensiveness rallied to assert that I came from a broken home, a violent home, certainly not a well-to-do cushy home. The circumstances of my childhood and teen years led to poor choices, including substance use and not finishing school; for a period I was homeless - not roofless - but homeless nonetheless and unemployed and living off the good graces of family and friends. How did that make me privileged? Several years later, when pondering my violent history in comparison to the violent histories of my First Nations female friends, I came to the conclusion that my whiteness lent my experience of violence and sexual abuse a different, more positive, more strengthened outcome. You see, in my case the violence and abuse were not systemic; I may have been caught in the quicksand of familial violence and sexual abuse, but had unlimited, un