The Crayon Named Flesh

I remember the first time I heard the term “white privilege.”

It was the summer of 2000 and I had just returned to the U.S. from an overseas job assignment. During the years I had been away, my colleagues had moved forward in creating a more inclusive work environment. It felt as if I had missed a few weeks in school and needed to run to catch up. As we shared our different life experiences based on our skin color, a white colleague used the term “white privilege.”

My first thought was that she might experience privilege, but not me. Yes, my skin was white. But my parents had grown up picking cotton in the south. They never had things easy. This mouth had never tasted a silver spoon. I associated the word ‘privilege’ only with socioeconomic privilege. I did not verbalize my distaste for the term. I chewed on it in silence without swallowing, the way a child might chew on liver, hoping for an opportunity to spit it out. As I listened to more stories, I began to understand the intent behind the label. The stories riveted my gut and I began a journey to see the more subtle privileges that I never knew I had.

Something becomes a privilege when you don’t have to think about it. The list of stuff I didn’t have to think about began early.

I didn’t think about that the blonde blue-eyed girl on the Sunbeam bread wrapper on my breakfast table looked like me.

I didn’t think about how the photos in my dad’s daily newspaper looked a lot like him.

I didn’t think about how well the bandage matched when I skinned my knee.

I didn’t think about how the crayon named ‘flesh’ in my new box of 64 colors approximated my pigment.

I didn’t think about buying a pair of hose that went by the color ‘nude’ or ‘suntan’ back in the day when we wore hose.

I didn’t think about whether I might get followed around in a department store by a suspicious sales clerk.

I didn’t think about whether there would be hair salons who knew how to do my hair when I moved anywhere.

I didn’t think about whether my parents were given the benefit of the doubt in business transactions.

You see, I didn’t have to think about my whiteness at all. And that’s what made it privileged. It didn’t make me a bad person. It didn’t make me a hateful bigot. But it did mean I was ignorant.

Once I see something, I cannot un-see it. Once I know something, I must decide what I want to do with the information.

I choose to be grateful that Crayola changed the name of ‘flesh’ to ‘peach’ rather than labeling it political correctness.

I choose to notice when retailers treat a darker skinned customer with less respect. Sometimes I’m brave enough to say something instead of thinking through alternative reasons that just happened.

I choose to pay attention when people who do not look like me show up in a place full of people who do look like me and try to make them feel welcomed.

I choose to accept a label I didn’t ask for. One I might not like. One from which I have benefited. One that has helped me understand my part in the silent perpetuating of racism. I realize it is only a start, because I don’t know what else I do not yet know.

As a person professing to be a follower of Christ, I understand this is not enough. Paul instructs me to go a step further:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. [Philippians 2:3-4 ESV]

Christ calls me with a greater calling anchored in His love. I can increase my awareness. I can change my behavior. But He can change me at a different level. A change of heart. A change of thinking. A change of being. His love can take us deeper in loving others the way He loves each of us.