Hard Lessons I Learned

The topic of white privilege never crossed my mind or my reality until one day my wife asked if we would foster a four-year-old bi-racial boy. At 50, I wasn’t planning on having kids, let alone having a child from a different background. We didn’t even know how to wash his hair. After tackling some of the basic issues, I realized I didn’t know anything about his world.

When the term of “White Privilege“ was first introduced to me, I understood it to mean having certain advantages just because you are white. I asked some of my black friends to clarify. They gave me examples like being followed around a store as if you were going to steal something. Being scared of the police. Dealing with authority figures who do not look like you.

 This was certainly going to be a different world from the one I grew up in. I pray for compassion, wisdom and love to guide my son and all children today.

 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth.” 1 John 3:17-18