This is Your Nation on White Privilege (Updated)
By Tim Wise
For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are 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 like to “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 if you're black and believe in reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), you're a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn't fit to safeguard American institutions.
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 is “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 and the fact that she lives near Russia, 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 a typical 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 when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP, while if you're a black candidate for president and you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're irresponsibly exploiting them.
White privilege is being able to give a 36-minute speech in which you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for being too vague about what he would do if elected.
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 go to a prestigious prep school, then to Yale and Harvard Business School (George W. Bush), and still be seen as an "average guy," while being black, going to a prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and then Harvard Law, makes you "uppity" and a snob who probably looks down on regular folks.
White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.), and that's OK, and you're still cut out to be president, but if you're black and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be trusted to make good decisions in office.
White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you then go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and married for nearly 20 years to the same woman, your family is viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called "terrorist fist bumps."
White privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction, having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong, while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still get high, and even ask whether or not you may have sold drugs at some point.
White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them, makes you dangerously naive and immature.
White privilege is being able to say that you hate "gooks" and "will always hate them," and yet, you aren't a racist because, ya know, you were a POW, so you're entitled to your hatred, while being black and noting that black anger about racism is understandable, given the history of your country, makes you a dangerous bigot.
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 and an absent father is apparently among the "lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin explained in her convention speech.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent 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.
(Red Room Editor's Note: This online community of writers welcomes all the new members who have found us by way of Tim Wise's thought-provoking entries and who have taken the time to comment. We encourage you to read Tim's follow-up here, and to discover all the other great writing on other Red Room blogs and original articles.)
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About Tim
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, "One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation," by best-selling author and professor Michael...
Connections
Nice Try.
Red: Nothing could be further from a rational or even tolerant and reasonable approach than this sentiment. You don't know me, and cannot evaluate my motives: To say that I am being deceptive after one quote, one post, one interaction is not only an ad hominem but an ill-founded one, as you have no proof that anything I said was intended to be deceptive or expressed a fact that I knew was false. I suppose it could be false and therefore "deceptive" in the sense that it leads away from truth, but this is hand-waving. Similarly, "naivite [sic]" is a claim about my positions that could be right or wrong, but alleging it without any demonstration of what exactly was not only incorrect but naively so is quite kneejerk.
You don't even know that I'm not Christian! I could easily be Christian and nonetheless feel that it is offensive, false and repugnant to the enlightened mind to say that millions of Christians who committed atrocities were better or more enlightened than millions of atheists who did not. There ARE interesting arguments from Christians about the need to embrace God or spirituality or something; this is not one of them. You could, for example, say that those millions were misled from Christ's true message of love and peace by temporal factors, the very same kind Christ warned against. You can even argue that, while Christians have not been blameless, on average Christianity (or religion) mitigates against crimes. You can argue that even if atheists don't commit crimes, they miss out on something that Christianity can offer, and thus lead incomplete and therefore not fully enlightened lives. These are arguments I think miss important facts or are tenuous if not false, but they are not absurd or irrational on their face.
I am actually a Buddhist, though if you were to investigate you'd probably find tremendous agreement on many points of ethics and philosophy, but it's deeply revealing that you decided to assume that simply because you didn't like an interlocutor, they must not be Christian or must not accept Christ's love.
Nor is it in line with Christ's teachings to simply tell others to "open their eyes" while offering no reason to do so and simply preaching at them. One element of tolerance, being one's brother's keeper, etc. is to express arguments and try to meet people halfway, explain issues, try to figure out what one is feeling and expressing. The Golden Rule would certainly lead to this outcome, since most people want to be understood and engaged with, not preached at.
And unless you have a tremendously naive set of assumptions about the real world, imagining that God is going to appear, answer my arguments word by word, and deconstruct them, presenting me a rational reason to accept your argument, within three days is just a tad silly.
At the moment, I don't know if you found my claim that evil has to be confronted by its particulars, that evil often has institutional roots which changes our tactics, that Christianity does not necessarily produce 100% moral people, or so forth is naive or deceptive. What I do know is that you have given me no rational reason to accept that I should be Christian, that solving sin is possible or will resolve this problem, or to accept any of your claims, and thus have done disservice to those out there who try to be rational Christians and express their viewpoints with reasoning and evidence.
Great post. One question
Great post. One question though, about this line:
"...so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you then go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values..."
I've heard a lot of talk about McCain calling his wife the c-word, but the only sources I've found for that are blogs and references to an unsourced comment in a gossip book about McCain. Do you have a legitimate source for this allegation?
re: White privilege
"graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be trusted to make good decisions in office. "
This is an interesting point. Hasn't Obama himself admitted he benefitted from affirmative action? Would McCain have got into Harvard with Obama's grades?
Would Obama have been made Editor of the Harvard Law Review if he was white?
If Obama was white would the media not have demanded he provide his academic record, like Gore, Bush & Kerry did?
If Obama was white, would McCain have held off bringing up ACORN, and steered clear of the Jeremiah Wright association like he has?
Would Obama have virtually 100% black support if he was white? Would liberals have flocked to support him over Hillary if he wasn't bi-racial?
I agree, there are no doubt disadvantages Obama faces, but in todays climate, the media tend to paint whites as greedy, racist & violent by nature. Certainly, Republicans are painted as racist on the slightest pre-text (for instance the 'palling with terrorists' comment was said to be "racially tinged", even though Ayers was white, and the Britney ad was said to raise the idea of interacial s8x).
Grand Delusion
"This is an interesting point. Hasn't Obama himself admitted he benefitted from affirmative action? Would McCain have got into Harvard with Obama's grades?"
So what? This isn't a point to the original discussion, which is that Obama has superior educational success yet whites don't think it's relevant in a way they never would for a white candidate. Your affirmative action argument PROVES the point: That whites are determined to dismiss Obama's achievements because he's black. First of all, no one "benefits" from affirmative action. Rather, affirmative action mitigates the negative impact of having been black all along. Even middle-class blacks suffer racism, such as people like you questioning their credentials in ways that are idiotic and offensive.
Second, so what if he got IN under affirmative action? Affirmative action candidates don't get a different scale, they don't get an A when other students get a B. Affirmative action simply allows some people the CHANCE to get in. The fact that he became a Professor at Harvard of Constitutional Law shows that he is among the top legal scholars in the country.
Third, in fact McCain COULDN'T get in with Obama's grades. We know this because for every one applicant admitted to colleges under affirmative action, two white applicants are admitted thanks to favors or informal networks (never mind white applicants who can get in thanks to honors classes blacks can't take, or thanks to thinly-veiled racist point systems that benefit whites such as legacy benefits).
"Would Obama have been made Editor of the Harvard Law Review if he was white?
If Obama was white would the media not have demanded he provide his academic record, like Gore, Bush & Kerry did?"
Yes and yes. As we've noted, the media has HOUNDED Obama about his record. The fact that Obama's record in fact stands up to the challenge hasn't stopped plenty of whites from thinking that PALIN is more qualified and more educated than Obama.
"Would Obama have virtually 100% black support if he was white? Would liberals have flocked to support him over Hillary if he wasn't bi-racial?"
Now you are simply showing racist ignorance.
First: Democratic candidates, no matter their skin color, get almost 100% black support. You have to be a political acolyte not to know this. In fact, Obama doesn't poll much higher among blacks than any other Democrat ever has. As always, if Obama wins, it'll be thanks to black votes, yet whites seem to think it's THEM who the Dems should thank and pander to and who are the essential base of the party. Plenty of blacks were perfectly willing to vote for Hillary, or Edwards, or Biden, or whomever emerged from the primaries, and indeed until Obama really started to show that he could beat Hillary most of them were quite happy to do so.
Second: So the hell what? A long-oppressed racial group getting excited about voting for the first member of their group to rise to the top, even if he's not the ideal from a political standpoint (being a reactionary corporate candidate), is understandable and okay. There's nothing wrong with it.
Third: Liberals DIDN'T flock to support Obama instead of Hillary. Actually, as Tim has shown, numerous white voters voted FOR Hillary when they declared race mattered to their choice. That's because they wanted to vote AGAINST the black man, not for the white woman. Those were tens of thousands of votes, a serious margin that would have given Obama some states and made his victory more complete in others such that he would have been the candidate much earlier. Ironically, if McCain wins, thereby horribly smashing the white working class, it'll be partially because of white Democratic racism in refusing to rally behind the black candidate!
"If Obama was white, would McCain have held off bringing up ACORN, and steered clear of the Jeremiah Wright association like he has?"
You bring up Jeremiah Wright to prove that race DOESN'T exist? Unbelievable.
Jeremiah Wright said some controversial things that the majority of Americans don't agree with. Fair enough. He happened to be RIGHT, even after he was being horribly misquoted and his comments taken out of context, but whatever. But so has Palin's church. Yet there is almost universal condemnation of Wright and we're told to leave Palin's church alone. This PROVES race and racism.
"I agree, there are no doubt disadvantages Obama faces, but in todays climate, the media tend to paint whites as greedy, racist & violent by nature. Certainly, Republicans are painted as racist on the slightest pre-text (for instance the 'palling with terrorists' comment was said to be "racially tinged", even though Ayers was white, and the Britney ad was said to raise the idea of interacial s8x)."
You're an idiot.
There is no media study not done by neo-Nazis out of a truck that says that media presents white disfavorably and blacks favorably.
For example: When blacks riot, we hear about how dangerous and evil they are. When white college students riot, under pretexts as serious as bans on underage drinking or losses at college games, we hear understanding and pity for our little darlings.
For you to look at the nightly news, frequently showing some scary black man as the criminal to look for, and think that it is WHITES who are getting the short end of the stick, is itself a sign of racial privilege: You are able to have such grand delusions that it is in fact YOUR group who is being attacked.
white privilege
"Your affirmative action argument PROVES the point: That whites are determined to dismiss Obama's achievements because he's black."
No, because of affirmative action. No one questions the academic credentials of an Asian student. This is because they faced the same entry standards as everyone else. Don't you think people would question my credentials if I made an NBA team on some kind of white quota?
"Rather, affirmative action mitigates the negative impact of having been black all along. "
I agree.
"Professor at Harvard of Constitutional Law shows that he is among the top legal scholars in the country."
Obama was not a Professor at Harvard. He was a senior lecturer at Chicago Law School (which is still impressive). So, why can't he agree to release his SAT scores or college record ? Again, Bush, Gore & Kerry all did, while we know McCain's record. Why not stop the speculation?
"thanks to thinly-veiled racist point systems that benefit whites such as legacy benefits). "
I don't know if these are racist, but I agree they seem unfair.
"Yes and yes. As we've noted, the media has HOUNDED Obama about his record."
Any examples of this? I understand the NY Times inquired about it, but I am not aware of him being hounded over this.
"The fact that Obama's record in fact stands up to the challenge hasn't stopped plenty of whites from thinking that PALIN is more qualified and more educated than Obama. "
Again, we haven't seen his record. In terms of Palin the first thing I heard about her was that she thought the Flintstones was based on a true story. If people think she's more qualified they're very foolish.
"Democratic candidates, no matter their skin color, get almost 100% black support."
I'm referring to the Democratic primary where I understand he got over 90%.
"Liberals DIDN'T flock to support Obama instead of Hillary. Actually, as Tim has shown, numerous white voters voted FOR Hillary when they declared race mattered to their choice. "
I thought that more educated and higher earning white Democrats definitely favoured Obama. The people who voted against him on race grounds tended to be less educated and lower earners - I'm not sure I'd call them liberals.
"But so has Palin's church. Yet there is almost universal condemnation of Wright and we're told to leave Palin's church alone."
The Wright issue only came up though because someone had taped the sermons? I don't think it was due to the media investigating. Palin I think has been (rightly) painted as a religious wacko by most media.
"that media presents white disfavorably and blacks favorably."
Think about crime reporting. If a white assaults a non-white it is a huge story and painted as a hate crime. There names would be all over the news and people would be rushing to judgment (consider the Duke case). Does the same ever apply to non-white on white violence? Usually the media establishment do not mention race in those situations as it doesn't reveal the white racism that is apparently rampant (can other groups be racist towards whites? Can whites be victims of hate crimes?).
"When white college students riot, under pretexts as serious as bans on underage drinking or losses at college games, we hear understanding and pity for our little darlings."
Well, that is true. Presumably the journalists can empathise from their own experience and think it's just a phase. You're right though, it's a double standard.
"For you to look at the nightly news, frequently showing some scary black man as the criminal to look for...You are able to have such grand delusions that it is in fact YOUR group who is being attacked."
Well, if you look at the statistics, Asians actually have the lowest crime rates. Lower than whites, while African Americans, for whatever reason, have higher rates. Asians also have better academic results and graduation rates than whites (same in NZ & Australia too). If whites are so privileged and oppressive why is this happening?
*sigh*
The main problem, Ben, is that you've yet to make serious replies on face to any argument here, whether Tim's or mine. In response to a claim about X, you routinely point to Y that may be in the same ballpark but is never an onpoint response. The problem is that this casts aspersions on your honesty: It's a way of leading your opponents around. Tim's arguments and my arguments overwhelmingly stand unanswered or even conceded. Tim has shown compellingly that white privilege matters in this election, and you mention affirmative action for Asians and Obama's grades?
"No, because of affirmative action. No one questions the academic credentials of an Asian student. This is because they faced the same entry standards as everyone else. Don't you think people would question my credentials if I made an NBA team on some kind of white quota?"
People would until you proved your merit. But questions continue about Obama after he has long ago proved it.
And actually, Asians can get special advantages under some admission systems if they note ethnic backgrounds on essays or so forth, recent immigrant status, etc.
"Obama was not a Professor at Harvard. He was a senior lecturer at Chicago Law School (which is still impressive). So, why can't he agree to release his SAT scores or college record ? Again, Bush, Gore & Kerry all did, while we know McCain's record. Why not stop the speculation?"
I apologize, senior lecturer at Chicago Law (also one of the most prestigious) and the President of the Harvard Law Review.
Maybe because he knows that no matter how stellar the record, whites will lock onto it as a sign of mediocrity?
And I think it's dishonest to say that Bush and McCain exposed theirs preemptively. There were questions and independent journalism on both for quite some time, and they later had to acknowledge it, but I think it's highly naive to assume they wouldn't have preferred mediocre service buried.
The point is that Bush and McCain did not have the academic history Obama did. Real questions about exactly what qualified them academically mattered. Obama needs not answer any such questions. It's unfair to hound him about his academic record AND simultaneously argue that his ivory tower background makes him unfit, as many conservatives do! Damned if you do, damned if you don't, yet this very stance is never seen as white privilege or racism, when it clearly is.
"I thought that more educated and higher earning white Democrats definitely favoured Obama. The people who voted against him on race grounds tended to be less educated and lower earners - I'm not sure I'd call them liberals."
They're Democrats... who voted against Obama... because of race. Even now, Obama does NOT poll well among whites. I point to real statistical data and you respond with conjecture. The point is that even in Obama's own PARTY, let alone in the national election, his race has been a disadvantage, NOT an advantage.
"Think about crime reporting. If a white assaults a non-white it is a huge story and painted as a hate crime. There names would be all over the news and people would be rushing to judgment (consider the Duke case). Does the same ever apply to non-white on white violence? Usually the media establishment do not mention race in those situations as it doesn't reveal the white racism that is apparently rampant (can other groups be racist towards whites? Can whites be victims of hate crimes?)."
