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The White Debonair
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This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
September 13, 2008
For those who still cant grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for an easy-to-understand example 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 ****in redneck, like Bristol Palins boyfriend does, who likes to kick ass if people mess with you, and who likes to shoot ****, 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 dont all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means youre 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 or the founding fathers, its good enough for me, and not be immediately disqualified from holding officesince, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the under God part wasnt added until the 1950swhile 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 wanted 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 youre 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 shes being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they dolike, 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 laborand people think youre 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 collegeyoure somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who dont 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 didnt 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 Gods punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think youre just a good church-going Christian, but if youre 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, youre 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 OReilly means youre 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 possible 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 arent sure about that whole change thing.
Ya know, its just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain
White privilege is the problem.
Thoughts?
