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I remember at Boston University a Black woman roommate told me not to talk to her because I’d never understand her. It crushed my spirit because I had always been the outsider, and I thought we could at least communicate our feelings. We never did. My other roommates, all East Coast urban Jewish girls, also had nothing in common with a poor Christian from the vast middle of the continent. I was the country girl who was put into advanced high school classes with the cliquish townies. I was raised by a single working mom during the days of “Father Knows Best.” I was the college girl who refused to pledge a sorority because it seemed to me to divide, not unify. I was a “haole” white, when we lived in the Hawaiian culture, and was the last person waited on at gas stations and stores. I was a “Yankee” when I lived in both North Carolina and Louisiana, my voice betraying me. And I’ve always been the teetotaler, a bane at sophisticated Harvard parties. I raised my daughter wearing mostly blue, and I gave my son dolls to play with. I was a hippie that never used drugs. And yet, I still had privilege to make choices. When I was doing a survey in the Shreveport Bottoms area (poor Black area of town) one of the women invited me into her (rented) shotgun house and showed me her back yard. It was full of sewage that had formed a lake between the houses, and it had been there for months. I called the health department and got it taken care of the next day. That was the privilege of my white voice. I weep when I think of all the injustices that Blacks and other minorities have had to endure. It is the small daily indignities that count up to create a milieu of helplessness or anger inside a person. I know that nothing changes without pain, especially if someone has to give up some of their own power, and these demonstrations are creating some pain for others, but I hope this time our eyes and ears and hearts are open to the change that is “blowin in the wind.” --Cynthia
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January 2022
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