First of all, this is not an argument. The fact that there may be favorable reporting for blacks in the case of hate crimes does not disprove GENERAL bias towards blacks everywhere else. It's a simple fact that as crime rates have gone down, media reporting of crimes has gone up, and their reporting of the crime is overwhelmingly racialized, so much so that studies show that whites "remember" a black assailant even when the assailant's race was unspecified or was specified to be white!
Second, white and black hate crime rates are not analogous. Proportional to populations and taking into account encounter rates and so forth, white-on-black hate crimes are much more common than black-on-white. This is especially considering that it is infinitesimally rare that an attack was motivated explicitly by "Kill Whitey" but much more frequent that parallel motivations are explicitly stated by blacks. And there is a major difference between a dominant group bashing subordinate racial groups and subordinate racial groups rising up to attack the dominant one, even when the latter occurs, which it does not. This difference would be sufficient to comment negatively upon.
The aftermath of the Duke case proves the opposite: These kids were clearly not wonderful loving folks, even if not rapists, but the media rallied to defend them, loudly proclaim their exoneration and even call the efforts of those who suspected a hate crime to show black over-reaction.
Meanwhile, look at the media's treatment of the Jena Six. No sympathy, no rush to their defense even given the numerous errors and questionable tactics (Tim has a great article about this), etc.
The fact is that this response from you is sheer conjecture, while the obvious racist treatment I've noted comes from paired examples and innumerable study. The media does not treat blacks equally or even favorably.
Let's take a cogent example: Racism in the media about the ongoing fallout of the mortgage market. Putting aside conservative douches who blame blacks and the poor, despite the supreme illogicality of doing so since the primary fallout comes from the middle-class, the media is committed to not talking about it as a racist issue. See, blacks were overwhelmingly thrust into subprime loans even when they would have qualified for prime loans barring mortgage discrimination.
Now, this is one of the most important issues one could imagine since it is part of our national discussion about the thing that has predominated most people's minds for weeks now. Yet how many news outlets have even RAISED this argument? That alone, I think, shows the direction.
Re-read your Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions: Media outlets target rich folks and try to please advertisers. When advertisers and the media want to target and placate rich folks, by essence they must target the white disproportionately.
"The Wright issue only came up though because someone had taped the sermons? I don't think it was due to the media investigating. Palin I think has been (rightly) painted as a religious wacko by most media."
The media locked onto it like a homing missile, however. Obama has never made his church an issue: He has always argued about his faith privately and attends a church with a wide range of ideological opinion. Yet Palin argues constantly about her church's beliefs, about small town values, etc. Investigating those matters.
The real point, though, is that there is near universal condemnation of Wright's views, despite them being quite sensible, and this condemnation is from a few quotes taken overwhelmingly out of context then further distorted. For example, saying that chickens have come home to roost regarding violence is never to say that one is GLAD that it happened. One would have to quote Wright saying that al Qaeda SHOULD have bombed the towers. He never did. Instead, he talked about peace in response. How bizarre that THAT part got left out. But Palin's views are often given excuses, and conservatives are always on hand to defend them. A white church saying horrible things gets partisan support, a black church saying supportable things (things said by Colin Powell and the State Department) gets universal condemnation even from its own party. I don't know how the case could be clearer.
"Well, that is true. Presumably the journalists can empathise from their own experience and think it's just a phase. You're right though, it's a double standard."
And it's only one of many, and it's a serious one. Because this is the white college community DECLARING that they intend to unapologetically, violently, break the law, en masse, for behavior that blacks showing one hundredth of the magnitude of (or not even showing it all: remember the fraudulent claims during Katrina of firing at helicopters and mass rape and so forth?) are called pathological for.
And note that you just gave an EXAMPLE of white privilege: The very white journalists and academics that DO the judging excuse pathology from those who look like their own beautiful children because it's "just a phase". Even though black young are young too.
Another one: During Katrina, whites found, blacks looted. Side by side analyses of pictures, even some on the SAME DAY, showed this.
"Well, if you look at the statistics, Asians actually have the lowest crime rates. Lower than whites, while African Americans, for whatever reason, have higher rates. Asians also have better academic results and graduation rates than whites (same in NZ & Australia too). If whites are so privileged and oppressive why is this happening?"
*sigh* Ben, you repeated the same argument again.
First of all: NZ and Australia are not the only places that Asians live. The SAME ethnic groups in their NATIVE countries, from Japan to Korea, behave differently when thrust into a bottom caste, like the eta or buraku or so forth in Japan. Down the line, it is similar to blacks here: Lower educational standards, lower class outcomes, etc.
Second: Black immigrant groups do well for themselves (and indeed, conservatives argue that this disproves racism!). This shows the point: Asian groups are overwhelmingly recent immigrants with entrepeneurial background. This clearly means they have an edge over blacks, who are a cross-section of the population.
Third: The counter-example of Viet groups, doing quite poorly with high welfare receipt and drug use and crime and so forth, shows once more that it's caste, background, economics, etc. that matter.
Fourth: It could simply be that the racism effects blacks more. That has been my argument, and indeed almost every anti-racist's argument, since day one. Your argument is as stupid, ignorant and misinformed as pointing to how well Irish do and saying that that disproves racism. One has to have an understanding of the REAL, present castes, and Asians have never been the same caste as blacks or Latinos.
Black crime rates, for example, are not higher once you control for urbanization and poverty. Take those two factors into account (which actually shows how LITTLE crime is in the community, because other factors could plausibly be taken into account above and beyond and yet those two control for this) and the crime rate is the same as parallel whites. Asians are in different geographical locations, so it throws off the data. Yet whites ALSO do disproportionately more of certain crimes, like drug use or child molestation, and yet they are not feared by their communities, not pathologized by scholars, and don't go to jail more despite the fact that non-violent drug use is a vast portion of the jail population! The drug war is a racist war against blacks: This is clear when we look at the fact that more blacks go to jail for longer with less lenient sentencing and options like rehab for crimes that whites do MORE of.
That also, incidentally, is part of the problem with your citation for Asian-American women in the other thread: Asian-Americans are concentrated in areas like California with much higher living costs. Control for geography and apparent Asian-American success declines quite a bit.
Like I've said multiple times: Asian-Americans make less per capita despite higher educational achievement, yet you continue to argue that whites AREN'T privileged and oppressive?! Bizarre!
The ruling class of this country, that top 5-10% that owns a vast majority of the wealth, is overwhelmingly white, male, hetero, politically and economically empowered. The poor, the politically disempowered, blacks and other non-white groups, and women overwhelmingly face obstacles this group does not. I don't know how one could deny this claim.
You haven't offered a SMIDGEN of evidence that identical blacks and whites AREN'T treated differently, or that the OFCCP DIDN'T actually argue that 75% of companies it surveys discriminates, or against the thousands of pages (not to mention the personal testimony) that show that blacks experience racism and discrimination. You just point idly to Asians as if that constituted a response. THIS is a sign of white privilege: The ability to so idly deny what millions of people say about their own life.
*sigh*
"Tim has shown compellingly that white privilege matters in this election, and you mention affirmative action for Asians and Obama's grades?... Tim has shown compellingly that white privilege matters in this election"
I agree that whites, as the majority group, would tend to have an advantage. I mean, knowing that humans have a tendency to in-group/out-group bias, it would be surprising if this wasn't the case to some extent.
However, I think that there is a risk in presuming that whites exclusively have this tendency. My understanding is that most groups are actually more ethnocentric & loyal to their own group than whites. Certainly white majority countries are the most open in terms of immigration policies. Whites also tend to avoid talking about race to avoid appearing prejudiced (although interestingly this actually can create the impression of prejudice http://www.apa.org/releases/colorblind1008.html).
My point was that the situation is more complicated than whites being exclusively advantaged. That is why I mentioned the issue of affirmative action. Obama was raised by his white family and apparently got into Harvard through affirmative action. So did Michelle Obama. So identical whites and blacks are not treated equally. Unsurprisingly this spills over into a culture of doubt about their qualifications.
"the President of the Harvard Law Review.
Maybe because he knows that no matter how stellar the record, whites will lock onto it as a sign of mediocrity?"
Again, the President position was not based on grades but a writing competition. The selection process was changed in the 70's to ensure minority students became editors (nytimes article). There was also considerable political pressure at the time with protests by Professor Bell about the lack of black staff on the faculty. So, again providing his grades seems the easiest way of removing this negative speculation.
" think it's highly naive to assume they wouldn't have preferred mediocre service buried."
Oh, no doubt. My point is simply that I think the media, particularly in Bush's case, tracked it down. I think there's less interest in Obama's case, perhaps partly because it is such a sensitive issue with affirmative action, diversity programmes & not wanting to appear racist.
"The point is that Bush and McCain did not have the academic history Obama did. "
Well, Bush did attend Yale & Harvard Business School. Although he only got in because his dad had attended & it doesn't sound like he was a very serious student. So he benefitted from a form of affirmative action too, and there was a lot of scrutiny about this.
"The point is that even in Obama's own PARTY, let alone in the national election, his race has been a disadvantage, NOT an advantage"
But in terms of college educated whites, who dominate the media, professions & education system, Obama has an advantage. This was the same in the primary race (except immediately following the Jeremiah Wright tapes) and coupled with almost universal black support gave him an advantage over Clinton.
"It's a simple fact that as crime rates have gone down, media reporting of crimes has gone up, and their reporting of the crime is overwhelmingly racialized"
How is it racialised? Generally, the race of the perpetrators is not mentioned. Also, this crime was not widely reported although it seems pretty extreme - imagine if the perpetrators had been white in this case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom
"The aftermath of the Duke case proves the opposite: These kids were clearly not wonderful loving folks, even if not rapists, but the media rallied to defend them, loudly proclaim their exoneration and even call the efforts of those who suspected a hate crime to show black over-reaction."
What about the rush to judgment by the media and members of the faculty in the first place? The author of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case' explained it as follows:
"We call it "politically correct sensationalism." It's an obvious thing. It's not necessarily political. This was a sensational allegation. In this case the desire to ballyhoo the sensational allegation coincided with a lot of the political prejudices that a lot of journalists have -- in particular the kinds of race-class-sex obsession. You find privileged white males, you find an underprivileged black female who says, “they raped me” -- they loved it. The New York Times loved it, or a lot of people at the New York Times loved it. USA Today loved it. Nancy Grace on CNN loved it. A lot of journalists behaved in a shameful fashion, present company excepted I'm glad to say...
“Even before there were indictments, well before,88 professors at Duke came out with a public statement saying something happened to the accuser, thanking protesters that carried a ‘castrate’ banner,”
I'm not based in the US, and only read about this case afterwards and was surprised how similar it sounded to 'Bonfire of the Vanities' in terms of an ambitious prosecutor and media excited to have a 'great white defendant'.
"See, blacks were overwhelmingly thrust into subprime loans even when they would have qualified for prime loans barring mortgage discrimination."
I wasn't aware of this. My reading wasn't that people were blaming those who accepted loans. The concern was that there was political pressure to relax lending procedures (I understand this was part of the 'ownership society' idea to help minorities & pressure came from both Clinton & Bush administrations). This increased exposure to debt, although the problem wouldn't have gotten so out of hand if the derivatives market had been better regulated.
"by essence they must target the white disproportionately."
Sure, but given whites' own aversion to anything that appears racist, I don't think this necessarily means the media runs anti-black stories, in fact as the crime reporting examples indicate they steer well clear of race, unless the perpetrators are white.
"A white church saying horrible things gets partisan support"
I'll have to read up on her church, I just know that she supports creationism in schools, etc.
"This is clear when we look at the fact that more blacks go to jail for longer with less lenient sentencing and options like rehab for crimes that whites do MORE of. "
Was not aware of this, will read up on it.
Aside from caste, do you think there could be actual group differences in terms of biology that lead to inequality?
You Don't Want To Think
"I agree that whites, as the majority group, would tend to have an advantage. I mean, knowing that humans have a tendency to in-group/out-group bias, it would be surprising if this wasn't the case to some extent."
Then race is real. You have simply conceded it. Which makes everything else you're saying extraneous and unimportant, but yet you continue to do so to muddy the waters. Incredibly suspicious.
But here's the problem. Racial privilege can benefit minority groups too. As Amy Chua makes clear, numerous countries have a market-dominant minority and a weak majority. Saddam Hussein's Iraq, for example, was Sunni dominated. So, no, this is not just because of the majority, or in-group dominance, or whatever rationalization one wants to conjure. It is social privilege, white and black, one group with power and one group without. It is a social decision, made by social institutions, and it can be CHANGED. Period.
As I keep having to say to people who don't pay attention and don't reply: It's racial caste.
"However, I think that there is a risk in presuming that whites exclusively have this tendency. My understanding is that most groups are actually more ethnocentric & loyal to their own group than whites. Certainly white majority countries are the most open in terms of immigration policies. Whites also tend to avoid talking about race to avoid appearing prejudiced (although interestingly this actually can create the impression of prejudice http://www.apa.org/releases/colorblind1008.html)."
So what?! This is like saying that we can't be concerned about trends towards American fascism because other countries are dictatorships!
Racism is real all over the world. Tutsis and Hutus, Koreans and Chinese and Japanese and Ainu, Persians and Arabs, Shia, Sunni and Kurd... people everywhere have nationalist, prejudicial, racial, cultural, and religious discrimination. No one who pays any attention has to be told that.
Incidentally, the "Whites tend to avoid talking about race" argument is terrible on multiple levels. Dominant groups often LIKE to avoid talking about race: It prevents it from being challenged. Whites clearly DO talk about race: Rush Limbaugh, Imus, etc. And people rally behind those idiots. And there is a practice, observed by numerous activists, called "white bonding" where when race is brought up whites say racist jokes or do something to try to be comfortable with the idea that everyone here IS part of the club. And so forth. Yes, the country is not the racist briar patch it was in the 60s, or the 1860s, or the 1760s, or the 1660s. But it is still a racist society. Period.
The point is that we have racism in our society, and like in all other societies it is a problem with solutions that has to be confronted. Whites want to deny the problem exists. This will never lead to racial harmony, to the end of racism, or to peace.
"Well, Bush did attend Yale & Harvard Business School. Although he only got in because his dad had attended & it doesn't sound like he was a very serious student. So he benefitted from a form of affirmative action too, and there was a lot of scrutiny about this."
But never was it implied that his whole race was inferior because of it. Very few used the phrase "affirmative action", even many progressives, despite the clear analogy. And so forth. So, yes, you've pointed to an example of white privilege that did get called out by some, though not enough to actually cause Bush to lose either elections (Palast is right that Bush stole both elections, but the point is that if Americans were really enlightened to this fact NO ONE would have voted for him). Bush has not been impeached, he has gotten away with his white privilege except for some snark from progressives. And the vast majority of his cabinet benefitted the same way, as did the majority of the rich white ruling class, yet rarely do we hear this either.
The point is, though, that no matter whether or not Bush's affirmative action got acknowledged, it was THERE. And unlike Obama, he was mediocre, not impressive.
