As a by-product of a programming screw-up yesterday, I found myself in momentary control of someone else’s blog. After posting a reply to a comment, my blogging program dashboard put me in a screen that was entirely unfamiliar. After blinking a few times, I realized what had happened: I was staring at the of a blog called Ask This Black Woman.
After logging out, I thought the least I could do is take a look at the poor person’s blog I had unintentionally accessed. It was quite extraordinary. The top post on the front page was This is Your Nation on White Privilege, by Tim Wise. It was enlightening, both for its truth and for the perspective it gave.
White privilege. This isn’t a phrase I would think of under normal circumstances. But then, being white, why would I have to? For me, this is life as usual. But while I may have concern, empathy, sympathy and any other ‘thies I’ve left out, it struck me that there is one immutable fact of my perspective of all the subjects I write about: I’m still white, and I don’t have a clue what it means to go through life being black.
Many want to believe that we aren’t prejudiced. I’ve never thought that. I believe that we are all prejudiced to some greater or lesser extent. It doesn’t mean we don’t like people of other colors or races or nationalities, but that we don’t comprehend the world that others live in. We can’t, no matter how hard we try or how strongly we argue the point. So we see the issue confronting others from an outsider’s perspective, and do our best to pretend to get it. Frankly, the best we can really do is understand that we don’t really get it.
Please take a look at This is Your Nation on White Privilege. It’s funny, timely and insightful. A small taste:
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.
Go read the rest. If nothing else, it will get your brain working, which wouldn’t hurt most of us.
“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.
You view that person as an all-American boy? You daughter just went off to college…. You’d be OK if she brought a guy like that home? I doubt it.
I don’t think highly of the “fuckin’ redneck.” And I’m very white.
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
This is also stupid and bigoted.
If there weren’t political alliances at play, everyone would be crucifying that girl. Just like they did with Britney Spears, and Spears’ sister.
Remember when Clinton was banging an intern. Democrats and others said it was a private matter. Again, politics were at play.
I agree with the concept of white privilege – to a limited extent. I even know a bit about it, since some good friends are getting Ph.D’s in b.s. subjects like “critical race theory.”
That said, the article confuses the bad arguments we make in support of our political allies with white privilege. If Palin were a Democrat, white or not, Republicans would be all up in her family’s grill.
I agree with Mike – Palin gets a pass because she’s a Republican, not because she’s white, as one can see clearly in Bill O’Reily’s crucifixtion of Britney Spears’s sister and her parents over exactly the same thing while Palin gets his defense.
I think you’re missing the boat on this one. It’s not whether you think this way, or you can engage in a more sophisticated political analysis that explains these occurences in a non-racial way, but how someone else perceives the hypocrisy. Again, it’s not whether the characterization is correct, or correct to you, but understanding that you aren’t the measure by which people of other color see the world.
Consider how things are seen through the eyes of others. You may very well be absolutely right, but you still can’t show an understanding that other people with very different life experiences see things differently. Try it. I bet you can if you try really hard.