Watch Stephen “tWitch” Boss and Allison Holker’s powerful video about the realities of white privilege
Despite the countless calls for white Americans to not only acknowledge racism but actively denounce it, there are still far too many people willingly denying that it exists. Stephen “tWitch” Boss and Allison Holker shared a TikTok video that expresses the realities of white privilege, and it’s a powerful must-watch.
In the clip, which Holker posted on social media on Tuesday, June 2nd, the So You Think You Can Dance alums can be seen with their 4-year-old son, Maddox. The couple participated in the “Check Your Privilege Edition” TikTok challenge, both putting up all 10 fingers. They were then prompted to put one finger down for each scenario they’d personally experienced. Think of it like the college game Never Have I Ever, but with much more consequence.
The first prompt asked the couple to “put a finger down if you’ve ever been called a racial slur,” and Magic Mike XXL star Boss put down one of his fingers. Other prompts included “followed in a store unnecessarily,” “had someone clutch their purse in an elevator with you,” and “been accused of not being able to afford something expensive,” all of which Boss has experienced—and which Holker has not.
By the end of the video, Boss was out of fingers to put down, unable to express that he’s also “been denied service solely because of the color of [his] skin.” For her part, Holker was able to keep up all of her fingers, except for the prompt that asked, “if you’ve ever had to teach your child how not to get killed by the police.”
The challenge ends by asking, “Any fingers left? That’s privilege.”
The challenge was started by TikTok user @boss_bigmamma, a Black woman named Kenya from Virginia who has been using the app to speak openly about racial injustice since joining in March.
Other TikTok users have since begun participating in the “Put a Finger Down” challenge, serving as an easy—and powerful—way to acknowledge that simply being white is, in and of itself, a privilege in a country that views Black skin as less than.