"Again, the President position was not based on grades but a writing competition. The selection process was changed in the 70's to ensure minority students became editors (nytimes article). There was also considerable political pressure at the time with protests by Professor Bell about the lack of black staff on the faculty. So, again providing his grades seems the easiest way of removing this negative speculation."
But you've just proven how idiotic whites can be when looking at people's success. Who the f*** CARES that it was based on a writing competition?! That Bell was involved?! You think that doesn't happen all the friggin time?! That politics aren't involved in who gets teaching gigs, who gets into schools, who gets As, who gets to be President of the Harvard Law Review? The difference is that when the people playing the politics are BLACK, it casts aspersions on their character, while when whites do it it's just the old boy's club.
More importantly, Obama had to win that writing competition. He had to compete against other black students. And if his paper had been written in yellow crayon, all of Bell's protests would have been for naught. So the only people who could even BEGIN to doubt that Obama's academic qualifications are anything but stellar and prove anything but a brilliant mind are racists. Giving his grades, his SAT scores or anything to racists won't change a damn thing.
Obama has nothing to prove. Were he a white man, we would be ecstatic that someone with that much academic experience were running. It certainly hasn't been the case: Even Clinton, a brilliant man, did not have Obama's academic and Constitutional background. Yet instead whites are determined to look for something that proves that he didn't earn it. This very quest is racism. He was the President of one of the most prestigious law review journals in the nation, afterwards becoming a lecturer at yet another prestigious law school, and we're wondering if maybe he got a B in one of his high school classes. It is petty and it is racist.
"But in terms of college educated whites, who dominate the media, professions & education system, Obama has an advantage. This was the same in the primary race (except immediately following the Jeremiah Wright tapes) and coupled with almost universal black support gave him an advantage over Clinton."
But that doesn't matter, because those people didn't vote for Obama because he was black, they voted for him because he was a good candidate. Few people vote for Obama because he is black, or do so exclusively. Tens of thousands voted AGAINST Obama because he is black. Get the difference?
Incidentally, Clinton had just as much of a love affair with all those folks, including her status as a woman giving her feminist support despite her astonishingly weak credentials in that domain. Yet when you see this, you don't assume that Clinton lost that support because she screwed up, or because people didn't like her policies, or distrusted her, or didn't like her experience. You assumed it was because Obama was black. In a way no one would were he white. That's RACISM.
"I wasn't aware of this. My reading wasn't that people were blaming those who accepted loans. The concern was that there was political pressure to relax lending procedures (I understand this was part of the 'ownership society' idea to help minorities & pressure came from both Clinton & Bush administrations). This increased exposure to debt, although the problem wouldn't have gotten so out of hand if the derivatives market had been better regulated."
Check out Tim's commentary on the topic. Like the jerkoff who simply IMPLIED that Washington Mutual's stellar corporate diversity record led to its collapse, without implying any, y'know, logic or evidence to do it, knowing that millions of whites would think that having gays or blacks on your corporate board would be a negative and just let them get away with the implication. http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/racism-reflex-reflections-conservat...
Your premise of the picture is false. Relaxed lending procedures overwhelmingly benefitted the white middle class. Remember that the whole "ownership society" thing was mostly empty rhetoric. As Tim makes clear, the legal restriction is a program called the Community Reinvestment Act. But the CRA doesn't even APPLY to the majority of the institutions who were giving out these dangerous loans. The loans that blacks and poor in general get are actually very low risk: Even when they default more often, the AMOUNT of the default is enough that banks can absorb it. It is the medium to large loans that were given to overwhelmingly middle-class, and therefore dispro white, people that were the danger that caused the collapse.
In short, this "concern" is classist, racist idiocy. Banking institutions thrived in a deregulated environment thanks to their class and white privilege to insure that outcome through political manuevering.They gave dangerous loans in a Wild West atmosphere, encouraging people to sign with deceptive and often illegal tactics, hiding dangers of the loans in hundreds of pages of fine print so deceptive and arcane that many lawyers dreaded looking through the forms. And after all this, we STILL refuse to blame banks, or middle-class to rich white folks who took the loans, but want to blame the poor and black. That is racism.
"Oh, no doubt. My point is simply that I think the media, particularly in Bush's case, tracked it down. I think there's less interest in Obama's case, perhaps partly because it is such a sensitive issue with affirmative action, diversity programmes & not wanting to appear racist."
But this is crap. Because ANYTHING that even remotely resembles an error on Obama's part is vigorously looked at. Take the joke many white people tell, that all Obama says is "Hope hope hope change hope hope hope." First of all, they lock onto this despite the equally empty rhetoric from every politician in existence. Second, Obama actually has quite clear, cogent policy information available, mentioning it everywhere.
Ben, you haven't replied to all of Tim's examples, so this conversation becomes increasingly frustrating. If you find a problem with any of Tim's arguments, mention them. Otherwise, you're implicitly conceding them. And if Tim's arguments stand, then Obama clearly suffers from white privilege in at least thirteen ways, though maybe he might pick up some peripheral benefits elsewhere.
"How is it racialised? Generally, the race of the perpetrators is not mentioned. Also, this crime was not widely reported although it seems pretty extreme - imagine if the perpetrators had been white in this case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom"
*sigh* You don't watch American news programs, I take it.
http://www.buildingblocksforyouth.org/media/media.html
Their conclusion #1: Media report more crime as crime goes down. Their conclusion #3: The media link race and crime.
This same conclusion has been made dozens of times by study after study of media. Michael Moore made it famously clear in Bowling for Columbine with poignant examples and satirizing COPS, but it is nonetheless real.
By the way, your Wiki link is dishonest, because you apparently don't want people to read it. "The national news media was criticized by some for not giving the crime adequate coverage because the victims were white and the suspects black, but one commentator explained that "as bad as this crime is, the apparent absence of any interest group involvement or any other 'angle' might also explain the lack of coverage."["
IT WASN'T A HATE CRIME.
That's why it didn't get national attention.
Hate crimes, SOMETIMES, get national attention. Just another horrible carjacking, rape, etc.? Of course it doesn't. But the point is that it got PLENTY of local media attention and play in local media markets. Far beyond what it would have had the perpetrators been white, I guarantee you.
What is frustrating, Ben, is that I point you to studies, with thousands of examples, and all you reply with are deceptive anecdotes. You are dogmatic that liberals must be exaggerating race or Obama has to be getting some affirmative action benefit or SOMETHING. You are adamant at not saying that racism is real, that it is solvable, and therefore that we whites HAVE TO SOLVE IT. I want to hear those three statements from your mouth, or some cogent reason you won't say them. Otherwise, stop this deceptiveness.
More blacks go to jail for drug use, a crime whites commit more often, and you think the criminal justice system benefits BLACKS? Dear GOD, do you intend for anyone to take you seriously?
"What about the rush to judgment by the media and members of the faculty in the first place? The author of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case' explained it as follows:
"We call it "politically correct sensationalism." It's an obvious thing. It's not necessarily political. This was a sensational allegation. In this case the desire to ballyhoo the sensational allegation coincided with a lot of the political prejudices that a lot of journalists have -- in particular the kinds of race-class-sex obsession. You find privileged white males, you find an underprivileged black female who says, “they raped me” -- they loved it. The New York Times loved it, or a lot of people at the New York Times loved it. USA Today loved it. Nancy Grace on CNN loved it. A lot of journalists behaved in a shameful fashion, present company excepted I'm glad to say...
“Even before there were indictments, well before,88 professors at Duke came out with a public statement saying something happened to the accuser, thanking protesters that carried a ‘castrate’ banner,”
I'm not based in the US, and only read about this case afterwards and was surprised how similar it sounded to 'Bonfire of the Vanities' in terms of an ambitious prosecutor and media excited to have a 'great white defendant'."
*sigh* One example. Perhaps. MAYBE we have found one example
Never mind the innumerable intricacies of the Duke case. Never mind that THEY WON, and when they did racist garbage like this started emerging about how prosecutors just love going after us privileged white folks (as if that was a daily occurrance, instead of the exception that proves the rule).
I can go into the Duke case extensively, as can Tim. But the fact that you think that, one time, one case, disproves the MILLIONS of times prosecutors go after blacks with higher sentences, or cops profile blacks, or try to get young black kids in the system by "tagging" them with erroneous offenses that are just enough to get them in police records, or so forth, says more than any argument I could say will. You think that one prosecutor trying to bank on political correctness to sell his career proves that millions of prosecutors go after blacks for the same reason: Build their credentials, knowing that black offenders can't fight back.
I can't imagine something more naive, more offensive, and more racist. Learn to read a damn study, Ben.
"Sure, but given whites' own aversion to anything that appears racist, I don't think this necessarily means the media runs anti-black stories, in fact as the crime reporting examples indicate they steer well clear of race, unless the perpetrators are white."
This is blatant crap, as the above Berkeley study shows and innumerable other studies show, and which you can only parrot because you apparently know damn near nothing about the topic.
How in God's name could whites have an aversion to being racist if they buy the Bell Curve en masse?! The majority of whites thought that Katrina said NOTHING about race; how could that possibly be the case if they did not take for granted that black voices, who clearly DID think Katrina said something about race, didn't matter?! And maybe the fact that some whites are sensitive about the assertion might have to do with guilt over the fact that they know that at some level the assertions must be true?!
We cite thousands of studies that show that blacks face pernicious, ongoing discrimination in every walk of life, from employment to loans and mortgages to education to media. You reply with... whites are sensitive about race.
I am more than underwhelmed. I am offended that this ignorant crap can be spouted. Even THAT is white privilege: That people are supposed to pay attention to and be patient with this garbage, when the interlocutor has proven that they are utterly determined to not listen, to not reply to arguments, to not think.
"Aside from caste, do you think there could be actual group differences in terms of biology that lead to inequality?"
No. Because group differences don't cluster that way. It would be a startling coincidence for racial groups imagined by people centuries ago before the advent of DNA or even the IDEA of genetics to magically be accurate to any degree, especially given the way that the idea of "white" has changed from decade to decade to match the convenience of the dominant group. These things don't exist scientifically, there is no evidence that they do and in fact ALL the evidence says they don't. By definition, these differences between racial groups cluster in a tiny group of alleles, NONE of which have any real, detectable impact on anything resembling intelligence. The only thing that is possible is that there MIGHT be some variation across ethnic groups as for the likelihood of some disease inheritability (whites more likely to get X, blacks more likely to get Y, etc.) But even here, we can't be sure because race is still in the room.
The point, though, is that we have no way of knowing. We have no way of knowing if maybe a 2 IQ innate difference between African-Americans and whites will continue to exist until we abolish the system of white racial privilege and institutional racism against non-whites. Until that point, the obvious culprit, as always, is racism.
So, Ben, let's hear it. Do you or do you not think blacks face racism or discrimination? And if you don't, how in God's name will you support your conclusion?
"Ben, you haven't replied to
"Ben, you haven't replied to all of Tim's examples, so this conversation becomes increasingly frustrating."
"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"
Well, I would take issue with the "everyone" point. My recollection was that is showed Palin's hypocrisy in promoting abstinence programmes rather than safe s8x programmes, while her daughter was getting knocked up. It also fitted the narrative of her being a bit of a hillbilly. Although, I also agree that if she was black it would probably be viewed as bolstering a stereotype of that group being overrepresented in teen pregnancies (although statistically that is the case for whatever reason). So, yes she would be treated differently if she were a black candidate.
"White privilege is when you can call yourself a “f*ckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their f*ckin' *ss,” and talk about how you like to “shoot sh*t” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug."
Again, I think you can see a partisan divide in how the boyfriend is viewed. I suspect most educated people would view him as an idiot. Although I accept if he were black & calling himself a gangsta the perception would be worse.
"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.'
I think it's incorrect to say "no one". Clearly as soon as this came out it was viewed by many as a sign that Palin was a bit of an idiot (presumably by Republicans as well who would be wondering whether McCain bothered to vet the candidate). If she were black people probably would presume she got in through affirmative action with that kind of record. Although I don't see how you can have the affirmative action system and not have that cross someone's mind. It's a benefit, but the tradeoff is you need to prove yourself to prove your merit & dispel questions of special treatment.
"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.”
Doesn't peoples response come down to partisanship rather than race on this issue? If Kerry could be painted as a traitor, then it's not surprising for the same partisan forces to try and paint Obama as 'untested'. On the other side, not everyone has accepted that Palin's experience is sufficient. As soon as Palin was nominated the lack of foreign policy experience came up & a facebook group was started called 'I have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin'.
Also, if a white candidate was running with Obama's background don't you think his older opponents, in both the primary and general race, would try to frame his youth/comparative lack of experience as a disadvantage?
Also, Palin is running for VP (admittedly with an elderly running mate) so the experience factor is not as acute.
"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 if you're black and believe in reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), you're a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn't fit to safeguard American institutions."
This strikes me as a partisan issue rather than a race issue. Most evangelical types would probably not know when the 'under God' bit was added, or would think it should be there in any case. Also, presumably they are fairly hostile to Warren court decisions like Miranda & liberal positions on law & order generally.
"White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you."
This is in reference to McCain? If I found out a black guy of similar age, say Morgan Freeman or Bill Cosby, were gun enthusiasts I wouldn't be scared either. Also, I think socioeconomic status affects how you'd perceive the person claiming to be a gun enthusiast. For instance, if a poor white person said they were a gun enthusiast I'd probably be a little nervous. Although I can see that a white gun enthusiast may overall be viewed in a more benign manner.
"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 is “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."
The whole, 'who is more Patriotic', issue seems to be a specialty of the Republicans? If Palin was running on the Democrat ticket I'm sure they'd be making an issue of the Alaska first motto. In terms of Michelle Obama I hadn't heard about the memorial issue. Unfortunately for her she's made comments (in combination with the Wright church) that have allowed a narrative of her being bitter about America to form. Although I think she's been unfairly maligned.
"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 and the fact that she lives near Russia, you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist."
I'm not convinced this shows white privilege. Are you saying that a black candidate could not have said they had more executive experience by being a governor compared to being a community organiser?
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.”
Isn't that just identity politics? Same as black voters voting for Obama, or coming out to campaign for him because of his race?
"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 a typical 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."
Well, I have heard about Palin trying to get rid of a state employee for personal reasons & obviously it does not reflect well on her. If people think Obama's corrupt it doesn't seem to be reflected in the polls! I don't think many people see him as much different than any other hard nosed politician.
"White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP, while if you're a black candidate for president and you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're irresponsibly exploiting them."
Fair comment.
"White privilege is being able to give a 36-minute speech in which you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for being too vague about what he would do if elected."
I don't see that as a race issue, that's partisanship isn't it? The online commentaries I read indicated Obama's speech may actually have been too heavy on detail!
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."
Fair comment, although Trinity Church did award Louis Farrakhan with a lifetime achievement award, so I'd say they are equally wacky.
"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."
Is that because he's black or because he's a Democrat? Would John Kerry have had a different response?
"White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school, then to Yale and Harvard Business School (George W. Bush), and still be seen as an "average guy," while being black, going to a prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and then Harvard Law, makes you "uppity" and a snob who probably looks down on regular folks."
Yeah, but Gore & Kerry were also painted as elitist snobs who you wouldn't want to have a beer with. Also, Obama's comment about people in small towns made it easier to do this even though it's a silly accusation.
"White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.), and that's OK, and you're still cut out to be president, but if you're black and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be trusted to make good decisions in office."
