Lilies Explain White Privilege
Imagine my surprise when lilies began to bloom in the backyard. I had no idea they’d been planted. That was not disclosed by the previous owners. The stalks grew tall; the blooms took my breathe away, and their pictures made my heart smile.
On her way to live independently in Florida, my mother (Tee) made her first visit to my home. Then COVID-19 hit. Tee settled in. Not once has she asked questions about home maintenance. She has no idea how many bills must be paid, the total amount due nor the due date. What she does know is the lights are always on.
In almost twelve months, she has not stepped foot inside a grocery store. Yet, she cooks all the time. Every ingredient she casually mentions can be found somewhere in “her” kitchen. She is never hungry.
Whenever Tee gets in bed, not only is it made but the linens have been turned down and her MyPillow fluffed just like she likes it.
Mama drinks coffee in the morning and green tea at night. The spindle on the counter is always full. Always. Even now it looks like the first cup has yet to be made.
Sometimes my mom doesn’t answer when I call her name because she’s not in the house. She’s outside sitting under the pergola with her feet propped up, basking in the beauty of the lilies planted in a garden she did not plant in the backyard of a home she did not buy that has bills she will never pay.
That’s how white privilege works. My mother never asked the previous owners to plant lilies. In fact, not only has my mother never met them, she never wonders who they are. It’s reminiscent of the majority of white people who aren’t concerned enough to know anyone in their family owned slaves.
My mother’s unspoken expectation is that the bills will be paid, the refrigerator will be stocked and all her needs will be met. In the same way, white America never expects anyone to ask who was overlooked and better qualified for their job or who is unable to receive a quality education while they matriculate free of charge or how much money they save living in a house previously owned by their parents.
That’s why the argument “My ancestors didn’t own slaves falls flat on its face.” To continue to sit under the pergola of white supremacy and enjoy the blooms of chattel slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crow, Redlining and Mass Incarceration while insisting racism isn’t real because All Lives Matter is an insult.
This country is undoubtedly broken, but it can be made whole…in our lifetime…if all lives are willing to learn the truth about the history of Black lives in America and commit ourselves to the work of collective liberation. Black people need freedom from the social and psychological shackles inferiority while white America needs the freedom to understand they are not, never have been and never will be what they have been taught.
White supremacy is a myth.
— Rev. Dr. Denise Donnell
