From “Telling Stories in the Dark: Finding healing and hope in sharing our sadness, grief, trauma, and pain” by Jeffrey Munroe
I learned much from Quentin about the challenges he faced as a Black man raising a family in our community. I remember riding with him in his van once because I needed to rent some tables and chairs. As we were driving to the rental shop, we approached the border of East Grand Rapids. Quentin turned left and took a longer route, staying inside of Grand Rapids and skirting East Grand Rapids. Although the place we were heading was in Grand Rapids, the fastest route was through East Grand Rapids.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why didn’t you go straight?”
“It’s not good for me in there,” he said. He was wary of driving while Black in East Grand Rapids.
“Really?” I said, slowly comprehending. “Wait a minute. Have you been pulled over in there?” I started to feel angry. This wasn’t right. This was America. Any person, regardless of color, should be able to drive the most direct route through any community without consequence. I started to express my anger and Quentin just looked at me and shook his head. He smiled and I realized, although I was his Young Life supervisor, he saw more than I saw and knew more than I knew. This was more than a decade before the killings of George Floyd, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, and so many others would awaken our national consciousness to the dangers people of color face living their normal lives. That ride has stayed with me as an example of how markedly different my life experience as a white man is from the life experience of a person of color. For people of color, things are often not the way they should be, while white people like me move around in clueless comfort.
“White privilege” is a term that gets misunderstood. It does not mean all white people have easy lives. One of the things it means is what Quentin and I were experiencing. When we were done with the table and chairs and I was driving by myself, I would return to driving through East Grand Rapids without incident, having the privilege not to think about the color of my skin. Quentin does not have that privilege. To this day, Quentin still won’t drive through East Grand Rapids, and is reminded of the color of his skin every time he goes the long way around.