I Wish I Had My Husband’s White Privilege
By: Rebecca Stevens A.
Tags: Equality, BlackLivesMatter, Self, Race, Relationships

Living with someone who has more privilege than you is a strange experience. No one can tell you otherwise. I am a black woman, and my husband is a white man. Every day of my life, I get to see his privilege up close, and I’ll be honest, sometimes it triggers a host of different feelings and emotions in me — ranging from sadness to outrage to downright resentment.

It’s difficult for me to understand why the world treats us so differently. I mean, aren’t we both human beings with the same needs for respect and acceptance? But no, society doesn’t see us that way. For society, he is powerful, and I am not.

As a black woman, I am invisible

Take, for example, a few months ago, we decided to build a pergola in our garden. I called up a number of companies and explained our needs and budget. One company said they would need to come by to evaluate the terrain.

When I opened the door to the sales representative, he looked up at me in surprise and asked to see the homeowner. For him, it was inconceivable that I could possibly own my home. He was convinced I was the housekeeper or the nanny. He came into the house, did a few measurements in the garden, hardly spoke to me, left, and never sent me an offer.

My white husband is always taken seriously

Seeing no progress, a few months later, my husband called the same company and randomly fell upon the same sales representative. However, this time, the experience was completely different. They met, the sales representative explained the challenges we would face in building a pergola so close to the boundary of our property with that of our neighbors. My husband received a proposal a few days later.

So while I was completely disregarded as a black woman, my husband was taken seriously and services were delivered to him. It was simply incredible.

I experience microaggressions, my husband never does

Another example comes to our children’s health. My son suffered from several ear infections when he was younger. The childcare personnel would usually call me first whenever he started running a fever. When he was very sick, I would head to the emergency room immediately. Here again, I would experience microaggressions that my husband would never encounter.

On one of these hospital visits, a nurse once started asking me questions about the history of my son’s health. For example, was he born at term, did I breastfeed him, when did he walk for the first time, when did he speak?

I wasn’t trusted to know about my son’s health

These milestones were important to me and I knew the answers to all of them by heart, but the nurse continuously turned to my husband for the answers to these questions instead of taking my word for it. And when she finally listened to me, she turned to him for validation of my answers. It was though I was invisible, as though I didn’t exist.

And there are countless other incidents like these. For example, on our wedding anniversary, I booked a lovely hotel in the Swiss Alps. I had alerted the hotel that I was surprising my husband and that I would settle all bills related to our stay.

They weren’t used to a black woman paying the bills

Yet, time and time again, the personnel would hand him over invoices to sign. I complained to the reception about this and they clearly confessed that they weren’t used to a black woman taking on the entire costs of a stay in their establishment.

I think where my white husband’s privilege works me up the most, is when I see the ease at which he navigates through a white world. Everyone listens to him and is at his beck and call. Its as though he has special superpowers. When he demands a service, nowhere in his mind does he ever think that he will not receive it.

Most people just disregard me completely

For me, it’s a 1 in 2 chance that I will get a service that I have paid sometimes even heftily for. Most times, people just disregard me completely. It’s as though I am a lesser human being. These experiences are emotionally challenging and increasingly difficult to cope with and accept.

Whenever my husband has a job interview, he focuses on preparing himself mentally for the experience. I also prepare myself mentally, but I also have to keep in mind that maybe the interviewer might take issue with my color and might not give me a fair chance at getting the job.

Because he has privilege, he is less stressed

So yes, the night before the interview, I’ll have a lot more stress than my husband ever will. The simple fact that he is less stressed is yet another example of the all too pervasive privilege that he has.

So yes, I sometimes feel a little envious of his privilege because it gives him a much easier life than mine. He doesn’t always have to fight for things, to systematically challenge racist and biased thinking and behaviors, or to ask over and over again to get a service that he is entitled to. He immediately commands attention and respect, while I experience the opposite.

Our children point out how differently we are treated

At one stage in my life, I had decided to ignore the differences in the way we were treated, but today I can no longer do so because our children point out these differences and comment frequently about them. They ask me how I feel, so I can no longer pretend to not see them.

And I must admit that I sometimes ask my husband to take my children to the doctor, optician, or football game because I know that with their dad, they will be treated better. Some of his white privilege rubs off on them and they get a positive experience. Because people don’t treat me with respect, or acknowledge me, when my children are with me, they encounter more negative experiences than when they are with their father. I resent the fact that because of his white privilege, they get to have more positive experiences with him than with me.

The world will have to change, it doesn’t have a choice

But as I look at the world, I am convinced that things will have to change. By the year 2050, 80 percent of the people on the planet will be some shade of brown. In that type of world, racism which is at the heart of white privilege will no longer be able to thrive. Of course, we still have a lot of work to do to unlearn racism and bias — but I strongly believe the winds of change are blowing, and the wheels of change are turning. Change is galloping forward with force and determination. It cannot and will not be stopped.

Thanks for reading my perspective.