I have to say I enjoy attending any multicultural experience opportunities, but being affected by the Penn State plague can cause one bed rest for an unfortunate amount of time. However, you can learn and be influenced daily by all of the different people that you can meet in all situations. The internet, and movies and speeches allow us to experience even from inside our homes.

I digress. A recent trend on Facebook is to share various videos, and sometimes, luckily more than often on my news feed I will come across positive themes promoting change, and I find it wonderful that people my age are interested in such studies and topics. A girl shared this video that I have uploaded as well, and it is only about four minutes long, but in these four minutes, educator, author, and researcher, Dr. Joy Angela DeGruy tells a personal experience story of how white privilege impacted her life one day. Before I continue with the summary of the video, I did research on Dr. Joy just for more background knowledge and credibility.

Dr. Joy DeGruy is a nationally and internationally renowned researcher, educator, author and presenter. With over twenty years of practical experience as a professional in the field of social work, she gives practical insight into various cultural and ethnic groups that form the basis of contemporary American society in workshops that she holds. Dr. DeGruy’s workshops also go far beyond the topic of cultural sensitivity and diversity; she provides specialized work in areas of mental health. Her seminars have been lauded as the most dynamic and inspirational currently being presented on the topics of culture, race relations and contemporary social issues. I think that I would very much like to attend a workshop held by Dr. DeGruy in the future. I will look into seeing if she has more educational videos, and would share it with my comm 205 class.

Dr. DeGruy begins her story with telling her audience that her sister, Kathy, is half black half white, but her skin is white and dons blue eyes, unlike herself. The two seem very close and not only to mention again that they are family but they protect and help one another. The two sister’s accompanied by Dr.DeGruy’s 10-year-old daughter, are standing in line to purchase groceries, both sisters paying in checks separately. Dr. DeGruy mentions that the cashier is a Caucasian and strawberry-blonde lady. Dr. DeGruy’s sister checks out her groceries first, and the cashier is talking up a storm and interacting with her, and accepts her checks without any problems at all. When Dr. DeGruy and her daughter step up to the cashier with their groceries, the cashier suddenly ceases to talk at all. Her demeanor seems to have changed entirely. Apparently, Dr. DeGruy’s young daughter immediately picked up the body language and social cues that the cashier is giving off, and was clearly beginning to get upset. When Dr. DeGruy went to write her check, the cashier asked her personally for TWO different forms of IDs. Dr. DeGruy said that the cashier followed to pull out the list of people that the store recognized that were constantly writing bad checks, and looked for Dr. DeGruy’s name intensely. Her daughter started tearing up and asked her mother why this was happening to them and signalling out to embarrass them, when her Aunt Kathy had gone by with no issues. Kathy came back to the cashier and asked why she was putting her sister through things she did not put herself through. The manager and multiple people in the store started agreeing with Kathy and stood up for Joy against the unjustifiable racial discrimination.

Dr. DeGruy specializes in ethnic and cultural topics, and categorized the White Privilege that Kathy acted on that day as being used in a positive light. Due to the fact that Kathy’s skin was a lighter color than her own sister’s, the two were treated entirely different in the same situation. Dr. DeGruy said that she used her privilege and acted on the truth and was able to explain, have her sister’s back, and get people to empathize with the unjust situation, all because she had lighter skin than her sister. The discrimination and situation are terrible all together, especially because a young child was affected by it. An innocent mind experienced a direct act of hate with no explanation at all. That type of experience would make anyone start to question their own worth, and notice the differences between how blacks and whites are treated.

White privilege is a real issue, despite that many claim they do not experience it, and most of the time this comment comes from white citizens. Just because you are oblivious does not necessarily mean that it is blissful. All as people of communities need to want to make an effort and get educated on racial issues and will then be more aware and sensitive to not discriminate and make small girls cry and embarrass them in the grocery line. And what leaves me speechless, is that I have worked as a cashier, and when you have a couple costumers and a line is forming, you want to check them out as fast as possible so that the customers don’t get aggravated. This cashier deliberately held up a line and Dr. DeGruy from going on with her day, just to make her feel bad. The cashier was a young lady and there could had been multiple reasons for her insolence but if you are the cashier and they are your customers, you are nice to every single customer equally.

I hope to one day attend one of her workshops because I very much enjoyed this video and shared it on my own Facebook page in hopes that others in my social circle can become enlightened on these sensitive topics. Facebook and twitter can honestly be very powerful tools, if used correctly. I have posted the video for you all to watch, and I hope that you do.