Equality Starts with Equity: Adjusting my understanding of what’s fair

Chapter 39 of Waking Up White: and finding myself in the story of RACE by Debbie Irving

Which of the following special-by-race programs have benefited you in your life? How?

• white-only or white-dominated neighborhood – this is me. There was NEVER (or at least when I was a child) a person of color in any of the grade schools for the areas we lived in.
• white-only or white-dominated country club – we never belonged to the Country Club, but my grandparents did and we would go there to swim or for dinner when we visited.
• other types of white-only or white-dominated social clubs – my Girl Scout troops were all lily-white, although I don’t know whether any girls of color wanted to join. If the Officer’s Club on the Air Force Base was white-dominated, it was because the officer corps was largely white.
• legacy at a private school – nope, I never benefited from that.
• legacy at an institution of higher education – nope, I never benefited from that, either, although my sister was accepted (and got a scholarship) partially because my grandmother was a graduate from the University of Michigan.
• lending rates for white people – we happily benefited from the GI bill. If we got lower rates on cars or other things, I wasn’t aware of it, but I feel sure it happened.

If you would like to join me as I blog about my experiences with race, please read the book. It was life changing for me.