TWo-Toned FuTure - Jasmine Thompson

Eventually, someone opened the metals shutter on the little window of the cell door. My heart rose. I asked why I was in the cell and why no one was joining me and when I’d be released. The male guard looked at me and without saying anything, closed the shutter. I was left in there for the rest of the night. At some point, I laid on the bench to try to sleep. Time stopped existing and it was just me, my solitude, and my ennui.

At some point, a guard woke me. He pulled me up and I was taken to the nurse. When I got there, she had some rubbery jail food and water for me. Delirious, I was escorted before another officer for release. I asked the final guard I’d encountered why I had been held in a cell, why I’d been taken from the other women and where everyone else was. She informed me I had been singled out because I was foreign-born. I was uncuffed and released through the back of the building with an older Hispanic man. He didn’t speak English, but we mimed our disbelief before going our separate ways. I remember his face vividly. I empathize with him and as far as I could tell, he empathized back.

Checking my privilege came from a situation that is not really that out of the ordinary for many people in this country. I spent a relatively short amount of time in jail, I got off with my charges expunged, and— on the surface—I’m unaffected by the experience. But this brief glimpse at the criminal justice system and being discriminated against was enough to wake me to how much better off I had been than so many other people and how much better off I still am, even than that man.

So many people, so many women, are behind bars for nonviolent crimes. They are victims of the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the Race War in the United States. As unfortunate an experience as it was for me, being a white, educated woman, I was privileged to get a taste of the system without having to be immersed in it.

When I think back at my old stubborn self, I see where I was unaware of what I was so bashful toward. I can see why I didn’t feel like I had to check my privilege because I thought I was not the problem: I was not the oppressor—I was merely someone who didn’t have it so bad. But I realize now that I don’t need to be getting defensive; that’s not what privilege is. Checking your privilege refers to an understanding of one’s place in society based on race, gender, sexuality, and/or socioeconomic standing. It’s