White Privilege is Fact. Period.

[sheshe2]

by Milt Shook

Too many white people think white privilege is an opinion and they believe it’s within their power to deny its existence and, if they do, it will suddenly cease to exist. White privilege in the United States is fact. Denying its existence is tantamount to denying that the earth is round or that we’re breathing air. It’s like looking at the temperature statistics and denying climate change. No matter how much you deny its existence, it remains a fact. It’s just a fact that white people have a built-in advantage in this society. This is not a debatable point, and the fact that a few Black people, like President Obama, Colin Kaepernick and Dwayne Johnson (who is now the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, which has also freaked out a significant number of white people) have made it in this society doesn’t change the reality.

White people have run this country since a series of European monarchies started building boats and crossing the Atlantic. The Revolution was a group of white people overthrowing other white people. When the country was founded and a Constitution written, only white men with land were allowed to vote. Only white men could own land or run a business in the town square. Only white men could be doctors or lawyers or attend college and become a professional. In fact, Black people were barely mentioned in the Constitution, and only because slaveholders in the South were worried about being under-represented in Congress, so they came up with a compromise in which Blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person. That was only for counting purposes; make no mistake; slavery meant about 90% of the Black people in this country were considered property and as less than human. They had roughly the same stature as the family dog or cat and slightly less than the family’s horse. By the time the United States was founded, slavery was a 150-year-old tradition and it took about another century to abolish it in the law and another century to make Black people technically legal under the law. Note that I said “technically.” Society is usually behind the law and, to this day, white people still too often think of Black people as “lesser.”

Since white people came here and slaughtered most of the native people and took their land and established a society in which everyone who comes here was/is all but legally forced to live by white standards, why would any thinking human being believe that this is not essentially a “white country”? How could anyone think white people don’t have a built-in advantage?

snip//

I keep saying it, but it’s because it is important; white privilege is a fact. And you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge as real, my fellow white people. Imagine a football game between the white team and the black team and for the first three quarters, the black team was tied to a ball and chain and fall behind by 500 points. If, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, you remove the ball and chain, is that actually fair? Basically, Black people were behind 500-0 by 1964, but many white people think we’re all even and there is no more to do. Is that how you think fairness works?

http://pleasecutthecrap.com/white-privilege-is-fact-period/

FYI. This is posted in the African American Group. I am a white woman that acknowledges that White Privilege exists and I wish to see it end.

[Ohioblue22]

1. Oops didn't realize this is in a group

[TCJ70]

3. White privilege isn't even a privilege...

...it's the standard everyone should be raised to.

[radical noodle]

4. I am also a white woman

but I'm well aware of the huge benefit my whiteness has been to me throughout my life. Do I like or approve of it? No, but I do recognize it and wish it was not a fact.

[awoke_in_2003]

5. ...

Last edited Thu Sep 1, 2016, 05:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Editing: it was a stupid assed thing to say.

[Squinch]

6. I'm known to be a white woman and I'm welcomed and treated with kindness here. I feel this is one

of the most accepting groups in DU and a place where some of the best conversations occur.

[sheshe2]

11. Agreed, Squinch. nt

[radical noodle]

9. I've never been treated badly here

and my comment didn't require a response. I'm here to learn, not to preach.

[LanternWaste]

12. maybe you should examine your sentiments

Being a white male myself who consistently receives responses to questions and posts in this group, maybe you should simply examine your sentiments, as the implication you've just made could be part and parcel of the reason you're ignored.

[Coolest Ranger]

7. Everytime I bring this up on social media

especially when I'm on a page I know is filled with racist they all tell me that I'm stupid and that I don't know what I am talking about. They are so quick to attack that they can't be reasoned with

[sheshe2]

10. Don't even try reasoning with them, CR.

They aren't worth the breath.

