Yesterday, I was surfing the web and I came across this article on Yahoo. It was early in the morning and my glasses were nowhere to be found. So, I use the auto setting on my phone for a quick response!

Little did I know how many people would be stirred by the response. This morning the response gathered nearly 300 replies and then a sudden sadness took over.

I think we have inadvertently told a group of people that their pain and troubles lack substance because of their so called magical barrier called privilege.

We use the worlds white privilege like they are nothing. However, I would like to wager that white people hate that phrase about as much as we hate race card.

The truth is all people hurt and all people have specific obstacles they must overcome. The danger comes when we minimize the pain of one group by maximizing the difficulties of others.

Where does that group gain its strength and healing if we all fail to listen? One poster made a statement declaring that any minority would love to be white. I had to disagree because being white comes with stress of being born with a stain that never really seems to disappear. Every generation is blamed for the sins of people who lived many many years ago. Where is the privilege in that? There’s no privilege in not being able to talk about your struggles and have the term privilege thrown in your face.

Perhaps if we can stop focusing on who does this and who does that, we might be able to get a better idea of what matters. Unity has to include all people from all walks of life. If we look to end poverty we should look at ending all poverty. When looking at pain, we should look at healing all pain. When we minimize the struggle we push people away, and at the end of the day, we need each day other.

We know what racism is and isn’t. I challenge people to think outside of the box and ask yourself what can we do to change the heart of the matter.