Monday's Opening Thought: January 10, 2022

Image description: Two young white people can be seen jogging down a path in a public area or park.

This week’s opening thought: Late last Friday night, I was winding my evening down, taking out some trash and recycling, when I saw a white male going for a late-night jog. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this man going for a late-night run; I’ve seen him off and on over the past year. As usual, he had his earbuds in and was in the zone. I’m assuming that the pandemic and its reverberative effects likely led to his night workout routine. His presence wasn’t peculiar to me, but I quickly noticed that it hit a nerve in me that night. Standing in the crisp night air, I felt sad for a moment because I knew why I felt the way I felt in seconds. Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers had been sentenced earlier in the day to life sentences.

And it was very apparent to me at that moment the amount of white privilege that jogging any old time of the day comes with.

I know for a fact through years of having ugly, messy conversations with white people around racism, white supremacy, and white privilege that many white people don’t or can’t fully grasp how much privilege they have connected to the most mundane of things. Now and again, I wonder how liberating this obliviousness, this lack of concern for your well-being while doing everyday tasks, must feel. I would never even think of jogging at night. It has never crossed my mind as a privilege available to me. Why? Because every time the police have stopped me in my life has been at night—at least four times while walking home from work after missing the last bus. At least two or three times while going back home from grabbing something at a late-night convenience store. One time, I was in a car with four of my white friends when the police pulled the car over. I wasn’t the driver, yet I was the only person the police instructed to get out of the vehicle. I was patted down. They ran my name through the system. They let us go after they felt I wasn’t a threat or had no open warrants. My white friends were completely quiet through the entire ordeal and awkwardly silent as we drove home. They didn’t understand how privileged they were then. Judging by the things most of them post on social media from time to time, I’m sure they don’t understand it now.

The truth is it’s 2022, and I’m afraid I could be lynched while exercising. Why? Because I could be lynched while exercising. Ahmaud Arbery was lynched while exercising. Black people have been lynched by white people while minding their damn business for centuries. I don’t have the privilege to believe otherwise. But white people have the white privilege to think the world is truly their oyster. They don’t often feel a sense of danger or self-preservation while exercising, wandering their neighborhood, or doing everyday things. White people jog whenever, even at night. A white person jogging in a neighborhood after midnight will likely not be the first suspect if something horrible happens late at night in the neighborhood they jog in. If I’m seen in a “nice” neighborhood after midnight, do you think the police aren’t going to wonder what I’m doing there? Hell, I currently live in a stereotypical “nice” neighborhood, and some of my neighbors who have lived near me for years even look at me like I don’t belong here during the day, let alone late at night.

When I first moved into my home, I came home from work one night, and my porch light wasn’t on. As I looked for my keys in the dark, one of my new neighbors called the police. I’m sure they thought I was a burglar. I was barely in my house for five minutes when the police knocked on my door. Even though I went out of my way to prove I lived in my home, the police proceeded to watch my house at night for a month.

White privilege installs in white people a belief that they can do whatever, whenever they want, with no understanding that everyone does not have that freedom they have or the option to ignore centuries of oppression and trauma for Black folx and people of color. That includes jogging. That includes calling the police on your Black neighbors. And that includes lynching Black bodies with very few instances of paying for your actions.

Something to think about next time you go for a jog, white people.

Stay hydrated.