Witness to My Privilege (by Easy G)

Sometimes the depth of my white privilege takes me by surprise. If, say three years ago, you had asked me if I felt the justice system was here to protect me, I'd have given you a perplexed look and said something about the Amerikkkan INjustice system being a joke.

In a way, the joke was on me.

Because if I really didn't believe at some deeper, unexamined level that the justice system was here to protect me, why did I get so frustrated with cops for taking two months to find the man who shot me? Why did I feel so angry when a judge granted him bail? Why did I feel so abandoned when another judge pushed the trial back two years?

If I didn't believe at some deeper, unexamined level that the justice system was here to actually give me justice, why did I feel so violated when the prosecutor consistently allowed the defense to dismiss my ordeal and diminish my pain? If I didn't believe the justice system valued my life, why did I feel so utterly betrayed when the judge assessed that my bullet wounds and trauma were only worth a 120-day sentence?

My cynicism, it turns out, had always only been a conceit. When, for the first time in my life, I desperately needed the State's protection and justice, my innate white privilege assumed - no, was absolutely CONVINCED - that cops and prosecutors and judges would provide for me. And when they didn't quite come through? Frustration and anger, abandonment and violation and betrayal.

But here - right here - is that truly daunting moment where I get a glimpse past my privilege and an inkling of the gulf, the heart-rending distance, between my experiences and the those of the actually oppressed.

The cops didn't help me much, no, but they didn't add to my injuries when I called 911. And, for as long as it took them to apprehend my shooter, they eventually got him, right? The DA didn't sabotage my case before the grand jury, the charges were comprehensive and serious. The prosecutor took a guilty plea to a judge and, if ultimately the judge gave me a weak measure of justice, it WAS justice nevertheless.

What did Anthony Lamar Smith's family get for their murdered loved one? More than many, actually. Charges were actually filed and, after an interminable six-year wait, there was a trial. The judge may not have wept for the defendant (as mine did when she handed out a light sentence) but he did something far more insidious: the judge ignored DNA and video evidence of guilt in an acrobatic effort to declare a murderer innocent.

If I actually felt devalued by the system, how much more so did Anthony Lamar Smith's family (or Trayvon Martin's or Walter Scott's or Terrence Crutcher's or Philando Castile's) feel without any conviction to show for the life that was stolen from them? How valueless did Tamir Rice's family (or Aiyana Stanley Jones' or Michael Brown's or Alton Sterling's or Sandra Bland's or Freddie Gray's or, or, or...) feel with no charges filed at all?

I rage every day about far greater injustices than mine. And, even if I was a victim, I was never oppressed. So (if it's not too late), I won't cry too much about how things turned out. Nor will I thank this wretched excuse for a justice system for the limited return on my unearned privilege. Instead, I'll continue to unpack my racism, learn about oppressions beyond this mask of my white privilege, and curse oppressive Amerikkka until Black lives truly matter.