This is Your Nation on White Privilege by Tim Wise
For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you liketo "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible,all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college),and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement,whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan,makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God"in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being atypical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W.Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people,you're an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light"burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W.. Bush 90percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
posted by cjb at 11:40 AM
8 Comments:
So awesomely well said and well-defined. You're right. We have been seeing this played out by the republicans AND with the democrats during the contest to pick the candidate. It's like they have been shouting to everybody "Have you forgotten HE'S BLACK!" But I trust that most Americans will filter through this and pick a president that they believe will be good for the United States of America.
Good piece--but the author is TIM Wise.
this piece is circulating on the internet. i think it is important for people to look at white privilege even more deeply, to look within and to see that having a liberal perspective and not being as blatantly an unconscious perpetrator of white privilege doesn't mean that one doesn't have white privilege. If you are white, you got it. it's like a dis-ease rooted in western civilization. it's subtle. and my concern about the post above is that it points too much blame on other white people who are more visibly 'sick' for lack of a better word, with this 'dis-ease.' we all have it, whether we like it or not, and self-examination is uncomfortable and the conversation is difficult and requires a lot of deep work uprooting the shadows of white privilege in a person's unconscious and subconscious beliefs.
so now being white is like a disease? sounds like something Hitler said about the evil Jews or Stalin's remarks about the Kulaks.
There is no such thing as {white} privilege since privilege has no racial code or color.
I would love for tim wise to move to Pakistan and tell some punjab tribesman that he has to many privileges over his wife and children. wise is nothing more than a blabbering idiot.
Basically white people don't work hard for anything, and everything is given to them. I don't believe that to be true. The thing, is if a white person fails at something they do not get get any sympathy from ayone, not even other white people. White people don't get to play race cards when things don't go their way. When you talk about women going vote for another woman because they are the same gender, you are very much mistaken. Women tend to be harder on other women, then they would be on anybody else. Women definitely do not want to be represented by an idiot. How many black people are going to vote for Obama because he is black. White people don't see themselves as part of one big group. White people don't see other white people, they have never seen before, and act like they are family. Black people want to take credit for good things another black people do, but they do not want to be associated with the bad things black people do. All races have people that do both good and bad things. Yes, racism still exists today. The most discrimination occurs between classes of people, money talks, it is the only color that really matters anymore. Be a little more open-minded about the world.
"working towards an equitable society for all Americans. Let’s bring the discussion out in the open."
The trouble is, that the discussion will supress the considerable evidence that groups differ in average ability. We know in terms of evolution, that groups exposed to different environmental pressures may develop distinct genetic traits. This is clear in athletics.
In terms of academic ability, it is quite clear that Ashkenazi Jews & East Asians, on average, outperform whites.
For example, in Brazil, it is the Japanese who are the highest-achieving group. They were brought in as indentured labourers to work the plantations after slavery was abolished in 1888. Yet, today, the Japanese outscore Whites on IQ tests. Seven studies of Jews in Britain yield a median IQ of 110. In educational achievement, East Asians in Britain also outperform the indigenous Whites. Similarly in Australia, East Asians (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese) average higher than Whites in IQ, educational achievement, and earnings. There are pockets of ethnic Chinese elsewhere in the world such as in Mexico, Argentina, and especially Hawaii, where they also do well.
These results are remarkably consistent over time, place, and situation, irrespective of the original status of the people, or the language, history, and political organization of the country concerned.
By ignoring these factors, we risk demonising successful groups, as happened to the Armenian Jews or Jews in Germany. Also the Chinese in Mayaysia.
Pretty interesting!!!
All this is is someone using their biased viewpoint to certain situations and spinning it to make a point. There were many people who considered Bristol Palin irresponsible. Almost every example given there are people of all races who would be scared of a white person who is a gun enthusiast. Crazy white gunmen are somewhat of a stereotype. This author likes to generalize and uses stupid examples to back up his cult member like belief in a damaging theory to all people.
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