White privilege meant that I was able to start delivering papers at about 10 years old on Sunday Mornings at 0200 to 0800. That eventually expanded so that by age 12 and for the next 4 years I was up by 0530 and on the road pedaling my bike by 0600 to pedal 3 miles into town in order to deliver the Detroit Free Press and the Fort Wayne Gazette before attending school. White privilege then included delivering the Sturgis Journal after school as having the largest route in town. All of this also by way of pedaling my bike all over Sturgis. My mother thought white privilege meant that sleep was for wussies.
The white privilege of all those newspapers gave taught me to read better than most of my classmates and gave me a thirst to know. You see, before I would fold up my papers to be on my merry way I would consume those newspapers from front to back. I’d start with the Editorial section, go to the sports section and then finish up with the front page. I didn’t care too much about the “lifestyle” section. White privilege took an inclination for learning and knowing and fanned it into a flame.
White privilege meant that my parents didn’t have to worry about me being on the city streets of the small city I grew up in slinging papers by myself at the wee early hours of the mornings in any kind of weather you’d like to name. White privilege meant that I could wander the neighborhood and play around the lakeshore of each neighbors house without my folks having to worry if I would be ok. White privilege meant I could forget my ball mitt at the ballpark and come back 6 hours later and find it there. White privilege meant that I didn’t have to chain my bike to some tree in order to make sure it wasn’t stolen. White privilege meant that when the little old lady on the paper route offered some apple spice cake I didn’t have to worry that she might have laced it with heroin. White privilege meant I learned the Queen’s English in School and not Ebonics. White privilege meant that my friends didn’t rape my sister when they came over to visit. White privilege meant playing pickup ball games that didn’t end with fisticuffs because someone thought someone cheated. White privilege meant being able to remember the Doctor doing house call visits at the house when I was ill.
White privilege meant my Mother paid for a tutor she couldn’t afford to help me pass Mrs. Poljak’s High School Geometry. White privilege meant a steady diet of working on my Grandparent’s dairy farm dawn to dusk when I wasn’t delivering newspapers. White privilege meant attending Sturgis Wesleyan Church with other adolescents my age who were also enjoying white privilege so that we might all learn what it meant to be Christian people. White privilege meant that I paid my own way through college and later seminary by working while a student and taking out loans for the funds I could not earn. White privilege meant paying those loans back when it would have been easier to just walk away from them.
After I left the paper routes white privilege was working at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, York Steak House, Pizza Hut, only to be followed by a string of factory positions. This was always in the attempt to have a little spending money. Forty-five years ago we didn’t get free currency in the mail from the FEDS for not working.
White privilege was inclusive, at least for me, of learning in the school of hard knocks mostly brought on by my youthful stupidity and indiscretion. White privilege meant a whole lot of hard work — even by an adolescent’s standard.
People want to suggest that white privilege meant and means that everything is handed to you without any effort if you are white. That is not the white privilege I grew up with. White privilege for me and mine meant learning a protestant work ethic that found one working their tail off while at the same time paying the consequences for your sometimes stupid actions.
