On Privilege

Dusk is beginning to reach the city of Accra. My feet are covered in a layer of red dirt. I should have gone home long ago. What was I even doing out so late after dark? The answer of every twenty one year old who has nothing to do but all the time in the world: nothing good. I arrive at the taxi station. I watch with anxiety as the last of the sun dips below the horizon. The station is usually active with taxis and tro tro’s rushing in and out to take people where they need to go. Now, all I see are lines of people, feet shuffling and anxiously anticipating relief. Everyone is tired and there is only one taxi for what feels like a hundred people.

I watch as the station manager fights through a crowd of people to reach me and he grabs me by the arm. I already know what he’s about to do. I catch his eyes for a second but that’s all I need to understand the harsh truth of what he’s not telling me. I don’t belong here.

Before anyone can notice the whiteness of my skin, he pulls me towards the car and shoves me inside it. Chaos ensues. This act incites a riot. I hear shouts in the dark. The car rocks back and forth as the people outside push against it. The driver’s door is yanked open and he fights against the hands and the arms until he can lock the door closed. Before he can move the car forward, a fist makes contact with the window. The glass splinters.

Then we’re gone, the chaos and the rage behind us. I can hardly breathe and I’ve been shocked so many times in a million moments I can’t even muster tears. I can’t feel anything but I know exactly what happened. I wait until we’re out of the view of the crowd before I breathe again. There are so many ways to explain what happened. As a white female, I wasn’t safe. I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have been there. This was the first time I saw what my privilege was and wasn’t. Being white brought me to the front of the line. Being female put me in the car.

I struggled in my short few months in Ghana because I was a woman. Every day I was harassed. Male teachers refused to shake my hand. There were times where I could hear my auntie in my homestay being beaten by her husband. I refused proposals with politeness and a smile. There was one night on Cape Coast when all I wanted was a moment to read Alison Bechdel's Fun Home but instead was stopped and forced to have a conversation with a group of men. The leader of the group took the book out of my hands and I’ll never forget how he paused on a scene of two naked women and mocked it for being pornographic. Never mind that the woman in the book was experiencing her sexual freedom. This had everything to do with power and I didn’t have it.

This was privilege in its most blatant state. I couldn’t deny it. I was complicit in it for allowing it to happen but just as guilty for not being mindful of my time. I knew I couldn’t be out that late but I was young and dumb and that didn’t matter and because of that other people paid the price. Exhausted. Frustrated. Eager to get home. And here I come, rushing past the line and into the car that they had waited for? It’s not just or fair. And I went along with it because I was young and scared and eager for the quick comfort and safety it would bring.

There are times in our lives that are going to shake us, rattle us, and turn us around and what do we do with those experiences? Do we still and allow the water to settle? Or do we make it ripple and wave? What are the privileges we’ve all taken for the comforts they bring? And what do we do with that knowledge we have about that privilege?