Well, most people voted for Gore so I don't think they felt it was Ok. The people who oppose Obama don't seem to be doing so because of his academic performance (although his actual grades are unknown) but because they fear he is ultra liberal.
"White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you then go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and married for nearly 20 years to the same woman, your family is viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called "terrorist fist bumps."
Well, McCain did adopt a bangladeshi girl so he does seem to have some family values. I wasn't aware he'd ditched his first wife. The fist bump thing is a fair point though.
"white privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction, having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong, while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still get high, and even ask whether or not you may have sold drugs at some point."
I would have thought Bush was a better example of privilege on this in terms of his cocaine use. I wasn't aware people had asked if Obama sold drugs, that seems pretty ridiculous.
"White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them, makes you dangerously naive and immature."
Again, it's easy to imagine a young liberal white candidate being accused of the same thing.
"White privilege is being able to say that you hate "gooks" and "will always hate them," and yet, you aren't a racist because, ya know, you were a POW, so you're entitled to your hatred, while being black and noting that black anger about racism is understandable, given the history of your country, makes you a dangerous bigot. "
Isn't this contradicted by McCAin's actions in adopting a Bangladeshi daughter? Also, being a POW for 5 years would probably make most people hold pretty extreme views. Obama's black father left him as a child and he was raised by his white family. He apparently benefited from affirmative action to get into Harvard. So perhaps people feel he isn't acknowledging the good things whites have done? I don't know, it doesn't seem to be a widespread view of Obama in any case.
"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 and an absent father is apparently among the "lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin explained in her convention speech."
If Obama had POW experience I think there's a pretty strong likelihood that would be framed as a character building experience which demonstrated his patriotism. It's just politics, I mean what did Kerry's Vietnam experience really have to do with his ability to be President? Yet, that seemed to be framed as evidence he could protect the country.
"And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent 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"
Didn't about 50% (maybe it was 40%) of voters say they wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton? McCain does seem to differ from Bush in terms of acknowledging climate change which straight away marks him as more open to scientific evidence. Also, Obama was noted to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 and had a particularly high number of 'present' votes (129?).
Also, Obama is now clearly ahead in the polls so people are starting to see that McCain doesn't offer anything new in terms of economic policy.
Inaccurate Quoting
Ben: Congratulations on dishonest quoting weeks after the fact. What you've done in general is to clip off half the damn argument. Like most of the tools arguing against Tim, you've cut off the part about the BLACK analogy or comparison, which of course is the part that ESTABLISHES the white privilege.
"Well, I would take issue with the "everyone" point. My recollection was that is showed Palin's hypocrisy in promoting abstinence programmes rather than safe s8x programmes, while her daughter was getting knocked up. It also fitted the narrative of her being a bit of a hillbilly. Although, I also agree that if she was black it would probably be viewed as bolstering a stereotype of that group being overrepresented in teen pregnancies (although statistically that is the case for whatever reason). So, yes she would be treated differently if she were a black candidate."
And so you've conceded white privilege.
But while it certainly DID show the hypocrisy of Palin's position, there really was a truce declared among both parties and even among quite a bit of the media about Bristol's pregnancy and criticizing it, despite its obvious relevance AND the fact that PALIN has made her fitness as a mother relevant with her cynical claims. That is really an astounding fact, and has not been true even of OBAMA'S family despite the only crime Obama is being plausibly accused of is using his kids as PR props! That charity has CERTAINLY not been extended to millions of black and Latino families, despite THEIR families having to deal with poverty, and not having made their fitness as mothers public issue in a national election, and having to deal with husbands and marriageable men in their community being jailed en masse, and...
"Again, I think you can see a partisan divide in how the boyfriend is viewed. I suspect most educated people would view him as an idiot. Although I accept if he were black & calling himself a gangsta the perception would be worse."
Exactly. If you cut off half the argument, you miss the point. Of course opinion ranges from "idiot" to "potentially good husband", and I imagine most people put him in the "idiot" category. But what virtually no one has done is to say that he's a menace to society, like you note.
"I think it's incorrect to say "no one". Clearly as soon as this came out it was viewed by many as a sign that Palin was a bit of an idiot (presumably by Republicans as well who would be wondering whether McCain bothered to vet the candidate). If she were black people probably would presume she got in through affirmative action with that kind of record. Although I don't see how you can have the affirmative action system and not have that cross someone's mind. It's a benefit, but the tradeoff is you need to prove yourself to prove your merit & dispel questions of special treatment."
Let's talk about that.
Whites get special treatment all the time. They get alumni scholarships and "points" despite the fact that many of their alumni parents and grandparents only were so thanks to segregation. For every one black child admitted to school under some affirmative action or diversity system, two white kids get in because of informal networks.
But whites NEVER have to publically challenge the stigma of having everything handed to them on a silver platter. They have the privilege of belonging.
So, aside from Tim's point about white privilege being clearly taken, your own argument in fact is dripping with privilege.
Notice Tim's analogy: Obama, who clearly DID succeed, is getting accusations about his grades and his affirmative action status! See, NO ONE alleges that he didn't obviously get numerous prestigious posts and excellent grades and distinguished himself. His merit was completely obvious. Yet despite that, racist assholes want to ask what his high school grades were, as if that were relevant when the guy clearly conquered adversity and succeeded in a high-intensity academic environment.
So, too, is the affirmative action stigma fundamentally idiotic. Sure, maybe for a year or two, someone let in under affirmative action should be watched carefully. This happens a lot more often than you think, in fact.
But once they've graduated with all As, attending the same classes as their white brethren, taking the same midterms and drinking the same Monster and Amp, they have no more rational stigma to explain. Yet stigma remains. Why is that?
"Doesn't peoples response come down to partisanship rather than race on this issue? If Kerry could be painted as a traitor, then it's not surprising for the same partisan forces to try and paint Obama as 'untested'. On the other side, not everyone has accepted that Palin's experience is sufficient. As soon as Palin was nominated the lack of foreign policy experience came up & a facebook group was started called 'I have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin'."
As I've said numerous times, the PLAUSIBILITY, the ACCEPTANCE, of these ploys is not dependent on partisanship but other factors.
So a lot of whites, according to some polls a MAJORITY, think that Palin is more qualified than Obama.
Despite this claim being totally idiotic.
But the real point, again, is the part you cut off, Ben. See, Obama is ALSO defending his "experience". As Mahr pointed out, McCain lost any claim to an experience ticket the moment he put Palin on. It became a joke: "The Maverick and the MILF". But Obama, despite having not only him but Biden on the ticket, is having to defend his tickets' expertise. He has to defend charges that he's vague despite his policy preferences being publically available and repeatedly stated.
"Also, if a white candidate was running with Obama's background don't you think his older opponents, in both the primary and general race, would try to frame his youth/comparative lack of experience as a disadvantage?"
Of course they would. The question is, would it stick? It certainly didn't between Kennedy and Nixon, to take a common analogy (Obama being the Kennedy). But it has been to Obama among a large portion of the white population.
"This strikes me as a partisan issue rather than a race issue. Most evangelical types would probably not know when the 'under God' bit was added, or would think it should be there in any case. Also, presumably they are fairly hostile to Warren court decisions like Miranda & liberal positions on law & order generally."
The point is the hypocrisy. Palin can get away with absolute idiocy about the Constitution, the Framers and the history of this country while Obama with his constitutional law experience has to defend his credentials when he simply defends the interpretation of the Constitution as laid down by centuries of legal jurisprudence.
"This is in reference to McCain? If I found out a black guy of similar age, say Morgan Freeman or Bill Cosby, were gun enthusiasts I wouldn't be scared either. Also, I think socioeconomic status affects how you'd perceive the person claiming to be a gun enthusiast. For instance, if a poor white person said they were a gun enthusiast I'd probably be a little nervous. Although I can see that a white gun enthusiast may overall be viewed in a more benign manner."
No, it's Palin. And I think you hit the key point: The white gun enthusiast, even if he's a redneck, can be assumed to be a hunter; the black gun enthusiast is assumed to be a gangsta.
"The whole, 'who is more Patriotic', issue seems to be a specialty of the Republicans? If Palin was running on the Democrat ticket I'm sure they'd be making an issue of the Alaska first motto. In terms of Michelle Obama I hadn't heard about the memorial issue. Unfortunately for her she's made comments (in combination with the Wright church) that have allowed a narrative of her being bitter about America to form. Although I think she's been unfairly maligned."
The point is that the claim can even be made. And note how your claim is apparently wrong, since the REPUBLICANS are the one featuring the person connected to groups that basically advocate treason. The point is that Michelle can express a complex feeling for her country (saying she loves it now but didn't always - oh my Lord!) but Palin can be connected to people who express outright sedition, and yet it is MICHELLE who is viewed by many as unpatriotic.
"I'm not convinced this shows white privilege. Are you saying that a black candidate could not have said they had more executive experience by being a governor compared to being a community organiser?"
The point is that Palin can punch but no one can punch back. She can say, "Well, I've been a mayor, that's a lot harder than a community organizer", and this is fine and good, but if Obama says back, "Ummmmmm, dumbass, I was a SENATOR, and being a Senator involves a lot more than your podunk little town or your tiny little state", this is considered sexist and mean. She can be vicious, but any counter-attack makes whites think the pretty little hockey mom is about to get maimed by the scary black man.
"Well, I have heard about Palin trying to get rid of a state employee for personal reasons & obviously it does not reflect well on her. If people think Obama's corrupt it doesn't seem to be reflected in the polls! I don't think many people see him as much different than any other hard nosed politician."
Actually, it is. Remember that most polls show white support of Obama is anemic at best. I've seen maybe one or two polls that show Obama at a slight minority among whites, most say he polls 30-45% among white voters. So whites, the people we're talking about here, the privileged majority, apparently do find the cronyism allegations serious. And this one is repeatedly brought up all over the political spectrum, in the media, and in the SNL skits.
"I don't see that as a race issue, that's partisanship isn't it? The online commentaries I read indicated Obama's speech may actually have been too heavy on detail!"
Let's say you're right on that. Then that ALSO would be white privilege! Obama can turn around and satisfy his critics, yet then he comes off as snobbish, detail-oriented, uppity.
"Fair comment, although Trinity Church did award Louis Farrakhan with a lifetime achievement award, so I'd say they are equally wacky."
So what?
Louis Farrakhan has said and done lots of idiotic and monstrous things. At the same time, he is an important person in the black community, and indeed in politics in general, no matter how much whites decide to demonize him (or, indeed, BECAUSE whites demonize him). A lifetime achievement awards is only that: It shows that he has a lifetime with achievement in it.
To honor someone in your community who is controversial is not even within a furlong of wackiness to saying that the Earth was created in 6000 literal years or that people who vote for Kerry should go to hell.
"Again, it's easy to imagine a young liberal white candidate being accused of the same thing."
But it's not as accepted.
"Isn't this contradicted by McCAin's actions in adopting a Bangladeshi daughter? Also, being a POW for 5 years would probably make most people hold pretty extreme views. Obama's black father left him as a child and he was raised by his white family. He apparently benefited from affirmative action to get into Harvard. So perhaps people feel he isn't acknowledging the good things whites have done? I don't know, it doesn't seem to be a widespread view of Obama in any case."
How is that remotely relevant?! He said a racist, horrendous thing and didn't retract it. The fact that he has a daughter of a different race from the one he hates is such a non sequitur that I can't even express its irrelevancy. The fact that some other whites let Obama into Harvard has no bearing on McCain being a racist jerk, unless we ascribe to racist notions. But that gives up the game, doesn't it?
Didn't about 50% (maybe it was 40%) of voters say they wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton? McCain does seem to differ from Bush in terms of acknowledging climate change which straight away marks him as more open to scientific evidence. Also, Obama was noted to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 and had a particularly high number of 'present' votes (129?).
Also, Obama is now clearly ahead in the polls so people are starting to see that McCain doesn't offer anything new in terms of economic policy."
But the evidence shows that there are millions of whites who don't want to vote for him because he's black. This is white privilege: McCain is going to have a slimmer margin of loss even if he loses thanks to white privilege.
White Privilege
Tim,
I read your article on the subject (forwarded by my 16 year old son, whom I am very proud of! - his social conscience..) I then looked up everything I could find out about you on the Net, and I am more of an inventor of the Net than Al Gore! ;-) 30 years of experience developing the software that forms the infra-structure of the Net for companies like Cisco and IBM.
Anyway, that is besides the point.. Anyone who tries to deny the truths you describe is in complete denial. You are a coreageous but most importantly a knowleadgeable and sincere man.
I look forward to reading more about you in the future!
Carlos
PS. For the record and so we are not branded as resentful, I am of completely Italian/Spaniard descent.
white privilege
Just what is a white person supposed to do about being white? Is there some inherent crime that a child is born white? While I can certainly understand, and appreciate the concept, what is the solution and purpose of discussing this? Is there even an answer? Though it is good to bring awareness, it seems to me that non-white people want white people to somehow take shame in being white (or black, or red, or yellow...). Is that even logical? Shouldn't the focus be on the individual learning to become proud of who you are, regardless of what someone else may think of you? To be strong in yourself, in what you stand for, how you contribute to society...No matter who you are, someone will not like something about you; that's human nature. Look at Jesus, the center of Christianity...he was considered to be the only perfect human being that ever walked on earth, and he was nailed to a piece of wood. If he couldn't make everyone happy, neither will any of us. Make yourself happy.
Plain and simple - white people don't carry the burden of what this nations forefathers did...even if they did, how can you purport that you understand what white privilege is like for anyone but yourself? To suggest that unassuming people, through no fault of their own, are guilty of the notion of white privilege simply by being born white, is equivalent to blaming the people of Australia for Britain sending all its criminals there since they were considered a menace to society. It's just a ridiculous argument to continue because it has no practical solution. It sounds good theoretically, but to what end?
The past cannot be changed; it is what it is. The longer anyone spends fixated on the past, the less time they are focusing on the now. We can only change now, and affect the future. That is not to say that our history is irrelevant or meaningless; not at all. We need to shift our focus to looking ahead and making the changes that we have learned from our experience.
The solution: follow the example of the Jews - remember what happened, become aware of who you are and the world around you, forgive the ignorant, learn that education is the key to success, and know that being a victim is a state of mind. To the extent anyone points a finger to anything outside of oneself as the source of their unhappiness, you have given over your power to that thing. And then it is only until that thing changes that you can become free from your victimization. We only have the power to change ourselves, not the world around us. We can affect change, which is different. Stop giving your power away and look within.
Anyone that feels a victim, blacks for example, search out one or more of the tens of thousands of successful black people and learn how they have been able to achieve their success. Getting over racism is not going to come from reparations or charity or from anything "out there." If it is not in love, then it is not good. If it hurts others, it is not good. Change yourself into what you want to become and the world will be changed a little better for it.
Racist SOB
"Just what is a white person supposed to do about being white? Is there some inherent crime that a child is born white? While I can certainly understand, and appreciate the concept, what is the solution and purpose of discussing this? Is there even an answer? Though it is good to bring awareness, it seems to me that non-white people want white people to somehow take shame in being white (or black, or red, or yellow...). Is that even logical?"
