The Rights and Responsibilities of White Privilege in a Time of Racism

Ignoring your privilege does not make it go away, nor does denying its power to make effective change.

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“Evil cracker! Evil cracker! Evil cracker!”

The words came hurling at me as I was leaving a store in St. Louis Park with my dementia-cursed mother who still has enough defiance and chutzpah to refuse a cane to assist her labored walking. “Huh? Are you talking to me?” I said as I was blindsided in the vestibule by a raging woman and her friend spewing words of hate toward my mother and me, presumably because I’d suggested to a clerk that the store was being poorly managed during the holiday season. 

The words came at me again, and again and again like a stream of angry silver pellets from