Zen wrote:gthaustex wrote:TAM, I saw this article as well and had similar thoughts. I love this line from the article:
White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result
Last time I checked, there were plenty of whites being called out as potential domestic terrorists by DHS, FBI and other alphabet soup agencies for being nothing more than veterans, religious, etc. That is certainly profiling based on association and nothing more.
That may be true, but that's not the point of the quote. As a white male, I'm not going to start getting stared at by people thinking I may be a terrorist. The same is not true of a middle eastern man. I'm not going to draw the same concern when I walk into a 7-11 that a black teen would. As a white male, I will never know that feeling, at least in the U.S.
Most "whites" are not even aware of this "privilege" because they have not seen it.
This is not to say that all places and all people of color or middle-eastern appearance feel this everywhere they go, but it is definitely there.
I understood the point of the article perfectly well. Here's where I differ from Salon: I don't
hope he (or she) is white, black, purple, or green.
I hope he/she is
caught. It's a matter of misplaced priority. You say:
I'm not going to draw the same concern when I walk into a 7-11 that a black teen would. As a white male, I will never know that feeling, at least in the U.S.
IF you've never known that feeling, that's on you. Evidently, you've never walked into a bar in Harlem, 40 years ago, when you were the only white man for a mile in any direction. I have. I understand perfectly well the feeling that you're describing. It wasn't envy of my "privilege," it was hatred of my color. If I am better perceived for my whiteness by a 7/11 employee than a person of color would be perceived by that same employee, that is simply racism on the part of the employee. It has nothing whatever to do with whether or not I have privilege. I am bound by the same laws as any other person. I am held to the same standards of behavior as any other person. And in the eyes of God, I am held as any other believer. The perception of "white privilege" is exactly that—a
perception. It isn't a fact. It says that whites benefit from the racism of the observer. What about when the 7/11 employee is black, and the white person still benefits? The problem is that this perceived "privilege" is used as a socialist club to beat white people into accepting some kind of guilt in these social transactions which is not properly theirs to bear.
MY paternal ancestors came into this country from Norway and Great Britain via Canada on my father's side, and from France from my immigrant mother. One of my Norwegian ancestors spent a large part of the Civil War imprisoned at Andersonville after having been taken prisoner at Shilo in 1862. He nearly starved to death in a Confederate prison.......to bring about an end to slavery......before being liberated three years later in 1865. I simply refuse to accept the false charge of privilege. My answer is to counsel others to stop wallowing in the past, throw off their victimhood, and take advantage of the opportunities placed before them, instead of rejecting those opportunities because they are "too white" or some other nonsense. People may be born into lack of economic privilege, but they
choose to remain in it.......and to not choose is to choose.
There are millions of white Americans born into wealth who grew up more privileged than I did, and millions more born into poverty who grew up less privileged than I did. There are black Americans born into wealth who grew up more privileged than I did, and black Americans who grew up less privileged than I did. The myth of privilege.......at least, it has been a myth since the abolishment of Jim Crow....is largely a matter of seizing opportunity. Some black Americans may
feel that they are not as privileged as white Americans, but the fact is that they have access to all of the same privileges as anyone else. In fact, with regard to affirmative action initiatives, they have
more privilege than I do. And the poorest black Americans live with far more privilege than millions of black Africans.
You're right.....I don't see it, but it isn't for lack of thinking about it. I've thought a LOT about it. I just draw a conclusion that is more grounded in reality than squishy feel-good concepts like "privilege," and my conclusions are apart from my own charitable activities. Just because I don't believe in "white privilege," that doesn't mean that I do not have compassion for those who are not as blessed as I am. And in larger terms, none of us is privileged. No amount of privilege will buy one's way into paradise. All wealth and worldly goods and station in life are worthless in eternal terms. How can one be any more privileged than to be a child of Almighty God? Any black brother in the Lord of mine, no matter how poverty stricken in life, is vastly more privileged than the richest white billionaire in the world who doesn't know Jesus.
Edited to add: the California neighborhood I left when I moved to Texas in 2006 was a primarily black neighborhood. My family was one of two white families for several blocks around. The neighborhood has been black since the homes were originally built in the late 1940s, and the families who lived in those homes—some of whom still live there—were middle class families with comfortable incomes. Conversely to that bar in Harlem I mentioned above, I was never made to feel anything but welcome in that neighborhood, and those people did not treat me any better or worse than their black neighbors. They were economically privileged, and confident in and proud of who they were. Which goes to my point: that the only "privilege" that counts is economic, and perceived "racial privilege" is a myth.....at least it is here in the U.S.