The fact that you think this shows that you're not paying any attention whatsoever. And this itself is complicit in white privilege, since you're able to have such misconceptions about what blacks and other groups actually want, able to not listen because for so long you haven't had to.
It's not shame, it's anger that we need. Anger that we have been put into a situation where, despite our best inclinations and character, we are by DEFAULT complicit with evil unless we deliberately avoid it. Anger that institutions are putting the lie not only to the idea of meritocracy, but to the validity of our own achievements, by making our jobs too easy and others' jobs too hard. Angry that we are losing billions a year from this discrimination. Angry that the rich elite thinks we are such fools as to have a racial wedge split us apart from our black, Latino and Asian working class brothers and sisters.
Sure, if you can't muster up the integrity to be angry, can't muster up the desire within you to confront white privilege (even if it's just by supporting the right ballot initiatives, or not letting someone tell a racist joke; we're not saying everyone has to be a full-time activist), then I'd rather you have shame then be blissful about your failure. But I'd prefer you not to fail.
I obviously can't speak for every black, Latino or Asian woman alive, but my perception and my experience is that no one wants anything more than this: Anger at injustice. And if they do, you are entitled to tell them to go to hell. What we are talking about here is what the right thing to do is. It couldn't be clearer: Oppose white privilege.
"To be strong in yourself, in what you stand for, how you contribute to society...No matter who you are, someone will not like something about you; that's human nature. Look at Jesus, the center of Christianity...he was considered to be the only perfect human being that ever walked on earth, and he was nailed to a piece of wood. If he couldn't make everyone happy, neither will any of us. Make yourself happy."
So you do the right thing, live with a good heart, and treat others as you'd want to be treated. I agree, this is all anyone can do.
Sitting around with your thumb up your nether regions, as millions of whites want to do, is not the right thing. Nor is buying the Bell Curve, or thinking Katrina isn't about race, or supporting McCain or Hillary out of fear of the black man.
What IS the right thing to do is to educate yourself on race and privilege, then figure out what you can do to deal with it in your own community.
"Plain and simple - white people don't carry the burden of what this nations forefathers did...even if they did, how can you purport that you understand what white privilege is like for anyone but yourself?"
But that's idiotic. If someone gives me bloodstained money, I should at least have the decency to find out who it came from. And maybe give it back to their kin, if they can be found. So millions of whites benefit now from policies from the 1660s, or 1760s, or 1860s (the Homestead Act) or 1940-60s (Federal Housing Assistance loans overwhelmingly to whites, giving whites a TRILLION dollars in extra wealth kept by racial covenants out of the hands of blacks, and GI Bill discrimination). Even very poor whites, mind you, who thanks to this intergenerational wealth are infinitely more likely to own a home.
More importantly, racism and white privilege are happening right now. Our government does it, our schools and colleges do it, the businesses in our town do it, we on average do it when we look at a black man and woman. It's a real, present, ongoing social problem, and it needs to be dealt with as such. The fact that what the forefathers did is irrelevant is itself irrelevant.
"To suggest that unassuming people, through no fault of their own, are guilty of the notion of white privilege simply by being born white, is equivalent to blaming the people of Australia for Britain sending all its criminals there since they were considered a menace to society. It's just a ridiculous argument to continue because it has no practical solution. It sounds good theoretically, but to what end? "
No one here is saying that modern whites are retroactively guilty for slavery.
But if we sit here, on our stolen wealth, and don't do our best to seek justice NOW, seek the benefits we have for others who never got it, or if we actually cooperate to RETAIN those benefits and fight off those trying to get their equal piece of the pie (as millions of whites do), then yes, we are being monstrous. Now. Not in the 1700s.
By the way, white privilege isn't a "notion", it's a FACT. Whites have advantages. Blacks have disadvantages. No matter what we think about what is right or wrong, what we should do from here, the first step is to at least RECOGNIZE that.
"The past cannot be changed; it is what it is. The longer anyone spends fixated on the past, the less time they are focusing on the now. We can only change now, and affect the future. That is not to say that our history is irrelevant or meaningless; not at all. We need to shift our focus to looking ahead and making the changes that we have learned from our experience."
Fair enough.
Solutions like reparations, which is an attempt to wipe clean that historical slate and give black communities moneys they desperately need while having whites take historical responsibility and thus contribute to a more polite and less shameful dialogue.
Or affirmative action.
Or full employment policies.
Or government welfare policies for the poor and therefore disproportionately black.
Or real, authentic enforcement of present anti-discrimination legislation.
Or programs to teach prosecutors and police how not to behave in racist manners institutionally.
And so forth.
The first step, though, is admitting white privilege is real and cogent. You don't seem to want to do this.
Remember the context, after all. Tim is only saying that white privilege is present in this election, and that that is a problem. I can't imagine a conclusion that is more uncontroversial, in the sense of obvious evidence leading to a commonly accepted conclusion. And it certainly isn't about the past. Yet you think it's relevant to say that we're responsible for the Framers, and Tim has received a massive outroar for the piece.
"The solution: follow the example of the Jews - remember what happened, become aware of who you are and the world around you, forgive the ignorant, learn that education is the key to success, and know that being a victim is a state of mind. To the extent anyone points a finger to anything outside of oneself as the source of their unhappiness, you have given over your power to that thing. And then it is only until that thing changes that you can become free from your victimization. We only have the power to change ourselves, not the world around us. We can affect change, which is different. Stop giving your power away and look within. "
THAT'S what the Jews did?
Funny, I thought they confronted racism, formed groups like B'nai B'rith and the Anti-Defamation League, continue to attack anti-Semitism (even when it's not there, like, I dunno, criticisms of Israel), and got their own state by dispossessing some Arabs. I also seem to remember them raising JUST a tad bit of a stink about the Holocaust, as was appropriate. Y'know, trying to get their wealth back from some banks?
The Jewish experience, if anything, shows that one should get powerful lobbying groups and rally together racially, sometimes even to the exclusion of other identities or by getting one's own nation. I hope it's obvious how few whites would be eagerly in support of blacks doing this.
Blacks rally together and combat racism, while ALSO taking responsibility for their own communities. They always have and they always will. The only question is: Will whites get in the way or cooperate? Will we be like abolitionists, the American Communist Party and the SNCC, or like the KKK?
"Anyone that feels a victim, blacks for example, search out one or more of the tens of thousands of successful black people and learn how they have been able to achieve their success. Getting over racism is not going to come from reparations or charity or from anything "out there." If it is not in love, then it is not good. If it hurts others, it is not good. Change yourself into what you want to become and the world will be changed a little better for it."
You are being a racist jerk, Rick.
Let's take an example I use a lot (courtesy of Tim), because it's the only way white people get it.
One of the first black millionaires, Madame C.J. Walker, was certainly a success story. Blacks in her day should have talked to her about her success, right?
Oh, wait. She was alive and making her money in the early part of the 20th century, under Jim Crow, with pervasive lynching of blacks.
See, the fact that some black people, or some people of ANY discriminated group, can succeed, is no testament to the average forces facing them, or to the difficulties of that success, or (most importantly) to equal opportunity.
Similarly, blacks nowadays do NOT have a fair shot, do NOT have equal opportunity, and the primary people who can change this are white folks. Blacks face repugnant, pernicious, pervasive discrimination, racism and underprivilege in every field from loans and bank applications to interviews and job applications to treatment by the medical industry to treatment in the media to treatment by the government to housing and renting to government contracts to elementary, high school and college education. Asking them to just buck up and try to succeed in that environment while we whites get to sit back and take it easy because of the millions more opportunities we have thanks to them gritting their teeth and bearing it is racist, lazy and stupid.
So, y'know, take that mantra you cite and actually APPLY IT TO YOUR OWN LIFE. "Change yourself" into someone who opposes racism in your own community. Stop "hurt[ing] others" and waiting for blacks "out there" to change THEIR behavior so you don't have to change anything or work hard.
Mr. F Christie
You assume entirely too much, you generalize too often, and your apparent anger seems to be eating away at you. I am A BLACK MALE. I do not have the problems that you seem to have, nor do my peers. I worked hard, learned alot, became educated, and realized that if there is something in life that I want, I set the goal and achieve it. Perhaps I have been descriminated against, I don't know. I wouldn't know how to discern personal racial dicrimination; people don't announce it. How do you know when it happens? I treat people with respect, show my manners, wait my turn, learn the right way to get what I want. I get along fine. Why don't you?
Before my mother married, she lived in France. She wanted the experience of other cultures. When I asked her about discrimination as a child, I remember she said to me that she didn't expect the French to cater to her because she was American, she had to earn their respect and follow the rules of society. She says the same today about white priviledge. We live in a predominately white country, of course the majority will seem to have a greater impact. But, we also live in a free nation and we get to chose what we want. When she was young, she experienced segregation, but that was a sign of the times of which she had no control. My mother is a very pragmatic person, and so am I.
I do not associate with people that have multiple children with mulitple fathers, that take advantage of the welfare system...talk about black priviledge...I am embarrassed to see blacks behave this way. I look at BET and the humor is crude, belittling, and uncouth. Black youth perceive getting ahead by their peers as selling out. Where in the world do these horrible self depricating behaviors and attitudes come from, and more importantly, why are they not combatted and corrected?
Language is the fundumental key to effective communication. Why do many blacks insist on speaking incomprehensible slang? How in the world could they expect to improve themselves and be taken seriously if they can't even structure a sentence properly and communicate intelligently.
Obama's pastor thinks AIDS was created by the US gov't to killl blacks! How ignorant. Jesse Jacksons is a menace to blacks. He makes his money from keeping blacks muddled in anger and encourages victimization. These leaders, and many others, especially and sadly church leaders help to purpetuate this negative black stereoptype. While Bill Cosby is attacked for trying to bring a message of personal responsibility and hope to blacks.
You, Mr Christie, may fight this fight if you wish, but I choose to focus on the positive productive elements of society and on self improvement. Each individual will produce in his or her life exactly what they choose to think on. Instead of writing diabribes on The Redroom, why don't you figure out how you can reach out and teach your fellow blacks commrades how to work within the social structure and improve their lives. I did.....and many many do...It won't just show up and knock on their door!
There is no utopia and yes, this society, as any, always has room for improvement. But any minority group in any situation can't walk into a room like a roaring lion and expect the majority to just lay down, no matter how justified. It behooves the minority group to ally with the majority to garner support and assistance, or else tension will always exist. Remember, slavery was started by the white man, and it was also the white man that ended it.
Still Racist
"You assume entirely too much, you generalize too often, and your apparent anger seems to be eating away at you. I am A BLACK MALE. I do not have the problems that you seem to have, nor do my peers. I worked hard, learned alot, became educated, and realized that if there is something in life that I want, I set the goal and achieve it. Perhaps I have been descriminated against, I don't know. I wouldn't know how to discern personal racial dicrimination; people don't announce it. How do you know when it happens? I treat people with respect, show my manners, wait my turn, learn the right way to get what I want. I get along fine. Why don't you?"
Because I and my community are the discriminators. It's all good and fine to do that when you're the oppressed group, whatever, but it's quite another matter to just sit around when one is the OPPRESSOR. If I don't do something, the people I love and the people they are connected to will suffer a soul death, suffer consequences for that which they let happen or support, and I owe them better than that.
"Before my mother married, she lived in France. She wanted the experience of other cultures. When I asked her about discrimination as a child, I remember she said to me that she didn't expect the French to cater to her because she was American, she had to earn their respect and follow the rules of society. She says the same today about white priviledge. We live in a predominately white country, of course the majority will seem to have a greater impact."
I hear this analogy a lot. You may or may not be a black male (it's easy to claim whatever you want on the Internet), but what you ARE being is a racist.
Because blacks aren't foreigners.
Blacks have been in this country for centuries, the earliest black immigrants here about as early as the earliest white immigrants. Numerous immigrant groups, like the Irish, Italians, and Russians, had their primary exoduses to this country AFTER blacks arrived.
Yet it is Russians, Italians and Irish who get the treatment of being "here", of belonging, and it is blacks who do not.
That's not majoritarianism. That's not natural, that's not assimilation. That's racism, pure and simple.
Let's take an analogy. Circa 1940, should Jews have tried to assimilate or act like Gentile Germans? Why or why not?
Anyone with humanity, of course, would say no, because they had no obligation to. They had a RIGHT to their own culture. Because it was their own country. Their contribution to the culture SHOULD have been in proportion to their segment of the population. Blacks have been here for centuries, have formed cultural watersheds like rock and roll, jazz, rap, hip hop and blues, and yet some fresh-off-the-boat Russian or European gets to "belong" more than they do? Please. That's not assimilation, that's not culture, that's not majority prerogative, that's racism. R-a-c-i-s-m. Couldn't be anything else, virtually by definition.
Your argument says that blacks SHOULD be treated as permanent foreigners, that this is RIGHT! A claim that no white makes in the case of Irish, or Italians, or any ethnic group that is, after all, a minority. So a very interesting and indeed, racist claim.
Further, what your mother may have missed is that in France maybe she COULD speak the language and learn the culture and so forth.
But blacks can't.
That is, perfectly assimilated blacks, whether Tiger Woods, Oprah, Colin Powell or Condi Rice, or the majority of the black middle class, who speak the language and have the same values and even the same wealth, get treated differently.
Because it's about race, not culture.
"But, we also live in a free nation and we get to chose what we want."
No, you don't. This isn't even in THEORY true. A free nation doesn't mean you get everything you demand, it means you MIGHT get a fair shake.
But, of course, in practice you don't get a fair shake. Because racism is real.
"When she was young, she experienced segregation, but that was a sign of the times of which she had no control. My mother is a very pragmatic person, and so am I."
But you STILL experience segregation, if by segregation we mean whites and blacks living in separate areas. You may choose to blind yourself to it, but that doesn't make those 95% or higher white suburbs, like where I come from, any less disproportionate and any less racist.
"I do not associate with people that have multiple children with mulitple fathers, that take advantage of the welfare system...talk about black priviledge..."
As if those people were a cross-section of the black community.
But the point is that those who DON'T do those things get treated discriminatorily either, so those things clearly AREN'T the problem.
"I am embarrassed to see blacks behave this way. I look at BET and the humor is crude, belittling, and uncouth."
Fair enough. BET isn't for everyone.
Think it's only blacks watching that?
Hip-hop is a major industry. There is no way blacks and Latinos alone would keep it afloat. Hip-hop has always had a massive white, suburban audience, from Puff Daddy to Ice Cube to Sean John. So there is an element where the BET behavior, where it is irrational, is actually a minstrel show, done for the benefits of whites.
To say that that disproves rather than proves racism and inequal opportunity is an inversion of logic that I have unfortunately seen far too frequently...
"Black youth perceive getting ahead by their peers as selling out."
Actually, many studies say that there is no or little more anti-intellectual behavior among black youth than whites. You seem to have a lot of negative stereotypes about blacks, a common symptom of, guess what, RACISM.
"Where in the world do these horrible self depricating behaviors and attitudes come from, and more importantly, why are they not combatted and corrected?"
Racism.
If in fact what happens when one studies hard is that one gets to become a "token" black, as what occurs, and thereby actually be PART of a process of selling out their community, like Condi and Colin, of COURSE that argument will emerge.
Because, right or wrong, it comes from a real place.