[ismnotwasm]

8. The entire invisable standard whiteness represents needs to go

Whiteness 101: There’s no Get-Out-of-Privilege-Free Card
Several times before on separate occasions, we have heard white anti-racists use this argument: “This isn’t about white people, this is about whiteness.” It’s not that only white anti-racists use this argument, but this post will only address those who do. The phenomenon of POC making this argument or practicing whiteness does exist, but this is not something for white folks to fully expose or comment on. Our responsibility is to address the problematic actions, thoughts, and states of privilege of white folks, not to call out POC. In terms of white folks who use the argument that white privilege or white supremacy is not about white people, but is exclusively about the concept of whiteness… we disagree. It is not the abstract concept of whiteness that benefits from white privilege, it is white people who benefit. It is not whiteness that commits lynchings, hate crimes, or shootings, it is white people who concretely carry out these acts of violence. Because white people and folks with white skin privilege are writing this blog, we won’t get the backlash POC would get for “hating white people” with this entry. Even if we are speaking critically of whiteness, we maintain our privilege as people with white skin. Whiteness exists in us and in our skin color as much as it exists beyond these things. Owning this privilege and admitting its existence can’t be equated with “hating” ourselves or other white people.

Whiteness is a combination of social ideas, forces, systems, and actors–all of them inseparable and interconnected. Whiteness is where we have grown up, the privileges we have enjoyed, our media representation, our social and public security, our racial politics, wealth and comfort from prior generations, and it is all of us as people who can only truthfully identify as white or identify as biracial but have white skin privilege. When white anti-racists, or white folks in general, distance themselves from being white they place whiteness in an abstract state and make it seem as though, with enough education, we can escape it. This is not so. It is ridiculous for white folks to say things like “Ugh I HATE white people” or “This is only about whiteness,” because both statements suggest the speaker has somehow “moved on” and is no longer white. Our minds and hearts can change, we as people can change, but regardless of these possibilities, our skin will always be white and we will therefore always benefit from white supremacy/privilege as long as this system is still in tact.

This particular debate is why we said in a previous post on white privilege that Peggy McIntosh’s idea of the Invisible Knapsack isn’t a good place to stop in terms of critically examining whiteness. While her list is accurate and overall holds true in the contemporary moment, its central focus is on individual privilege and freedom, not on networks of oppression and the brutality of power. Whiteness is not just an experience, a social state, or a system of advantages, it is also an expression of violence. White folks thinking of and/or seeing POC as less than human is violent, denying the experiences POC have with racism and oppression is violent, refusing to admit we have privilege over POC is violent, housing segregation is violent, hate crimes are violent, racial language is violent. Why are these events and structures violent? Because they cause material harm and damage to POC. White folks might disagree or disapprove, but we aren’t any less powerful and we can’t claim to be victims.

The point is not to take every argument about white privilege personally, meaning finding ourselves individually guilty for every white aggression/atrocity ever committed, but to understand how we can’t logically claim to be completely separate from whiteness. White anti-racists should not feel the need to comfort white folks (and possibly themselves) by saying “this isn’t about us as people,” when whiteness undoubtedly involves white people and our actions–we are comforted enough by white privilege anyway. If a white person calls an Arab person a (TW) “sand n*gger,” do they get to turn around and say “oh, that wasn’t me it was just my whiteness”? If we’re being real about the situation, it’s both. It’s the person and the privilege, the racist and the racism, that are equally accountable. What about the white folks that marched and organized during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s? Sure they did good work with their politics in the right place, but their freedom to eat in segregated restaurants, their safety in going home to white neighborhoods, their ability to escape harassment outside of protest scenes, demonstrated the continued existence of their skin privilege. The system can’t exist without people to run it, people to reap rewards, and people to oppress.

http://whiteseducatingwhites.tumblr.com/post/28869986415/whiteness-101-theres-no

[Matrosov]

13. If you want to experience white privilege

Just talk to a white person about racism. Don't accuse them or all white people of being racist. Point out to them that the whole system is rigged in favor of white people and against people of color. They'll still take it personally and make it all about themselves. 'Oh, you're calling ME a racist? ME?!'

White privilege includes being able to avoid uncomfortable conversations about race because the other person doesn't want to hurt your feelings.