As we have been reading sections of the Rothberg text I have had an open dialogue with my wife who is White about white privilege. I have discussed numerous readings with her and she has even read some of them herself. During the course of our discussions my wife said something that I found to be very compelling. She said to me that she is very aware of the benefits that she has received throughout her life because of the color of her skin. She also said that since being married to me in certain social environments people look down upon our relationship and that the same privleges she enjoyed can be taken away without realizing it due to nature of our relationship.
For example, we own a house and my mortage is through HSBC bank. We both have HSBC accounts. My wife sells stuff on EBAY to supplement her income as a teacher. She receives third party checks all the time and routinely takes them to the bank to cash them. HSBC has a policy where they are not suppose to cash third party checks but they always let my wife cash them anyway. I have tried to cash third party checks and they have never let me cash them ever.
The policy states that you are only allowed to deposit third party checks and wait for them to clear. A few weeks ago I went to the bank with my wife because we had business to attend to. She brought along a couple of her EBAY checks and went to the same teller that always cashes her checks. However, with me standing by her side and her holding my hand the teller refused to cash her checks and read back the policy to her about third party checks.
This is what my wife was talking about. This is a great example of a situation where her white privilege was revoked because of her relationship with me.
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