31: Difficult relationships

One example of when I realised the nature of my white privilege was when I was working as a therapist with a black client. My client’s experiences made me realise very powerfully that as a white person, when someone behaves like a dickhead to me, I don’t usually have to think about whether that person is being racist or not. For my client, who had experienced difficult working relationships, the question is always there ‘is it racism?’. Having this question alone, in your head, requires a lot of resilience on a daily basis, to manage. The ‘unknowingness’ of it is very difficult. It made me also think about how I have heard some black people say that people who are obvious racists are almost easier to deal with than when you don’t know if someone is racist or not. Obviously I may come up against black people who are racist towards me, but my overall privilege, makes it easier to dismiss this and not be bothered by it.