I think about what is good about being white is that as a member of the dominant race in a racist society I don't have the stress of being different. Whiteness is an invisible box and I fit inside of it. I lived in Honduras for three years and no matter how good my Spanish was, I was seldom mistaken for a Honduran. I was always different. Any time I entered a space, people saw me first and foremost as a Gringo. If I was in a public space I needed to be aware that people might try to rob me because just by being a Gringo I attracted that attention. It was nice to be among my Honduran friends because when I was there, people dealt with me as a person and not as a Gringo. There was always a low level stress for me in Honduras in public places.

I imagine that to be anything other than the dominant race in the USA would lead to being judged first and foremost as a representative of that whole group, whereas to be white is to be judged for other things or to be allowed to exist as an individual. I would like to live in a world where we are all allowed to be individuals, but to get there I need to learn to see all the ways that my white-ness functions in the world - ways that are often invisible to me.