White Luck: A Personal Reflection on Privilege

Jan Arminio’s (2013, p. 126) concept of white luck, the idea that “it’s easier to be at the right place at the right time, to have things go your way” if you are white, reminded me of a conversation I once had with my grandfather Jack Willis. Jack grew up in poverty on the coast of North Carolina. He lived in a one-room shack near the coast with his mother and brothers and spent his childhood fishing in the ocean to provide the family with food. At eighteen Jack joined the navy, where he befriended a fellow sailor whose father was a higher-up at Bell Helicopter in Texas. Jack was told to contact his friend’s father for work upon returning to the United States. He spent the next several decades working his way up the company ladder and taking

Sitting on his back porch, watching schools of fish swim by the dock where his small fishing boat was anchored, we were discussing my reasons for pursuing a career as a science teacher. I described what I knew about the achievement gap in the sciences between white male students and their female peers and peers of color. I told him that I want to encourage young women and students of color to pursue careers in science, or to at least open up STEM careers as options to consider. My grandfather responded by telling me about working his way from absolute poverty to a secure upper-middle class life. He spoke about his firm belief in the myth of America as a meritocratic society (Adams, 2013). I listened to his story and acknowledged that he had worked very hard to secure a better life for himself and for his family. When I asked Jack if he believed that his race played any role along the way, he said no without hesitation. I then asked him, “Do you think that your friend’s father would have offered you a job at Bell based solely on his son’s word if you had been black?” Jack hesitated, taking a moment to really think about the question before responding, “You know what? No… I don’t think he would have offered me the job at

85) describes a common belief that “because not all white people owned slaves, no white people can be held accountable or inconvenienced by the legacy of slavery.” Reading this and reflecting on the jarring details I learned about my family’s history once I took the time to ask, I have to wonder how many white people assume that their ancestors were not slave-owners simply because the information has not been deliberately passed down to them. It’s easier not to ask tough questions about your history and to simply attribute the success of your white relatives to hard work and determination. As a white person, when you know that your relatives really were hard-working and determined, it can be very difficult to remember that they were still hard-working, determined, and