And it took me until my 30s to ever believe that someone from my stock could achieve such a thing. It is absolutely a freak anomaly that I'm in graduate school, considering that not one person on either side of my family has a college degree. Having come from a family of people who didn't even graduate from high school, who knew not a single academic or intellectual person, it would never occur to me to assume that I could be published. At school and university I could be sure that most of my teachers were the same colour or race as me.The idea that any ol' white person can find a publisher for a piece is most certainly a symptom of class privilege. I can choose make up or bandages in flesh colour and have them more or less match my skin.Ģ6. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, the colour of my skin will not work against me.Ģ5. I can be sure that the gatekeepers in my life such as my boss, my local MP or my landlord are the same colour or race as me.Ģ4. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers suspect that I got it because of race.Ģ3. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.Ģ2. As a child I had access to books where the heroes and protagonists were the same race or colour as me.Ģ1. I can easily buy books, children’s toys, posters, greetings cards or magazines featuring people of my race.Ģ0. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.ġ9. If a police officer stops me I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.ġ8. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behaviour without being seen as a cultural outsider.ġ7. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of colour without feeling in my own culture any penalty for such oblivion.ġ6. I am never asked to speak for my entire racial group.ġ5. I can do well professionally without being called a credit to my race.ġ4. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.ġ3. I can swear, dress scruffily or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, poverty or illiteracy of my race.ġ2. I can count on my skin colour not to work against the appearance of my financial reliability.ġ1. I can go to a hairdresser and be sure that they can cut my hair.ġ0. I can go into a shop and easily find the food, music or clothes which represent my race or fit with my cultural traditions.ĩ. I can be sure that my children will be taught a curriculum which testifies to the existence of their race.Ĩ. I can be sure that when told about our national heritage or about ‘civilisation’, I am shown that people of my colour made it what it is.ħ. I can go to a museum or art gallery and will see people of my race widely represented in the objects and artworks.Ħ. I can turn on the television, open a newspaper and see people of my race widely represented.ĥ. I can go shopping alone and be sure that I won’t be followed or harassed.Ĥ. I can be sure that no matter where I move to, my neighbours in that location will be pleasant or neutral to me.ģ. If I wish to, I can arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.Ģ.
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