Triathlon and “White Privilege”

We started listening to this phrase after several incidents in the USA between the police and colored people, later on we saw the same phrase referring to people who was going to college and getting better jobs.  We wrote about blacks in Jamaica who were considered themselves “whites.”

8 oct. 2012

TRIATHLON EDUCATION AND DIVERSITY

I heard that somebody asked if the population of Jamaica was black 100%, and the one who answered said it was 100% White.  He was referring to being treated equal and having a homogeneous population. Something little similar to "black boy" in William Blake´s poem:

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

Blackness is not in the color of skin. It is in the way we think, we act, we behave, and it depends on our believe system, etc.  I had Rastafarian patients and got to know something about Jamaica without visiting.  Not as good as the Russian who broke the Maya Code and imagined the Yucatan Peninsula and said that it was as he thought it was when visiting. 

As a Mexican who worked in the USA as a physician, I have an idea what they are talking about because we have the same problem without considering the race in Mexico.  We have privileged people in Mexico; they considered themselves immune to the consequences of what they do.  What they did in Ayotzinapa is related to this long standing privilege that allow people to kill others because they “feel” immune to consequences. They are privileged.  Privileges exist when the law is not applied equally to the whole population, or it is not applied at all as it happens in our home town.  Our kids have to overcome privileged people who sieged the city when they want.  Nowadays we have sieges related to Ayotzinapa claiming that they are part of them, without considering our economy and work that suffer tremendously.  Triathlon also has privileged people when the law is not applied; many Federation do what they do without considering athletes or development equally distribute according to achievements.  In Mexico, we have the “Marcas Mínimas” to give money to athletes without looking at performance in competitions, paying for their expenses and not entering others with results because of the "Marca Mínimas."  Our Federation is creating the “white privilege,” making athletes believe they deserve the money they get even when they do not have results; on the other side, they take away the motivation to continue developing as athletes by not entering others who deserve to be competing.  This “white privilege” has not been investigated and by the same token triathlon privilege created by the Mexican Federation.  This "white privilege" plays a major role on performance and motivation to continue in the game.  It is the same phenomenon we see in terrorists: “They believe they are guided by God and what they do is the best for the world.” 

 

The difference in our behavior and the behavior we want for our kids, compared to the terrorists’ behavior, has to do with the application of the law in our heads.  The State is unable to apply the law because our people in the government do not have willingness to do it; we need to have rules in our heads first.

Underprivileged people need to fight harder; there is no doubt about it.  Fighting destroying what belongs to others is not our way; unfortunately, that is how our society has been doing for centuries.  We have accepted the challenge of working harder than anybody to overcome “white privilege.”  “White privilege” is learned and we need an education to overcome it; societies in the world are constantly fighting the balance to overcome “white behavior.” “Machismo” is a form of “white privilege” that has being losing ground over the last 20 years.  When I finished my residency, I achieved the 87 percentile in my final exam of all the graduates taking the exam in the USA, which is what we expect from our kids.  Fighting “white privilege” is not worth it in this short life because another one will prevail after.  Obama used his "white privilege" to be President.