Calling me #whiteprivileged is #racism, bias, prejudice, stereotyping and a part of the problem. Throwing shade on my testimony is gossip, slander, and defamation of character. It also appears to be evidence of possible jealousy and pride.
For the record, I’d only be able to take 1 of the ‘2 steps’ forward in the exercise in the video (everyone should watch), and that is because I never had to help my mom (who only had a high school diploma) pay bills, as she worked up to 3 jobs raising 2 girls. And we never received assistance from the government because she worked so HARD.
I attended Purdue University on an athletic (track scholarship) and Florida Gulf Coast University on an academic scholarship. I was groomed and lured into commercial sexual exploitation, after returning to Purdue when I was 31 y/o. I took out FAFSA student loans during all the times I was a full time student.
Additionally, I’ve been homeless countless times and immersed myself in the black culture beginning at Purdue University in 1983. I ran track on a predominantly black team where I met a best friend who encouraged me to become involved in the black Greek fraternity/sorority campus activities. I resided in and have done ministry 20+ years in the inner city, including running a 200+ bed emergency shelter in downtown Tampa. I met my husband in an inner city church. Two black men stood up with him, including his Best Man, and our black pastor married us in a 100+ person multi cultural ceremony. Since Purdue, I’ve had many black and multiracial friends. I have mentored, counseled, advocated for, and done the hair of countless black girls and women. I was also a guardian for a black trafficking victim and homeschooled her.
I’ve witnessed and experienced racism by association and without. My mother had “N***** Lover” spray painted in huge, black letters on the street outside our home when I didn’t even live there anymore. I was ostracized by family and “friends”. I was manipulated and coerced by Planned Parenthood to have a late term abortion, of the only pregnancy I’ve ever experienced, all because the father was black, when I was a teen, even though I told them repeatedly I didn’t want to kill my baby. Minutes after the procedure, I was pushed out the back of building while still cramping, bleeding and crying hysterically. I’ve been spit on, verbally abused, pushed, and harassed for my support and involvement with the black community countless times.
Furthermore, I’ve been falsely arrested in my home and charged with a felony after being assaulted in the head, resulting in a concussion and brain injury. The man, who lied, saying that he didn’t hit me and that the fence line was his, was never charged.
I experienced police verbal, mental and emotional abuse while being released from the jail by 3 female officers. While I was able to deescalate the black officer (with my counseling skills), one of the white officers ended up grabbing me by the arm and pushed me into a side room to detain me for an additional 3 hours, after my bail had been paid. She said it was because I didn’t comply with her orders to sign a document that I had signed. However, I had asked questions about it because it stated that I had received items that I had not received. After being screamed at with obscenities and threatened to be put back into jail if I didn’t sign it, I did while notating on the document that I was signing it because she was threatening to put me back into the jail. She was upset because of how I signed it and her supervisor refused to even verify that I had signed the document, leaving me in the cell until the abusive officer decided to let me out.
Mind you, I had a concussion, brain injury, a chronic illness, and a cognitive impairment diagnosis in addition to not being able to take any medication for nearly 10 hours. Although the Attorney General dropped the charges, 6 months later, because the fence was determined to be mine. The man who hit me, while my head was looking down at the fence I was cutting, was never arrested or even detained. There’s never been justice for the situation, but I don’t think all cops are bad. I have known, interacted with and worked alongside many law enforcement officers, the vast majority of which have been compassionate, ethical, patriotic heroes who just want to protect and serve and I consider many to be friends.
I respect them, because that’s how my mom raised me. I was taught that if you chose to break the law, disobey officers, resist them or assault them, you were responsible for consequences. Matter of fact, I was taught that if I ever got arrested (which I have been 3 times), to not call her.
I didn’t even resist the officer who coerced me out of bed to “see my head injury” who then cuffed and arrested me, refusing to let me change out of my pajamas. I knew better than to make it worse and that I needed to let the situation play out. I’ve been traumatized by the entire incident and still battle the effects of it today.
Please, don’t assume because of my skin color and what I have today, that I don’t know about racism and experiencing injustice from cops.
Assuming such is a part of the overall problem.
Everything I’ve been blessed with, especially in the past 18 years, including 17 years of marriage to a godly man, who had completed and was working for less than minimum wage at a multicultural, residential drug and alcohol recovery program when we met, and an 18 y/o pioneering, trail blazing, anti-trafficking non profit, and our beautiful ranch, is from God. It is because I fully surrendered my life to Christ’s lordship and continue to do so. I also have had an enormous amount of opportunities to refine my faith through offense and acts of injustice towards me and those I care for. Had I not eventually passed those painful trials and tests, I dare say I wouldn’t be where I am today. The exceedingly abundant, above and beyond life I live is because I am highly blessed and favored by God, not because of white privilege.
I chose to forgive and pray that God blesses, open the eyes and ears, and softens the hearts of anyone who has treated me (or anyone else) with racism, bias, prejudice, stereotyping or otherwise unfairly and unjustly. I pray that the love of God would saturate them, heal their wounded heart(s) and that they would keep their eyes on God rather than comparing themselves to others, looking to the left or right or back. I pray they become confident of who they are in Christ, trusting, cleaving to, relying on, and believing in Him, fulfilling their destiny for the glory of God. I thank God that what was meant for harm, He uses for our good and His glory. I thank Him for grace and mercy for reconciliation, unity, harmony and being of one accord. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
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