More importantly, whites have plenty of irrational, stupid behavior patterns. Like getting totally smashed at college dorms that their Mommy and Daddies are paying for. Making gravity bongs and talking about other times they got high, as Dave Chapelle joked about. Not thinking Katrina says anything about race. Voting Republican. Having more serial killers, and plenty of school shooters and child molesters.
Yet, despite all this, no one says the white community is pathological. Because, see, we get away with our pathologies. Because of racism.
"Language is the fundumental key to effective communication. Why do many blacks insist on speaking incomprehensible slang? How in the world could they expect to improve themselves and be taken seriously if they can't even structure a sentence properly and communicate intelligently."
yeh lulz that is t3h fail
Whites have plenty of incomprehensible slangs, from thick Southern accents to Internet speak. It doesn't impede them.
And to WHOM exactly is black slang incomprehensible? It's comprehensible to each other, so you have to be talking about white people. Which is by definition a racist argument, since it says that what determines what is comprehensible is what whites can understand.
And WHY do whites not understand black slang? Because they've never had to. Despite black slang existing for centuries, whites have been able never to learn it.
Because they hold all the cards.
Because of racism.
Get it?
"Obama's pastor thinks AIDS was created by the US gov't to killl blacks! How ignorant."
About as ignorant as thinking that we should nuke another country for fun? Or that the world was created several millenia ago? Or that evolution is just a theory?
The thrust of Reverend Wright's arguments, that peace is important and that America has done horrendous things that created a backlash of hate, are completely true and indeed it's hard to imagine any rational denial of this position. Yet millions of whites think that even saying this out loud is a sign of racial hatred. How ignorant.
"Jesse Jacksons is a menace to blacks. He makes his money from keeping blacks muddled in anger and encourages victimization."
More of a menace to blacks than, say, the very racist employers, banks and media outlets Jesse goes after?
Your real colors are showing, friend.
"These leaders, and many others, especially and sadly church leaders help to purpetuate this negative black stereoptype."
That's "perpetuate".
Putting that aside, there is no way someone's behavior can perpetuate a stereotype...
Unless that stereotype is already there.
Which is blaming the victim.
Which is racist.
"While Bill Cosby is attacked for trying to bring a message of personal responsibility and hope to blacks."
Actually, that's not entirely true.
I hated Bill Cosby's comments and thought they were as ignorant as yours.
But News and Notes, Ed Gordon's show about black affairs on NPR, took it seriously.
Turns out most blacks take this personal responsibility mantra quite seriously.
Whites don't. Whites latch onto Bill Cosby and use his points, which are after all about personal responsibility for his own community, as an excuse to pass the buck.
I applaud you for focusing on what your community can do, though I disagree with you quite a bit about your arguments. But the issue is what WHITES can do.
"There is no utopia and yes, this society, as any, always has room for improvement. But any minority group in any situation can't walk into a room like a roaring lion and expect the majority to just lay down, no matter how justified."
Depends on what you mean.
Can they demand that their policy preferences all be made into law? Of course not.
Can they demand that they are not treated as second-class citizens? They shouldn't even HAVE to; this treatment should not be in the cards.
Can they demand that their cultural output be considered part of the nation's cultural output? Yes. This is a natural demand, and one that has occurred naturally for white groups and even for many black cultural artifacts.
Blacks are not demanding special treatment, they are demanding an END to special treatment. Blacks are demanding a "Welcome" mat, not a "No Trespassing" sign. And it is a far cry from demanding a utopia to demand that some groups don't get special stuff because of their privilege.
And as far as whites ending slavery? There is so much wrong with that I can't imagine what to start with. A) Whites also fought to KEEP slavery, i.e. the Confederacy. B) Blacks did plenty of their own freedom fighting, from black brigades to slave uprisings. It's fairly uncontroversial that such contributions were disproportionately useful, and black brigades served with distinction. C) Whites opposed the fight. There were racist draft riots against conscription, and numerous whites wanted only the Union to be restored and not an end to slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation only emancipated inside rebel territories. D) Why did "whites", or rather the Union, oppose slavery? Was it out of the goodness of their heart and love for blacks? For a tiny group of abolitionists and activists, yes, and kudos to them. But for many, it was to preserve the Union, or to eliminate slavery as a competitor to rising industrial capitalism, or other motives that were hardly selfless.
E) Most importantly, you don't get to get applauded for fixing your fuckup. 200 years of slavery was a blight on America's history and a crushing of the souls of all those complicit with it. Its end was whites finally doing SOMETHING right and making up for their errors. They don't get brownie points for that. Blacks DO get brownie points for enduring it. Get the difference? This is ESPECIALLY true when you consider how Reconstruction, Jim Crow, segregation, and ghettoization contributed to keep blacks as second-class citizens until THEY, through such leaders as MLK and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X and through their own impressive movements and struggles, fought to end it. Whites should be THANKING blacks, as many did, for ending this, especially since its end contributed to American foreign policy by giving America cred with post-colonial nations! Instead, we hear about the "baggage" of the civil rights movement.
It behooves the minority group to ally with the majority to garner support and assistance, or else tension will always exist. Remember, slavery was started by the white man, and it was also the white man that ended it."
"You, Mr Christie, may fight this fight if you wish, but I choose to focus on the positive productive elements of society and on self improvement. Each individual will produce in his or her life exactly what they choose to think on. Instead of writing diabribes on The Redroom, why don't you figure out how you can reach out and teach your fellow blacks how to work within the social structure and improve their lives. I did.....and many many do..."
Because that doesn't work.
Because it never has worked.
Because of racism.
My job is to combat what's in my own community.
The question here is whether blacks should fight against racism or simply accept it and try to assimilate to it.
I find the latter a monstrous proposal.
But MY community should make that choice easier, by getting rid of racism.
Whites need to stop getting coddled.
White Privilege
Nice....Impressive, articulate, and straight to the point. It still amazes me that Sarah Palin has managed to make it so far...she is the govenor of my state and many of us simply shake our heads. We never anticipated she'd be elected given her track record in Wasilla and now, many of us are honestly scared she will land herself and her dysfunctional family in the White House. When did presidential elections stop being about issues and the future of our country and become just another "reality show?"
Using Privilege
White privilege is not the only kind, and it's not the only kind that is dangerous--look at the financial industry, where Asian, Native American, Latino, and/or African-American business school graduates could have been (in theory, if not in fact) part of horrible acts of exploitation and greed.
When I, a white male, first confronted my privilege, I then had to accept the fact that I have unearned power. My guides in this journey suggested that even though it's unearned, I can still use it if I do so responsibly. What Tim is doing, as I see it, is using his privilege to reach audiences that he otherwise might not have been able to speak to.
Thank you, Tim
responsible use of white priviledge
Tom - could you give a few examples of how you use white priviledge responsibly? Particulary, what experiences in your life had you recinded something that was open to you through your white priviledge that you willingly gave up? What was the result? Thanks in advance!
Absolutism
Well, usually I assume it's the right wing that thinks in black and white, but you truly failed to see systemic issues at work. I initially liked where you were going but you seriously went way out. I'm not going to write an article, here, but since you're irresponsibly stirring up division and hatred through one narrow perspective, I'll very broadly touch upon other things happening in addition to white privelege. Small town values v. big city intellectualism, rich v. poor, and the sexist power of a "beauty queen." That's my favorite. Much of the reason Palin is getting away with so much is because the old men have a subconscious hard on for her and her small-town charm and "feminine" IQ make her both unthreatening and a sexy alternative to one-of-the-guys. I'm sure there's even more at work so don't get yourself trapped. White privelege didn't get Hilary Clinton the primary. Even though she's smarter, she doesn't have a clue how to work over men like Palin. Nope, Palin's appeal more resembles Bill's allure. Keep up the critical thinking!
Recognizing the Issue at All
Sadie, I think the naivete about structural issues is being expressed by you.
Again: Tim isn't saying that nothing else besides white privilege is happening in the election. That'd be silly and elsewhere he loudly says otherwise. Clearly sex, class, political partisanship, manueverings of the elites, etc. all matter and all lead to different outcomes.
But race does matter, and you seem to think that it doesn't. Black and white is real, and thinking about it in that way is essential, just like noticing the color of the sky is essential: Because we have a society with racist history and ongoing racism, and to be unable to discern the pattern of the racism is to be ignorant.
Your one argument was Hillary Clinton not winning the election thanks to white privilege, but here you're simply not getting it. There were a variety of factors that lead to Obama's victory and Hillary's defeat. One that is UNQUESTIONABLY not one of them was race. Tens of thousands of white voters voted for Hillary out of sheer bigotry, over not wanting to vote for the black man. Had those tens of thousands of voters not voted, or voted for Obama, then Obama's victories would have been even larger and some of his losses wouldn't have happened. Again, I find it quite ironic that whites may again have shot themselves in the foot with their own racism, because the delay for Obama's campaign starting may make McCain more viable than he would otherwise have been.
the race continues...
yes, it is of the utmost importance that we continue to look at black and white. that is the only way we will all come together. by continuing to focus on the differences, we can assure peace and harmony and understanding...<eyeroll>
it is important to consider that evolution may play a significant role in fully recognizing the dynamics at play with this issue; that focusing on difference only brings more of the same. however, the more evolved, the more intelligent a species becomes, and the more it understands the nature of the mind and the world, and consequently it recognizes its own power. it then uses its power to change the only thing it has complete control over - him/her-self.
the evolved species then realizes that the only lens it knows is the one through which it sees. and further, the self understands that perception is reality; and if an intelligent, evolved species wants to change reality, i.e. the self, it then knows it uses its newly understood power to change its perception, more commonly known as a paradigm shift. from this new reality, it may then continue to grow, produce, evolve, and change...
however, if these things do not happen, and the understanding does not come from all available abundance within the universe, there is only one conclusion that may be made: that the time is not right. and therefore, it is best to allow the observed to continue on its evolutionary journey, until it recognizes it is time for it to make the change. the best course of action is to allow it to stumble and fall. to leave it alone for it does not understand or accept help until IT makes the decision, freely and of its own accord. for it is in knowing that we receive, and it is in dying that we are born to the light of dawn.
Solipsistic Nonsense
"yes, it is of the utmost importance that we continue to look at black and white. that is the only way we will all come together. by continuing to focus on the differences, we can assure peace and harmony and understanding"
This would be logical, Rick, if the differences weren't already there and real.
Oh, and if we COULD, in fact, be color-blind, if our socialization from birth (as numerous studies have shown) has sensitized us to racial and ethnic categories.
Neither are true, of course.
Let's imagine a color-blind group of people.
They look at society and say, "Hmmmmm, a lot of people with merit don't get ahead here. This is a classist society."
And they'd be right.
Now, hold up, they see a group (blacks) that is doing worse even than the rest of the lower class. Class can't be the explanation: They get treated even worse.
If they can't point to racism as a hypothesis, what can they do?
"The only reason why this group would be treated worse would be if they had bad behavior patterns, or low merit, or something that would justify such group treatment."
In short, color-blindness leads directly back to racism. Because if we can't understand why some people have more stuff and some don't, then the only thing left is to blame those with less stuff.
"it is important to consider that evolution may play a significant role in fully recognizing the dynamics at play with this issue; that focusing on difference only brings more of the same. however, the more evolved, the more intelligent a species becomes, and the more it understands the nature of the mind and the world, and consequently it recognizes its own power. it then uses its power to change the only thing it has complete control over - him/her-self. "
Evolution CAN'T play a role in this issue.
Because we were the same human race when we had slavery and when we didn't.
When we had Jim Crow and when we didn't.
When we had the Holocaust and when we didn't.
Everyone who doesn't want to talk about a social issue uses genetics as a crappy copout. But they never explain why genetics lead to disparate outcomes BETWEEN societies that are, after all, all 100% human. So one might say that people have different arrangements of gifts and talents, explaining inequity, but that doesn't explain why the same differences in people produces minor inequity in Japan and colossal inequity in America, or why it produces more inequity now than it did in the 50s and 60s.
So, no, we don't need to recognize ANYTHING about genetics, because racism is an institutional and social issue.
"the evolved species then realizes that the only lens it knows is the one through which it sees. and further, the self understands that perception is reality; and if an intelligent, evolved species wants to change reality, i.e. the self, it then knows it uses its newly understood power to change its perception, more commonly known as a paradigm shift. from this new reality, it may then continue to grow, produce, evolve, and change..."
Such a race would be wiped off the face of the planet for being idiotic.
Because no amount of paradigm shifting will change bombs dropping on your home, or gravity keeping you earthbound, or general relativity, or hundreds of years of history. All those things are FACT and they aren't subject to change. Perception isn't reality, it's an attempt to model reality. Whether it does so badly or well isn't the point: This solipsistic, post-modern garbage is tiresome.
So race is REAL, and racial inequity is REAL, and white privilege is REAL, and the only interest served by advocating that it isn't are those who already benefit from it and thus don't want the issue brought up. Is it any surprise that it's WHITES who overwhelmingly want this "color-blind" stance? Deconstruct THAT, philosophy sophomore.
But notice how I don't even need to reply to it. Because I advocate not that people are racist nor that they're color-blind. There IS a third alternative: People looking at each other's heritages and differences but not ascribing negativity to that, appreciating differences and changes in belief, AND also remembering their common humanity and shared heritages at the same time. Poly-culturalism, not myopic liberal color-blindness.
"however, if these things do not happen, and the understanding does not come from all available abundance within the universe, there is only one conclusion that may be made: that the time is not right. and therefore, it is best to allow the observed to continue on its evolutionary journey, until it recognizes it is time for it to make the change. the best course of action is to allow it to stumble and fall. to leave it alone for it does not understand or accept help until IT makes the decision, freely and of its own accord. for it is in knowing that we receive, and it is in dying that we are born to the light of dawn."
You wouldn't offer this Matrix-high-school-paper level bullshit in any other context, I would wager.
You wouldn't say that we should just wait for the "time to change" for taxation, or the Iraq War, or terrorism, or your career or education or getting a raise. You would recognize these as social problems that need to be dealt with.
But always, when it comes to something we want to defend, suddenly it's difference. Suddenly it's just human nature or we just need to wait for people's spiritualities to catch up or some crap that is no comfort and no help to anyone suffering yet still manages to sound nice (is THAT a human weakness? Probably).
Racism is surmountable. We don't need to wait for a massive paradigm change, or genetics, or a revival of a better spirituality, or something. We need to make movements, NOW, to address it.
Thanks
It has been a long time since I have heard from you, and am glad to read from your website. I am a writer, have just completed a book titled Religion vs God, am rewriting Black N Blue, about my years as a San Francisco Police Officer, and the response of U.S. Citizens to O.J. Simpson, a former classmate at City College in San Francisco that we called O.J. Simpleton. I am African American and a Republican, who ran for Sheriff in Adams County Colorado against a high school grad with experience comparable to Palin, while I had a had certification to teach in Californias Community, taught. I taught leadership for the Army Reserve School, college for eight years, was director of a small college for four, Regional Director for a real estate investment company, but I was not qualified to be desk sergeant of a sheriff who forced sex on females who wanted to gain promotions. I am voting for Obama, because I am embarrassed by what Republicans are doing now.
on race
I have argued these points before...it seems you are so stuck on seeing things from one side.
