‘Privilege’ comes in different forms

I was raised so similarly to the writer of 'Is it a privilege to be white? Not quite” (Sept. 20, Stu Bykofsky) that we could have been brothers. Except my brother is dead from a drug overdose. I grew up in South Bronx, where my parents slept on a pullout sofa in the living room. My mother would get up early to boil water so that we had hot water to wash with in the morning. I won't go into detail of the slums, gang wars and other issues of growing up in those areas.

I became a pharmacist. Early in my career, I was working in a pharmacy in a wealthy area. I was leaving for a pharmacy in another community. The owner asked if I could recommend a replacement. I knew a wonderful pharmacist whose demeanor would fit well. He was not hired. He was Black Jamaican.

I lived in Rochester, N.Y., at the time of the urban race riots. I worked for a local pharmacy chain, whose owner lived in Rochester. When the riots broke out, the owner called every pharmacy manager and asked them to drive by their pharmacy and report the condition back to him. If possible, go inside and inspect. Of the 20 pharmacy managers, in 20 stores, one was arrested. A black pharmacist. In New York State, pharmacists not only have their license hung on display but also their photograph. As the pharmacist was pointing to his license, the police handcuffed him. He asked the police to call the owner and was told he gets one call when he gets to the police station. With the rioting, you can imagine the disarray, and the pharmacist was in jail overnight, for the crime of being black.

The pain of the past - slavery, Holocaust - and the near destruction of Native Americans, is true as is many more. Privilege, or perhaps advantage, exists as does disadvantage. Advantage exists in different forms for different people under different circumstances. The playing field is not even.

What launched a change in career was a job that I obtained because I was male, and my chief competitor was female. I can recount a number of situations in which being white made all the difference in my career to the detriment of someone else's career. It was a deep understanding of this which helped me in management and provided my first management job, a discussion for another time.

l Niles Ross, Cedar Rapids, is a retired pharmacist. Comments: ross-niles@gmx.com.