Travel Life With Vân

“Race doesn’t really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don’t have that choice.”

Needless to say, I am not black. I wish I was. Mostly when I was younger. Then I realize there were not only African Queens, but also Asian Queens.

I am mixed race Asian. And this week, I witnessed first hand white privileges like never before.

First, let me say that there is no way I am appropriating to myself what my fellows African people have suffered. Their history with white people is next level.

I just want to give my input off of my experience and my take on it. As a first generation of immigrants from a French colonization too.

Also, my friend Mariane made me discover this wonderful author and I really fell in love with her point of view.

Let’s dive into this !

OK. So. Growing up with racism and discrimination and different type of ways to handle the situation by me or others, I honestly didn’t thought that much about white privileges.

Mostly because I wasn’t educated about it. I truly thought that French people were that way because they looked the way that they looked and it was (careful your eyes) normal.

It’s started when I got to college and then when I was bless to travel by myself all around the world, with the new generation where tongues untie themselves.

Then I fully understood this thing. Why I was treated differently. Why the questions, the looks, the judgement, the feeling of being abnormal.

Now, I do what I can do to gain the power the world took away from me.

I am learning.

I am educating myself.

I still have hope though.

I am looking at life with reality in my eyes first, instead of optimism.

That’s why this week, it hit me.

I started a job as a telecommunications adviser. This job is mostly females workers. And that’s a fact. The subject of it will be another discussion.

In this company, they praise themselves to be a diversity hirers. With the ten people that are in my group, there are two white guys.

The way that they act, they allow themselves to talk and react in this learning process is the proper definition of white privileges.

And thinking that to be taken seriously they will have to adapt to the surroundings around them is not even a question that they seem to ask themselves. They just know that they are here in their home, blindfolded by the reality of the space they are in.

And I wondered. Is there times when I do have that entitlement mind ?

Because even though I got my fair share of bad things happening to me because I am different. I also had, have and hopefully still will have some undeniable advantages of being mixed Vietnamese.

In that case, this week witnessing fully white privileges taught me one thing, I still have so much to learn.