My point was that the average black has not evolved to a higher order of thinking. The mind is more primitive and closer to its ancestral roots of a tribal mentality. This lower level thinking is a product of evolution. When the human mind has progressed to the stage of the modern man, along with that progression, or evolution, comes a heightened thinking and reasoning ability. Most blacks seem to revert easily and quickly to violence; this is a symptom of a lower order.
The human race is broken into different levels from an anthropologic perspective. Not all people evolve at the same time. Asians are at the top of the list, then Caucasian, then Black, and then everything else. Why else would a race of people allow themselves to be taken captives as slaves? And why else would their kings and leaders participate in giving them over as slaves? Any why else would American blacks continue to only point the blame to whites when their own ancestors participated in the tragedy? And why else is it that thousands of people in the 21st century come to America poor, as refuges, as illegal aliens, and so on, and within 10 years or less they have built themselves into productive citizens with jobs, owning their own business, houses...And why else do we have ghettos filled with blacks just barely squeezing by on public assistance saying "its because I'm black..."And why else are there thousands of examples of successful blacks not held back by race?
Each person carries within him/herself a vision of the world and of themselves. And it in precisely how the individual perceives himself, to that very deepest thought they hold dear, is exactly how they will present themselves to the world - and - that is exactly how the world will respond to them. This all happens on a subconscious level. We are constantly sending out vibrations to those around us. It tells others about us. You know what that is - when you feel something about someone...good, bad, indifferent, and you don't even know that person. It is your energy touching theirs. All living things send out energy signals. That's how animals know when a human is scared of it, and then the dog bites you, or the horse throws you. The animal is responding to your energy. Humans act the same way. It's no different.
Only humans have the ability to change those inner thoughts. To create a new perspective. That is the paradigm shift I was referring to; not a critical mass population change. THE INDIVIDUAL HAS TO CHANGE FIRST.
Is it even imaginable that for example, Barak Obama, walks around with an inner message that says: "oh, I can't amount to anything much because I am black"? Wake up!!!!!! Quit making excuses!!!! And take that energy and focus it on what you want to improve your life. There's no magic recipe. That's it; that's all there is. So simple yet so under-utilized by all of us.
Despite all the knowledge, laws, and abundance in this universe, why else would a group of people continue to look backward when the necessary tools, support, laws, and elements are there for them to have as freely as they are to anyone else but yet cannot see it? They are of a lower order, not ready to evolve, that's why.
It is what it is. Let the results speak for themselves.
Idiot
"I have argued these points before...it seems you are so stuck on seeing things from one side."
You argued them. They're terrible points and you failed to make them compelling. Therefore, I rejected them.
"My point was that the average black has not evolved to a higher order of thinking. The mind is more primitive and closer to its ancestral roots of a tribal mentality."
And the point I make is that a) this is racist, offensive and utterly false crap. There is not a shred of evidence for it. Psychometrics has gone back and forth between saying that blacks scoring higher on memory tests than whites was because of their inferiority then saying the opposite when they scored lower. Ethnic groups have had a fascinating change in performance since the beginning of psychometrics, changing in all sorts of variables. For example, black and white IQ differences have shrunk tremendously, owing apparently to improvements in black health and the rise of the black middle class. There is no reputable geneticist who will defend this, certainly no reputable college or school, even those whose positions on genetics I (and Lewontin and Chomsky and Tim) don't share. When aggregating in confounding variables like stereotype threat, racism, health care discrimination and lack of access, etc., the claim becomes not only scientifically chimerical but dogmatically racist.
But b) it is monstrous, irrelevant idiocy because we see frequently that whites and blacks of the SAME PERFORMANCE, whether the same SAT scores, IQ scores, educational achievement, resumes, employment record, or creditworthiness, are treated differently. So to point to this to explain the condition of blacks just HAS to be only part of the story AT BEST, yet insipid racists concede that point then go onto talk as if the point had never existed.
"When the human mind has progressed to the stage of the modern man, along with that progression, or evolution, comes a heightened thinking and reasoning ability. Most blacks seem to revert easily and quickly to violence; this is a symptom of a lower order."
This is racist, offensive garbage. Nothing more.
"The human race is broken into different levels from an anthropologic perspective. Not all people evolve at the same time. Asians are at the top of the list, then Caucasian, then Black, and then everything else."
No, it's not. There has been no serious divergence whatsoever among any racial group. It's IMPOSSIBLE genetically: There has been no event that would cause the break from stasis or punctuated equilibrium, no "punctuation" if you will. The closest possibility MIGHT be Australian aboriginals. We are all clearly the same species: Viable inter-breeding is possible. We are all also clearly not sub-species. The genetic variation among humans is infinitesimal compared to all other species. This makes SENSE: Humans in their present form have been around for only a few hundred thousand years, MAYBE a million years at most. That's simply not enough time for broad divergence under natural selection. If we look at the groups you think are real, whether they be "Asian", "black" or "white", we find the following:
a) These groups vary tremendously internally, both genetically and socially. Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Mongolians, Thai, Viet, Laos, Hmong and Cambodians all have quite different genetic outcomes and different societies, and take our lumping of them into one group as being deeply offensive. Racism among those groups is constant.
b) This internal variation is so severe that if we want to make the difference between "black" and "white" a race, then we start having to also make the difference between individual African tribes "races".
c) The variation is in fact so infinitesimal that two random people from each group are MORE likely to be alike than two random people chosen from WITHIN the groups thanks to the overwhelming statistical noise going the other direction.
d) NONE of these variations occur in anything more than a few alleles, certainly in no alleles that control anything that could explain social differences like creditworthiness, intelligence, etc. that would lead to disparate social outcomes.
"Why else would a race of people allow themselves to be taken captives as slaves? And why else would their kings and leaders participate in giving them over as slaves?"
You are a racist idiot, and I am done seriously discussing with you.
Blacks did not "willingly" step onto slave ships. They were brutalized until they did, then began resisting the moment they arrived. They had to be forced into different language groups so they would not collaborate, but they still learned to communicate, first through music and dance then through shared language and codes. Slave uprisings were massive, major and constant, and in fact Haiti is free thanks to a massive slave uprising.
Further, the only way that black kings could be considered to be participating in giving their "own" people over is if THEY WERE THEIR OWN PEOPLE. But they weren't, you intellectually anemic moron.The kings and tribes that were slavers weren't even all black! Many were Arab! Putting that aside, those that were black weren't from the same tribes!
By your reasoning, whites are inferior because they used Slavs, OTHER WHITES, for slave labor! (That's where WE GET THE WORD "slave": From Slav!)
"Any why else would American blacks continue to only point the blame to whites when their own ancestors participated in the tragedy?"
Because they have a moral compass that points north, you Neanderthal.
"And why else is it that thousands of people in the 21st century come to America poor, as refuges, as illegal aliens, and so on, and within 10 years or less they have built themselves into productive citizens with jobs, owning their own business, houses..."
Because, as you keep conceding because you are a regressive and uneducated ignoramus, THOSE PEOPLE WERE NOT IN THE SAME BOAT AS ETHNIC BLACKS.
Immigrant Irish could become white.
Blacks could not.
Immigrant Asians (and even BLACK GROUPS, you socially regressive pedant, that is African and Caribbean black immigrants) were NOT cross-sections of the population and overwhelmingly had industrial or entrepeneurial background. Native blacks ARE NOT.
Did you know that white Catholics, as Steinberg compellingly notes, did not match their representation in the population in academia and education? Guess by your maxim, Catholic races (Italian, Irish, etc.) must be inferior to non-Catholics. Oh, wait, except that that's changing. So then they must have become less inferior in violation of every law of genetics and science.
Oh, and did you know that the black middle class is catching up to the white middle class? That's right, while racist reprobates like you continue to deny their humanity, they disprove your every point by doing exactly the things you say to succeed, and actually are closing the gap. But they haven't CLOSED the gap. Because of racism. Get it?
"Only humans have the ability to change those inner thoughts. To create a new perspective. That is the paradigm shift I was referring to; not a critical mass population change. THE INDIVIDUAL HAS TO CHANGE FIRST."
And white individuals need to stop coddling people like you, stop liking hearing them, and start resisting racism.
"Is it even imaginable that for example, Barak Obama, walks around with an inner message that says: "oh, I can't amount to anything much because I am black"?"
Except he doesn't.
If you had any relation to reality, any notion of what the crap that was coming out of your mouth meant, he is actually of your school (except for the explicit ignorant and repugnant racism, of course), saying that blacks should stop blaming whites and taking personal responsibility.
He is riding this, and white unwillingness to confront racism,all the way to the White House.
So, y'know, you're just wrong. Because you don't pay attention.
"Despite all the knowledge, laws, and abundance in this universe, why else would a group of people continue to look backward when the necessary tools, support, laws, and elements are there for them to have as freely as they are to anyone else but yet cannot see it? They are of a lower order, not ready to evolve, that's why."
Yes, they're "looking backwards" by looking at existing institutions that currently repress them, as even you have conceded.
Here's a hint: Look up what "backwards" means.
"It is what it is. Let the results speak for themselves."
Yes. And when blacks continue to work hard and continue to be denied the American dream, maybe morons like you will start asking why, sociologically, and might have to come up with a hypothesis.
the blame game
when one finger is pointing outwards, there's four pointing back.
well boo hoo hoo...you poor black man who can't get ahead because the big mean white man is holding you down. get real you idiot.
keep on crying and yelling and blaming...that always gets a person what they want. you and i would never be associated. your hate and negativity is so pervasive its revolting. meanwhile, you are continuing to do damage to young minds by maintaining your victim mentality, while the rest of us are moving up and on...
and one more final thought on evolution - if you think that blacks are equal to other races, what has Africa contributed to the world compared to Asia, Europe, and the Americas? From these places the world has benefited from science, culture, art, food, language, invention, and prosperity to name just a few...meanwhile Africa brings us death, destruction, poverty, AIDS, violence, civil wars, and so much more. Take take take, and blame blame blame, but GIVE NOTHING BACK.
Look at Liberia as an example...the black "promised land" and they still can't create a peaceful nation. It's filled with violence, corruption and the bloodshed is horrendous.
I am sad that you don't have hope and see yourself as so put upon, but at least your presence makes itself known so successful people, black, white and all others can easily see you and what you represent, making it easy for the rest of us to keep away from such negativey and turn our backs on it and allow you to squander your life as you so choose.
laws are in place to prevent discrimination for everyone. if you are being discriminated against then you have the law to support you. but you can't create a law to change people's attitudes and feelings; that is only something each one of us is responsible for. your attitude tells me you are angry, judgmental, irrational, racist, and you always need to be right. you won't win any votes with that. change that and you will experience positive change.
you poor poor black man...
MORON
"when one finger is pointing outwards, there's four pointing back.
well boo hoo hoo...you poor black man who can't get ahead because the big mean white man is holding you down. get real you idiot."
You know that I'm white, right?
As I've stated, y'know, a few times here, both to you and others, I'm white, come from an almost all-white suburban / rural area, and am a second-generation white immigrant. So the big white man is not holding me down, he is actually handing me resources and benefits.
But, like Tim pointed out, all of us are indeed victims of white privilege, even whites. White privilege deprives us of our humanity. Right at the starting gate, we are already complicit with hate and prejudice. This is the default state, and we have to resist to not be complicit. It's not worth it.
"keep on crying and yelling and blaming...that always gets a person what they want."
Yes, it is. What do you think would get someone what they want? Saying nothing?
There's logically two reactions to racism: Confront it, or don't confront it. The fact that you can a) think confronting it is "crying" and b) think that not confronting it will solve it shows that you are a monstrous cynic of a new order. Really, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
Again, were this Nazi Germany, and I were a German dissident saying that Jews were treated badly by the existing regime with discrimination and racialized mistreatment, I doubt you would ever say that I was "crying and yelling and blaming". It'd be obvious that, whether or not I was right, I was identifying a serious social problem.
The denial only starts at home, when we want to defend what we prefer, even though there is no justice to it.
Racism is real, and it has to be confronted, and people with moral compasses will confront it. If you can't get over that, fine, just don't get in our way if you would.
"you and i would never be associated. your hate and negativity is so pervasive its revolting. meanwhile, you are continuing to do damage to young minds by maintaining your victim mentality, while the rest of us are moving up and on..."
I won't even go into the torturous logical contradiction that I am embracing victimhood when I am bashing at the institution that BENEFITS me, because you apparently missed the memo that I'm a white dude.
Rick, you've came here and said that entire groups of people are less good, less qualified, less human. Yet you have the outright audacity to claim that it is I who is possessed by hate.
You live in your own little world, never thinking, never replying, never engaging with anything you read. Have fun in it, I suppose.
"and one more final thought on evolution - if you think that blacks are equal to other races, what has Africa contributed to the world compared to Asia, Europe, and the Americas?"
You're a racist idiot.
I won't go into the contributions of African scientists, of African empires, or the fact that without Africa there would be no human race, or any of that.
I'll just make a historical analogy, which will sail right over your head.
The Muslim empires in the Dark Ages could easily have pointed to Europeans and asked, "What have they ever contributed to humanity?" And they'd be right: Europe at that time wallowed in internecine warfare, ignorance, stupidity, religious fanaticism and violence.
Fast forward a thousand years and now it's the descendants of those ignorant peasants and warlords that are now pointing the finger back at the globe.
It might be that Africans, even barring hundreds of years of colonial violence, won't compete with white or Asian nations in a fair marketplace or a fair exchange. Who knows. Anything is possible, I suppose.
But we have no way of knowing.
The fact that you think that the supposed African lack of achievement could have nothing to do with Africans being enslaved, and colonized, and assaulted, their natural resources robbed, then forced into a neo-colonial dependency by US empire, says more about you than anything I could.
"Look at Liberia as an example...the black "promised land" and they still can't create a peaceful nation. It's filled with violence, corruption and the bloodshed is horrendous."
Oh, right, like Ireland back when it had that pleasant little civil war with regular terror in the streets?
Or when Germans gave whites a "promised land" that turned into a wasteland?
Or how about the biggest failed state on the planet, the United States, an ailing democracy that, unlike Liberia, threatens the entire globe with its oversized military that follow no legal restrictions?
One doesn't need to go back to medieval Europe to see that whites, and Asians, and every ethnic group on the planet can have horrible
But remember, none of this matters... because you're just wrong.
Let me make this so simple for you, Rick.
The only way that blacks could have any of these traits you think they do..
Is if those traits were innate to them.
That means genetics.
But there is no genetic difference between blacks and whites.
So that means by definition we have to look elsewhere.
I have made this conclusion clear for you over and over. You decide to keep throwing non sequiturs and red herrings at it. Until you bother answering this, you've lost the argument, and only discredit yourself further with every ignorant, hate-filled post.
"I am sad that you don't have hope and see yourself as so put upon, but at least your presence makes itself known so successful people, black, white and all others can easily see you and what you represent, making it easy for the rest of us to keep away from such negativey and turn our backs on it and allow you to squander your life as you so choose."
Learn to read. I can't get simpler.
"laws are in place to prevent discrimination for everyone"
Yes, and if you had done your homework, you would know that
a) those laws are insufficient and don't cover every area where relevant, social discrimination occurs
b) those laws are routinely flouted, whether in the areas of mortgages, education, hiring, firing, wages and promotion
See the Boston Federal Reserve Bank study, the Sage study, the OFCCP's conclusion, Glass Ceiling Commision, etc.
