Dear Readers,

Today I come to you to talk about my white privilege.

First, I have it, and if you are white, you do as well.

This weekend I had the honor of attending my friend’s wedding.

I was one of seven people there who were white.  Yep, I counted.

My first thought was, “Are we the only white people here?”

My second thought was, “I am very uncomfortable. Will I be able to relate to anyone here?”

I am not proud of it, but that is what I thought, which is utterly ridiculous because while I don’t use the term color-blind I don’t think about my black friend first and I would never use it to describe a friend, because it’s so limiting. My friend, their title or who is also a coach for Beach Body or who I work with, or my friend who just became debt-free (YAY) are usually my descriptors.

My third thought was, “I am honored to be included in such an important event” and it’s true, I love her and I am so happy for her that she has found love and is getting married, I have watched her grow and mature and seeing her do really wonderful things including get out of debt and find financial peace so it was an honor to watch her take this next step and witness her marriage!

In general, people have differences that make them unique and special individuals.

(Whoa, I almost said snowflakes there)

but more unites us than divides us and I found that in talking to the other people at the wedding, I had several things in common (wedding anniversary) (proposal stories) (mistake on someone’s name) (getting lost) (finances) with several different people who do not have my same color of skin. I hate that I was surprised by that, but I was.

We had a very good time and after the initial (self-imposed) awkwardness

I came away thinking, this has taught me about myself. This has taught me that even as an self proclaimed activist, I still have white privilege. The question is what do I do with it? What will you do with it?

I am committed to using my white privilege to do good, to stamp out racism when I see it, hear it or encounter it. I have NO idea what that looks like, because I am designing this as I go and it’s not anyone else’s job to tell me what to do, I need to figure it out.

As for you….

Think about it.