Something to ponder
Tim Wise is the writer of this, but this was sent to me today by Sage Vivant.
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. (c - Tim Wise)
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