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Subject: White Privilege
Date: Mon, 15 Sept 2008 12:53:28 -0400
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
September, 14 2008
By Wise, Tim
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For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or
who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of
it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like
Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and
that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a
right to judge you or your parents, because 'every family has
challenges,' even as black and Latino families with similar
'challenges' are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological
and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a 'fuckin' redneck,'
like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone
messes with you, you'll 'kick their fuckin' ass,' and talk about
how you 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 believing that reading accused
criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the
Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school
requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy
liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make
people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to
have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party
that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was
'Alaska first,' and no one questions your patriotism or that of
your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to
come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the
first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers
and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right
of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an
end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough,
but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and
18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class
she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't
even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and
your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on
the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and
made them give your party a 'second look.'
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support
your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power
or being 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.
Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised
2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month,
also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please
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