| From Mr. Huy Ngoc Tran. This is pretty well written by whoever originally wrote it. Before you take offense to it, take the time to read it, and understand the double standards detailed in here.
This election has shown the persistence of white privilege in our
political system and media. Please don't take this as hating on white
folks, because people don't even know that they do it. However, try to
recognize how your perception of a white person committing an action,
and a person of color committing the same action, and see if you judge
them differently. If there's a difference, and one is better than the
other, that's called privilege.
Note: You don't have to agree
with all of the examples. I don't. I think that those who supported
Hillary Clinton have reason to be frustrated and angry. I don't think
that their frustration can be rightfully aimed at Obama, but the media
was rough on Clinton.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/98915
"For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or
who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it,
perhaps this list will help. White privilege is when you can get
pregnant at 17 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-size 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 eight-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 United States 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
churchgoing 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 having 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 that 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 United States 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. AlterNet
is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements.
The opinions expressed by its writers are their own." |
