White privilege

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2008
White privilege
112
Fri, 09-19-2008 - 8:24am
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 privilegeis when you can call yourself a "fukin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fukin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shlt" 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 privilegeis being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilegeis being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilegeis 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 being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, White privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 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.

PaRrIs




Edited 9/19/2008 8:59 am ET by parris04

PaRrIs

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 10:52am

Obviously not all voters reject Obama - and the final numbers who do so will be determined in November.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2008
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 10:58am

<

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 10:58am

Thanks for a repeat of the Republican National Committees talking points!!!


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2008
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 1:08pm

Well, I can't speak for Parris or anyone else, but to me, the purpose of such posts is to recognize something which is NOT "merely history." I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that Parris' tongue-in-cheek "blacks should just get over it" reply to fatcat's question is meant to underscore that very fact. Obviously, it's true that slavery proper ended 150 years ago. However, much of what was contained in the OP is also undisputably true TODAY (not 50 or 100 or 150 years ago). Race (and racism) is one of the fault-lines of American politics and social culture; one which we, for all our modernity and groundbreaking civil-rights legislation, haven't put fully behind us. And - again, I'm totally reading into what Parris' comment MAY have meant - it's more than just a little bit of a pat answer to point out the twin truths that a) slavery's been over for 150 years, and b) no government has ever (or likely WILL ever) successfully eradicate race-based (or gender-based, or religion-based) mistrust and fear, not because those things AREN'T true (no one argues that they aren't), but because the less-immediately-observable truths exposed in the OP are ALSO true.

That, by itself, has value. There are certainly no easy answers to the problems posed by something like racism and unconscious racial bias....but when it's easily observable that such things are still most definitely still with us, it bears repeating to go back and examine what actually IS every so often, both as a means to measure how far - if any - we've come, and to remind us what challenges we still face. And, truth be told, so that those who would prefer to either ignore it or sweep it under the rug - or pretend that there's no more inequality to speak of because of the above "twin truths" - are not able to simply convince us that such things no longer exist, or at least, should not be factored into our thinking about the way certain things unfold.

As George Orwell himself once wrote, "sometimes, the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."






But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence.....truth is considered profane, and only illusion sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.
- Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, 2nd. ed., 1841


But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence.....truth is considered profane, and only illusion sacred. Sacredness
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 1:20pm

Very well put.

Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 2:14pm
There are numerous links, but I highly recommend the series done by the Chicago Sun Times when Obama first declared his candidacy, Obama's own books, and a google of relevant names:
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2008
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 4:27pm

<<<

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 5:47pm
And the voters who reject McCain have an equally valid reason - because he has become a lying liar among others. You know you have reached the bottom of the morality pool when Karl Rove calls you on your lies.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 5:49pm
I applaud your post!
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
In reply to: parris04
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 6:13pm

Sorry, you'll have to do your own research.

Pages