The original sin of white privilege

The Globe and Mail ^ | 27 May, 2017 | MARGARET WENTE

[MtnClimber]

Justus Walker was enjoying his Grade 11 class in sociology. Then came the lesson on white privilege. The teacher handed out a checklist with instructions for the students to score themselves on how much of it they had. The questions included things such as: “I can go into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions.” The answers would determine their “privilege points.” After they had completed the exercise, the students were asked to line up in order, from least points to most, and discuss the impact of white privilege on their lives.

Some of the questions were hard to answer, because Justus is multiracial – some Scottish, some Jamaican, some Indian, and so on. Which cultural traditions is he supposed to identify with? He doesn’t self-identify by race, ethnic origin, or skin colour. “I just am Canadian,” he says. As for ethnic food, “I can find Jamaican food in a grocery store but I can’t find haggis.”

White privilege is now a part of the Ontario school curriculum. It is taught in teacher training, and is a routine part of anti-bias education. The idea is that white people benefit from unearned advantages based on race. Canada is depicted as a deeply racialized society where people are automatically advantaged, or disadvantaged, by their skin tone, race and (by extension) gender.

Justus and his mom, Karen, were guests this week on Ontario Today, a CBC Radio call-in show that, to its great credit, dared to tackle this incendiary subject. Among the other guests was Arlo Kempf, who has taught anti-discrimination to teachers at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. “Adding the lens of privilege implicates everyone in the conversation,” he explained. “We have to look at those invisible spaces of whiteness where privilege goes unchecked.”

[piasa]

“White privilege” is just an excuse crazy, lazy educators use to hide the fact that they aren’t even trying to educate the unfortunate children who through no fault of their own, fall into their hands.