Editor:

Something special happened locally around this years Women's March: authentic dialog around white privilege ("Overwhelmingly White," Jan. 10). As a white male, I choose to be careful commenting about the women's movement and racial injustice. It would be easier to say nothing. Though I'm not "religious," I learned about Jesus as a child and, like Jesus, I choose peace for all humankind.

So, as a descendant of colonizers, I choose to reflect on the benefits white privilege affords me as I work for peace. I challenge other white men to do the same. I also extend this challenge to white women because white privilege transcends gender and because, based on the words of local women upset by the march cancellation and subsequent boycott, I can see that reflection is needed. The self-declared "new management" for the local 2019 Women's March could not understand the reasons that compelled original organizers to hit the pause button. As stated in a calendar announcement in the North Coast Journal: "What do we want? Intersectional feminism. Why is this hard?" That is a great question!

It gets back to the idea of Jesus' pure love and desire for peace. Privilege makes it easy for us to wrap ourselves up in the comfortable idea that we just want peace for everyone. Why all the divisiveness? After all, we all want the same thing, right? Let's check ourselves there. The comfortable space we enjoy all year, by virtue of our white privilege, affords us these luxurious ideas. It's disrespectful to expect our brothers and sisters of color to come out and "intersect" during our annual show of force. Persistent, systematic oppression means that authentic intersectional experiences are going to be the hard-won result of humble, courageous and sustained engagement with the communities struggling against that oppression.

Dave Carter, Eureka