A friend posted this on fbook. It lists 17 alleged examples of white privilege. Are these examples “real” grievances?
I question the legitimacy of some of these complaints, like when number 6 says, “You can wear and act however you’d like without being labeled a thug, low life, gangster, etc.” Next to this complaint is a picture of Justin Bieber “acting black” (the meme’s phrase, not mine). I’ll grant the truth of the claim that white kids like Justin Bieber can dress/act black (again, by the meme’s standards for both) without being labeled a thug, but that’s only because they’re labeled posers or worse… and I’m not sure how that’s a benefit, much less privilege.
They are overstated, but I wouldn’t say deplorable. I understood the context. So no you can’t dress however you want and not be considered a thug, but you can dress in a way that someone with darker skin would be considered a thug. They are just decribing things in absolutes instead of relative terms.
(Bolding mine.) Who is you? I ask, because it sounds like the you in question refers to black people with the claim, “you can’t dress however you want and not be considered a thug.” But the next conjunct uses “you” in a way that seemingly refers to white people with the claim, “you can dress in a way that someone with darker skin would be considered a thug.” Was the lighter skin in this context supposed to refer to lighter skinned black people? If so, then wouldn’t they be able to dress however they want without being considered a thug according to your first conjunct? If so, then what’s the problem (at least for lighter skinned black people)?
Well, #11 certainly turned out to be true… it also seem to me that a bunch of them could be stated as “not being black means…” rather than “being white means…”
On #5 I think he didn’t say what he meant. I’m guessing that he meant that blacks go to prision for things that whites don’t go to prision for. He said that one third of black men go to prision in their lives. That is just a statement not a comparison. Maybe they are in jail for being convicted of a crime not just because I’m white and they are black.
Lots of white people are subjected to police brutality. It might happen more often to black people, but it happens plenty to white people.
And how about #8:
So now affirmative action that gives preference to minorities is a privilege for white people? I thought it was supposed to benefit minorities. Which is it?
People would consider me ‘white’. I can dress in a way where people would think I was a thug (at least when I was younger). Somewhere across the spectrum of dressing there is a way I could dress and likely not be considered a thug, while someone perceived as ‘black’ would be dressed in the same way would be. I have been considered a thug in the past, or at least considered something that caused people to cross the street to avoid me. I’ve seen plenty of indications in the past that the bar is set at different heights based on the color of your skin. I can’t say how this applies to people with varying shades of skin within the range usually associated with ‘black’ people based on my personal experience, but there are plenty of people who say that does make a difference also.
ETA: Ugh, I’m having a bad pronoun day. In my previous post ‘they are deplorable’ was referring to the items on the list, not Buzzfeed. That is if the items were stated more precisely.
Young males in general are assumed to be thugs by default. Black males get it worse, but it’s hardly a black-only problem.
And things like blacks disproportionally being sent to prison isn’t “white privilege”, it’s the persecution of blacks. And calling it that is hardly doing a favor towards blacks; calling it a “privilege” implies that you think that all those black people should be sent to prison; that they are genuinely deserving of prison. Calling such things “white privilege” implies that how black people are treated is the way things should work, and that whites should be dragged down to the same level of treatment, rather than ensuring that the circumstances of black people are improved.
I can give you three examples of White Privilege: Scott Walker, Dan Quayle, and John Boehner. All three of these individuals would be washing dishes somewhere if they were a minority. For example, Scott Walker, has no college degree but was elected to the Governership, twice. No one in on this message board will be able to parrot any minority candidate that ascended to the Governor’s Chair with just a high school diploma. They just don’t exist.
That only works as “white privilege” if it’s something that could happen for some random white guy. And not because you latch onto the right political machine or have rich parents.
You might as well call Clarence Thomas an example of White Privilege, since he got on the Supreme Court for the same reasons and backed by the same people.
A critic would likely counter that Pres. Obama is an example of a black politician who succeeded despite his lack of serious leadership experience from his role as a community organizer. Assuming the critic’s charge is true, then wouldn’t an unqualified person’s ascent to power be as objectionable as an uneducated person’s ascent to the very same? If so, whence white privilege in politics?
I find the article is a mixed bag. White privilege exists (in many places, obviously many other places have different cultural and racial issues). But white privilege is a very nuanced and largely statistical issue that can’t really be easily tackled by saying “white privilege is <x>”. As noted, many of these are stated in such absolute terms that they become silly.
Especially the “explain why cultural appropriation is bad” part. Cultural Appropriation can have pages and pages written about it, but what people often call “appropriation” is frequently indistinguishable from “liking something that originated with a different culture.” So I’m a white guy who likes Ska, and many modern Ska bands are white. Is this some negative, evil “cultural appropriation” of Jamaican culture? Depends who you ask. I guess I can get behind “cultural appropriation” being bad, but it’s such a nebulous term that it just leads to everybody pointing fingers angrily over cultural appropriation without explaining exactly what counts or why it’s bad.
The article isn’t all bad, 10. and 17. are pretty good, I like 11 too (non-exhaustive list), but some of them are stated either too absolutely to be useful (“being white means never”), or worded so poorly that counterexamples are obvious. As mentioned 1 is particularly bad. It works better if you say “you’ll almost never have to worry about police brutality just because of your skin color”, but I guess that doesn’t make for a snappy bullet-point list.
Clarence Thomas is an extension of White Privilege, yes, but let’s not wander down that road. I’d rather focus in on Scott Walker because he is such a fascinating example. This is a man that managed to become the Governor of Wisconsin with just a high school diploma. Even Sarah Palin who became the Governor of Alaska managed to complete 120 credits of coursework, bless her heart. Not to be outdone, Jan Brewer the Governor of Arizonamanaged to complete her program at a local community college. Only white men that can get elected to be Governor with just a high school diploma and would challenge anyone to find evidence to the contrary.
Can we talk about Dan Quayle? Dan Quayle (a white man) who just happened to be Vice President could not spell the word “potato”. I know it’s a low-hanging fruit, but God, could you imagine if Obama did this? Or hell, if his children did this? Or if Rev. Jeremiah Wright did this? What if Eric Holder did this? We could do this with John Boehner, Rick Snyder, Ted Cruz, and be here for days. The problem is that white privilege isn’t something that most white males can handle. If you’re a white male, you (likely) believe that it is your intellect, hard-work, and tenacity which has allowed you to overcome adversity and obtain your present level of success. You (probably) also believe that if you were to encapsulate that hard-work and other qualities into a black body or a female body, that you’d be just as successful (heck! more successful!!11one) than you were in the white male body.
I’m not sure where you’re getting at here, both Scott Walker and Barack Obama are “qualified” for their respective jobs, otherwise, they would not have been able to run. Obama is educated, Scott Walker is not. An analogous example would be election of Al Sharpton as Governor of Connecticut. Both Scott Walker and Al Sharpton obtained their high school diploma and dropped out of college to accept a job. IMO, these two (Sharpton and Walker) are more comparable than Obama and Walker are.
No 1 is wrong. Cops, because they are a magnet for people with authoritarian personalities can be abusive and fearful towards any socially outcast group. White homeless, white addicts and white mentally ill people will disagree that whites will never be abused by the police.
The part about how when a white person does something irresponsible or criminal it isn’t taken as a sign that as a race we are all criminals is true though.
Stop and frisk, that is true. Something like 90% of people affected by it are non-white.
This is true, though I can’t recall coming across any reports of any unarmed white guys being shot (due to furtive movements, scary wallets etc) by the police. Maybe there have been instances and it’s not been reported?