I am a member of an invisible minority: Portuguese-Americans. While our ancestors were some of the earliest colonizers and explorers in the New World, and over the decades in America we have been included as Hispanics, marginalized in communities where our numbers were large enough to scare the majority, and even counted in some census efforts in New England. For the most part, we pass easily as white, especially those of us who didn't inherit dark hair or skin. If I were Black or Mexican or Asian, being "half "would mean I could easily claim my heritage as the daughter of a first generation American citizen, and as the granddaughter of immigrants who came for America's economic opportunity and personal choice.
As an "invisible," I just get shrugs when I explain the origin of my last name (which is complicated because it's actually a common Greek name meaning "Liberty," which somehow migrated to the tiny island in the Azores where my grandparents were born. Because I have red hair and only very lightly olive skin, most people assume I am Irish. I was claimed by a government agency where I worked as "Hispanic" and my father was designated as "the highest ranking minority" at DuPont where he worked as a chemist and later as an administrator around the world, until the point where he was informed he no longer counted as a minority. In certain moods, I add "Portuguese" to the lines where ethnicity is documented, but my kids make fun of me for even thinking to claim my heritage (they are over 50% Irish-American, a group which was also denigrated back in the day).
All this means I pass, every day, every minute, in America as majority. So I see the unquestioned privilege of being white (even for those who are on the margins and voted for Trump - they still do have that small, in their case, privilege). I can cross a police line (and have, many times) at a protest, with no worries about being clubbed or arrested (as long as I announce my intentions politely first). I can walk into any store, any hospital, any business, and my presence is never questioned or cause for suspicion.
Recently, partly out of curiosity, I walked right up to the Trump Tower in Chicago, past the police and could have planted a protest sign before anyone noticed. During the Bush regime, I not only went to a fundraiser at the 2008 Republican convention hosted by Phyllis Shafly, but smuggled a protest sign in and didn't get arrested even when two of us jumped on the stage and interrupted the event to call for leaving Iraq. (We did dress up in "ladylike" suits and we "borrowed" the nametags of attendees who hadn't shown up for the event.) Last year, I accidentally drove into the wrong part of the DC National airport (literally going the wrong way down the taxi only ramp) and was not shot or arrested - even though it took me two tries to go the right way as DC police watched me after initially pulling me over.
As a woman who came of age in the '60s, I was part of the visible "minority" at many workplaces and in a number of situations. I was the only female member of the boys' track team at my high school (due to an exceptionally open-minded coach who was not a liberal but believed in the right of all students to participate in athletics). I attended meetings in the boys' locker room and while about half the guys were not happy, the other half went out of their way to help me train. As the only woman manager at a large science museum, I survived sexual harassment and while I never got a promotion to senior management, I was given the opportunity to make major changes in organizational policy and practice in a number of areas.
As someone who has "floated," therefore, I may be "woke" in a way that some of my white family and friends don't seem to be at this time of potential crisis and new realities. For visible minorities, as Melissa Harris Perry, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and many others have noted or joked during the last few weeks, it is not new to be marginalized, despised and disenfranchised, (not to mention shot, arrested and in the worst cases, murdered) even when given the "right" to vote, to participate in American democracy, to go for "the dream."
Those of us in the visible (for a couple more years except in California) majority, need to acknowledge the reality that white urban privilege didn't win the Electoral College or the House and Senate this time, and that our continued arrogance, dismissal of too many people's daily struggles (both minority and majority's - white men without a college education and their families, and those Black and Hispanic voters who picked Trump) and ignorance (along with a heavy dose of media sell out for money rather than journalism) of just how thin a layer of progressive values have been covering over resentment, racism, and yes feeling visible, have created a perfect storm of people waiting for someone like Trump.
At the same time, we must push back against the mantra of "we need to wait and see" that I am hearing from many of my white male friends and family members. The incoming administration is not waiting to dismantle the Dream Act, to gut Obamacare, to strip women of the right to choose their own medical and contraceptive care and LGBTQ people of being able to have a safe and legal family structure. Minority has been a code word for "different" - and too often a way to make others invisible, and mistreatment of minorities (including women who are actually a majority but still treated as a minority in many ways) is on the rise.
As an invisible woman, I'm calling for all of us to make our concerns visible, not just through protest, but through organizing, running for office, and pushing back on legislation and Cabinet appointments which will be harmful to both visible and invisible minorities- even the white men who are currently cheering them on.