Being a black student at a predominantly white university, I have pretty much heard it all.

You have the people who just automatically assume every black person they see is here on a financial or athletic scholarship. You have the occasional, “You probably only got in because you’re black,” or “Don’t worry, you’ll get in. Grad schools always want diversity.”

For some reason almost no one really understands what affirmative action is. One half believes affirmative action still exists to give minorities an unfair leg up on white people. The other half believes that affirmative action has solved all of our problems and we now live in a post-racial society. Obviously, neither of these are true. I’m not going to give y’all a history of affirmative action — that would make this article entirely too long.

However, I do have an issue with people who don’t acknowledge their privilege.

For some strange reason, a lot of people think racism doesn’t exist anymore. Some of your teachers would have you believe we all start on a level playing field and equal opportunity is actually a thing.

I’m sorry, but no.

Tell that to the people of color that get turned down for jobs they are qualified for because they have an “ethnic” sounding name. If you’re white you might be thinking, “Well, slavery was hundreds of years ago, why do I have to pay for something that my ancestors might have done?”

First off, slavery did not end that long ago. The first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619. The Emancipation Proclamation was only signed 152 years ago. You know what that means? That means that the Americas have existed longer with slavery than they have without it.

Second, no one wants you to “pay” for anything, just check your privilege. Acknowledge that if you are white living in the United States you are indirectly benefiting from slavery. Let me break it down for you. After black people were “freed,” the jobs they could do were still very limited, they lived in segregation and they couldn’t go to school.

Eventually, the Civil Rights Movement came along and these limitations were deemed illegal, and here we are today. One hundred and fifty-two years later and 7 percent of the student body here at UT is black. That’s what I call progress.

Even though February, the shortest month of the year and Black History month, has just ended, check your privilege in whatever form it may come in — race, class, gender — and stop telling yourself that you “don’t see color.”

Yes, you do. We are all different colors. It is okay to recognize our differences, as long as we acknowledge the advantages or disadvantages we may have because of them.

Hawa Henderson is a senior in microbiology. She can be reached at [email protected].