Church Sign Mentions White Privilege

Recently, the Good Samaritan Church in Pinellas Park, Florida put up a sign that read “If you are white, use your privilege to fight for justice.” Resident David Garman said, “Everybody has rights no matter if you’re black or white, or Hispanic or anything. Everybody has basic human rights and we should all be guaranteed and we are all guaranteed under the constitution. I don’t think there is a such thing as a white privilege.”

Pastor Jennifer Daysa explained that the Good Samaritan Church is predominantly white, but they have been discussing ways to promote more equality.

She said, “We really feel that white privilege and having a lot more advantage in our community is just a fact of reality and history. We think we need to work on that so we can be a more reconciled people among all groups.” Daysa told The Tampa Bay Times that she’s received some hateful comments on Facebook and “some pretty strongly worded voicemails.”

She went on to say, "The negative reactions I've heard so far have been from Caucasian or white people in our community who don't believe white privilege exists and are upset that we're drawing attention to it. We could go through life as white people in our community and not even recognize it. But we need to acknowledge it.”

Daysa added, “We had a sign out there a few weeks ago over Martin Luther King week. It came directly from our national denomination who has a media campaign right now confronting white privilege and power, and the sign read: 'White Privilege: If you can’t see it you’ve got it. And there were a number of people calling ... us anti-racist and a disappointment to Martin Luther King Jr.”

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