Yikes! Sounds like you've had a really rough life! Sorry you went through all that.
Stories like yours is why I think "white privilege" is a misnomer. Often it means "Yeah, you had it rough, but it would have been worse if you were Black."
So in your case, "white privilege" meant being able to get a minimum wage job, having social workers give you the time of day, not having to be afraid of cops, etc.
Speaking of these things as privilege implies that, in a just world, none of us would be able to get a minimum wage job or have social workers listen to us when we're in trouble and we'd all have to be afraid of cops. Is this what we want?
I'm old enough to remember the Civil Rights struggles of the '60's. We didn't talk about privileges then; we spoke of RIGHTS!
We didn't say white people were privileged to eat at the Woolworth lunch counter or use decent bathrooms or water fountains or vote or not have to worry about lynching (usually... except for white people who did things like register Black people to vote, or defend Black people in court, or fall in love with a Black person... but I digress...).
Instead, we spoke of Rights that everyone should enjoy but were denied to some people because of their color!
Using such straightforward language, we could make the case that some people were denied their RIGHTS and that this wasn't RIGHT! Any decent person of any color could see the truth in this, so we were able to gather the public support to pass the Voting Rights act, the Civil Rights act, and the Fair Housing act. (By we I mean all supporters of Civil Rights, regardless of color or class)
Granted. these laws didn't go far enough, and have been undermined; still, we got it done, in part by using messaging that anyone could understand.
To this day, Black people suffer from racism and the aftereffects of slavery, and now white people -- even would-be allies -- are diverting attention from these horrors to debating over words and their meanings.
Wouldn't it be great if we could put aside these linguistic debates and Oppression Olympics, and focus on Righting the Wrongs of racism, sexism, ableism, and thousands of other -isms that amount to abuses of power by the few over the many?
We can do it. If we dare!
