Tuesday, May 3, 2011

White Privilege: I Ain't Buyin' It

The notion of "white privilege" is a relatively new one. And I think it's a mistake. Now, I could trace the history of the idea of "white privilege" but instead I'll go backwards and say what's true.

When a white guy runs around saying "I got everything on my own, nobody helped me, my success if the fruit of my labor alone, blah blah blah" you have permission to smack him. Because of course there are advantages to being white. Heck, there's an advantage that my dad had the GI Bill because of his (brief) service in WWII, the advantage that he never suffered under racial or gender discrimination, and neither have I (because I'm a "white" male).

But that's not the point. The point is that these things aren't privileges. "Not suffering under racial discrimination" is not a privilege, it's a right.

The fact that there are those who are disenfranchised does not make voting a right.

Heck, the fact that someone made you a freakin' Capo in a concentration camp doesn't make you privileged.

I think that using the world "privileged" sets the bar way too low. White men (especially) get to walk around not feeling the burdens of a lot of things that other people might not get to walk around burden-less. But walking around burden-less should be the baseline, not the outlier.

So anyway, there are clearly things what straight, white, men, can do that other people are denied -- many of them subtle yet important, but these things are rights, not privileges. Everyone should have those rights. That's why I ain't buying "white privilege". Here's a kitten.

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