"if you are being discriminated against then you have the law to support you."
And good luck in a racist criminal justice system proving your case.
Oh, and never mind that even under the most sanguine interpretation of success rates, proving discrimination is incredibly difficult, usually requiring a smoking gun, and costs years of time.
Oh, and never mind that lawyers cost money, and that prosecuting an anti-discrimination lawsuit successfully takes money and time that the vast majority of poor blacks who face constant discrimination don't have.
"but you can't create a law to change people's attitudes and feelings; that is only something each one of us is responsible for."
But you can do something. Say, create movements that address the root causes of racism, such as inequity, white privilege and institutional racism.
Oh, but wait, you don't like doing that either, for no reason you've explained.
Tool.
"your attitude tells me you are angry, judgmental, irrational, racist, and you always need to be right. you won't win any votes with that. change that and you will experience positive change."
Let's test your hypothesis.
Obama is winning plenty of votes. Therefore, he must be experiencing positive change.
Oh, wait, he's virtually abandoned anti-racist activity and is a corporate shill.
And I guess angry, racist people never get their agenda through.
Oh, wait, millions of Jews died because you're wrong.
Was there a single keystroke that you intended anyone to take seriously, Rick? A single word you've written here that you would honestly want someone to read and evaluate charitably?
Racism has never disappeared because it has been coddled, or "understood". Whether through slave uprisings, the Civil War, or the civil rights movement, racism has never given an inch except when confronted by force that raised the costs to the racists and to their institutions.
discrimination exists...
...it's the nature of the human to be attracted to same, and be less attracted to difference. Non-racists are not attracted to racists; are they being racist?
Fat people, short people, red-haired people, black people, white people, smart people, geeky people, albino people, females, intelligent people, gay people, and on and on all experience discrimination of some form. You cannot eliminate it.
The world cannot be the way you want it; you can only accept it and grow, or harbor resentments and turn into someone like you.
Life is good. Sorry you can't see it. The USA is good, despite its mistakes and learning from experience. When we know better we do better. Are you perfect? You're arguing for something that you don't even experience nor could you know what it's like since you are not black.
This has been exhausting, and I don't think anything has been accomplished.
bye.
Empty
"...it's the nature of the human to be attracted to same, and be less attracted to difference. Non-racists are not attracted to racists; are they being racist?"
This is idiotic.
First: Yes, there is a tendency among humans to be attracted to people like them... but there is no genetic tendency to see race. None. A MOMENT'S thought proves this conclusion. A hundred fifty years ago, you could hear plenty of disparaging things about Scots, Irishmen, Italians, Germans, Russians, Poles. Now those things are just not said nearly as often: Those groups are considered "white" in the American body politic. Here, Asians are considered one undifferentiated mass, but in Asia, Koreans, Japanese, Ainu, Thai, Chinese, Viet, Laotians, Cambodians, Hmong, and further sub-groups hate and fear each other just as surely as whites hate and fear blacks here. Tutsis and Hutus may both look black to whites, but they beg to differ.
Tribal, ethnic and "racial" identification are not set in stone, Rick. They are fluid and alter.
There was NOTHING in the human genome to make slavery inevitable. Nor Jim Crow. There is nothing in the human genome now to make institutional racism, organized bigotry and prejudice, or white privilege inevitable, you insipid apologist.
"Fat people, short people, red-haired people, black people, white people, smart people, geeky people, albino people, females, intelligent people, gay people, and on and on all experience discrimination of some form. You cannot eliminate it."
The fact that you think that geeky people and black people experience ANYTHING like similar discrimination, as if geeky people can't get jobs with the same resumes as jocks, alone shows how much contempt you have for everyone you speak to.
"The world cannot be the way you want it; you can only accept it and grow, or harbor resentments and turn into someone like you."
You would accept this in no other instance.
If you saw a tax policy you saw as unjust, or a war you thought was ridiculous, or a candidate you didn't like, you would get into a movement and change it, or go to a ballot box, or blog, or talk to your friends about it. Racism and white privilege are the exact same.
You don't believe a word coming out of your mouth, you'd just rather not be bothered combatting racism. That's fine, just say that. Don't pretend you have some superior rationalization, because you don't.
"Life is good. Sorry you can't see it. The USA is good, despite its mistakes and learning from experience. "
THIS is what you have to offer?
Let's accept for one moment that life in the USA is "good". Never mind that this is an empty assertion: Do the millions of people STARVING or suffering from malnutrition in this country have it good? Maybe as opposed to sub-Saharan Africa, I suppose, though even then black males in Harlem have mortality rates parallel to Bangladesh, so...
But if that is the case, so what? That doesn't mean it's equally good for the population. And if some get more of the good life and others less thanks to race and not due to the content of their character, that is unjust, no matter how much crap about the genome you try to throw at the problem.
"When we know better we do better. Are you perfect?"
But we KNOW that racism exists and yet you don't want to do better. So you're lying.
"You're arguing for something that you don't even experience nor could you know what it's like since you are not black."
I know what white privilege means, because I experience it every day.
YOU are the one denying my racial experience.
But notice something. You made the same arguments without skipping a beat when I was white and when I was black. That alone shows how empty they are.
I Admire You So Much....
Wow. I would LOVE to meet someone like you, just in a passing...especially being that you are not even in your late twenties. You inspire me. I've been in positions where I was the one who had to "say something" , so I know how time consuming it can be and how much it can physically just make you..tired. I just want you to know how much respect I have for you and how much I appreciate what you have to say.
I think the word you are looking for is "hypocrisy"
But that wouldn't be controversial enough of a topic for an essay now, would it?
Colored Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy has a color, Lena.
I Thank You sincerely for
I Thank You sincerely for this brilliant and highly-needed compilation....I have shared it with all of my friends through Facebook, and I hope they also understand what a joke the republicn ticket is in this historic election.
Yes We Can!
white priviledge
it also has the power to elect a black president. since the country is mostly white, this election could not have come off. now thats some white priviledge in action.
Yes, It Is
I know you're trying to be ironic, Rick, but it actually IS. That is, as Tim pointed out numerous times, the fact that Obama had to try to "transcend" his race, act white, and act as an exception to the supposed rule, while, say, Hillary didn't have to transcend her whiteness either as a fact (that is, she didn't HAVE to appeal to minorities) or in the eyes of many whites (that is, she didn't have to seem not white or "not like all those other whites"), proves, not disproves, the salience of white privilege. If a black candidate has to nonetheless say comments that alienate his own racial group but bring whites to the table to have a chance at victory (and even then, Obama did NOT win because of majority white support, certainly not because of white males, but because of the young, women, blacks and other non-whties), that proves that it is still whites who call the shots and make the agenda.
Yes, Obama's victory is a major symbolic indication: It shows that this country is not the racist quagmire it was 40 years ago. Hell, it might even show a transcendence past racism like around the Willie Horton affair. And it is also an end to disastrous Republican Presidencies. But it is not a sign that racism is over. Nor would it be to any reasonable person: After all, would one honestly allege that in Germany one Jewish President would erase the anti-Semitism of the Holocaust? It takes time, and healing, for racism to be over. Only when it is UNREMARKABLE that a President is black will racism be over.
Somewhat of an opposition
Black Privelage is when you can talk trash about any other race (especially caucasians) and can still not be looked down upon.
It is when calling a white person 'white' is ok but calling a black person 'black' is not acceptable (only African-American).
It is when white people (like myself) are afraid to say anything bad about any black person (even my own black friends in a personal conversation) because they do not want to be viewed as 'racist'.
It is when black people have a better chance of getting a job today than white people do just because of the color of their skin (extreme forms of Affirmative Action and the such only cause bigger divisions among ethnic groups).
Now I am not saying at all that I believe that things should be the way they were 40 or even 10 years ago. But I am saying that you all (you all who have posted here) should look at both sides of the spectrum.
What is the difference between myself and the guy who wrote this thing? I mean we are both white males who believe that blacks and whites should be treated as equal... what is the difference between us?
What is the difference between the church (community of people) that Obama attended for years and any white person who still believes in the supression of blacks? Nothing. They both share an extreme hate for the other yet one is called a church and the other a cult.
What is the difference between Obama's pastor Rev. Wright or Al Sharpton and someone like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity? Well the facts show that Wright and Sharpton both have showed and expressed a hate for white America but has Limbaugh or Hannity? No
Why is it that after this post you all fellow post-ers are going to hate me yet you all love the author of this article? It is because he is "fanning the flame", he is just acting as someone who is speak out against this 'white privelage' by attacking a woman and her family.
People should believe in something more than accusing others and bringing them down and maybe believe in what they are doing instead. That is how people succeed.
See-Through Double Standard
"Black Privelage is when you can talk trash about any other race (especially caucasians) and can still not be looked down upon."
Please give any example, one, of any public newscaster saying ANYTHING akin to the nightly demonization of blacks, Arabs and Muslims without being publically crucified.
The counter-examples are too numerous to count: Jesse Jackson's use of the "n-word" this year, for example, or white communities' reviling of Wright and Farrakhan.
Of course, the reason we should be concerned about whites doing it and not so much blacks? Whites, because they HAVE white privilege, a really existing phenomenon, can do so much more damage with their prejudice.
"It is when calling a white person 'white' is ok but calling a black person 'black' is not acceptable (only African-American)."
You clearly don't spend much time talking to black folks. (Notice how I just called them "black folks"?)
Incidentally, whites self-identify as white. Calling whites "white" is no implicit insult. Calling blacks "black", however, can and often does come from a place of hate, prejudice and privilege. Again, a diametrical difference.
"It is when white people (like myself) are afraid to say anything bad about any black person (even my own black friends in a personal conversation) because they do not want to be viewed as 'racist'."
White privilege is when black people (unlike myself) are afraid to say anything, good or bad, about anything, anyone, anytime or anywhere because their values, beliefs and opinions are unlikely to be taken seriously.
"It is when black people have a better chance of getting a job today than white people do just because of the color of their skin (extreme forms of Affirmative Action and the such only cause bigger divisions among ethnic groups)."
By your reasoning, whites must have a higher unemployment rate than blacks.
Oh, wait, they don't.
White privilege is the ability to say and believe things that are not only flatly wrong but contrary to every possible piece of sociological data imaginable and retain this ignorance.
"Now I am not saying at all that I believe that things should be the way they were 40 or even 10 years ago. But I am saying that you all (you all who have posted here) should look at both sides of the spectrum."
What both sides?
Whites are privileged. Blacks aren't. There's not two sides of the coin, everyone does not have it equally hard. These are stupid myths.
"What is the difference between myself and the guy who wrote this thing? I mean we are both white males who believe that blacks and whites should be treated as equal... what is the difference between us?"
One of you actively denies white privilege. You deny the benefits you and your community have. Therefore, you will continue to act to retain those benefits, believing that they are rightly yours. Those who are ACTUALLY disadvantaged will then have to either accept their disadvantage permanently or take from you things you believe are rightly yours. Neither is a recipe for equity or conflict. As another commentator said earlier on this post, is it any wonder that there's not piece?
The other of you does not deny white privilege, takes personal responsibility, and challenges institutions that cause racial conflict and inequity.
So, there's a VERY big difference. As big as love and hate or peace and war.
"What is the difference between the church (community of people) that Obama attended for years and any white person who still believes in the supression of blacks? Nothing. They both share an extreme hate for the other yet one is called a church and the other a cult."
Actually, there's at least one VERY big difference, the only difference that matters.
The white people can do something about their prejudice.
Since they are the majority, own the businesses, staff the offices, rent the rooms, sell the houses, and offer the loans, their prejudice causes real impact.
This difference is something that you blissfully stumble through, another privilege you have: To be so completely unaware of the knapsack you have that to everyone else is not only visible but cumbersomely so.
Putting that aside, neither Obama nor his church nor Wright have EVER said that they want to kill whites, or suppress them, or deny them their rights, or called whites inferior or evil. That's another VERY big difference.
"What is the difference between Obama's pastor Rev. Wright or Al Sharpton and someone like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity? Well the facts show that Wright and Sharpton both have showed and expressed a hate for white America but has Limbaugh or Hannity? No"
By your reasoning, contempt for the Nazis by Jews is the same as the contempt for Jews by Nazis.
Rev. Wright does not preach hate, or warfare, or violence. He calls white (and black) America to task for failures, for violence, for war. Rush Limbaugh and Hannity lie to enhance their bank accounts.
"Why is it that after this post you all fellow post-ers are going to hate me yet you all love the author of this article? It is because he is "fanning the flame", he is just acting as someone who is speak out against this 'white privelage' by attacking a woman and her family."
Could it be that we disagree with what you're saying and find it infantile and paternalistic, while we agree with Tim?
Nope, it's because we really (even us white folks for whom this'd be a bad thing) want to see race war.
"People should believe in something more than accusing others and bringing them down and maybe believe in what they are doing instead. That is how people succeed. "
So, you should believe in what you're doing rather than accusing others of racism, and let them confront white privilege if they want to.
But, see, like all racist hypocrites, these fair standards that you keep mentioning are nothing but. They are in fact double standards, camoflaged in a manner you find very clever but everyone else can see through.
About the NPR Bit...
Well, Redroom got mentioned in the September 29th News and Notes, as did our comments collectively and my early comments in particular! Given that NPR seems to be determined to take my views out of context, let's clarify:
Not once was I denying the salience of white privilege, not in general, not in any instance, and CERTAINLY not in an election filled with it. My point was simply that we need to, at a conceptual level, be able to note what's partisan jockeying and what's race, and where those categories intersect, as WELL as all our discussion about gender, handicapped status, sexual orientation, etc., all playing a role. Tim was absolutely right initially, and certainly more right and more precise upon clarification. My position never changed: Race matters. White privilege exists, and it matters. Luckily, it apparently was not powerful enough to literally cost a black man the job.
To tims blog
I wrote a poem called, Sense of Entitlement". In America there has been a sense of entitlement for white people and that is the true anger at President Obama. It is great to see that there are many who has their eyes wide open. I like Tim, could not believe what the country was willing to put in a seat of power that has taken the country where it is today. And, everything i read in his words are my thoughts as an aboriginal woman of this country. Maybe we should express this to the Congress and unblock the toilet. Racism is insanity and perhaps with more honest people like Tim the country can begin to be the United States of America and not a self perpetuated bully to the world. I am a patriot but if Tim, hadn't spoke for me I am sure the messenger would be shot as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other great men that could have built the country instead of tearing it down. Peace be with you all and love for without it the mind is cunning and deadly. Thank you Tim and others who are finally speaking out.
reality check
I do not only see Sarah Palin in this writing, as a person of roots that are diverse leaving on this planet the last 55 years Americans need to be honest. class is like Charlie the Tuna, you have it or you do not. Money is a separate issue, the question is whether people are angry for all the entitlement that came with white America and the mind of illogical thinking is playing into this and people like to make self feel better knowing that racism is at an all time spot light? Or, is America ready to bcome the land they have fantasies of a United States for all people. I get what Tim is saying very cleary, it takes courage to tell the truth. And, please do not shoot the messengers. If you are real about your heart search it and then write for there will be a revelation of spirit and it is already taking place upon the planet. Love above all things and connect the mind to the heart. All said out of love and the want for a better country.