Posted on 09/15/2008 9:00:44 AM PDT by tcrlaf
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 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.
FROM HIS WIKI: His memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son, is taught at hundreds of colleges and high schools across the nation. His scholarly book, Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White, (Routledge: 2005) has received praise from academics and is also taught in dozens of educational institutions.
Wise argues that racism in the United States is institutionalized, due to past overt racism, and the ongoing effects of that past racism, along with current-day discrimination. Although he contends that personal, overt bias is less common than in the past (or at least less likely to be openly articulated), Wise argues that institutions have been set up to privilege those who are white, and that subtle, impersonal, and even facially race-neutral policies contribute to racism and racial inequality today.
I've seen a LOT of Racist screeds from Democrats lately, but THIS ONE takes the cake!
Check me if I’m wrong, but Bristol Palin has encountered a bit of criticism. This is one of those phony double-standards. Liberals feel free to criticize Bristol and defend welfare-moms. Why not write about that?
Check me if I’m wrong, but Bristol Palin has encountered a bit of criticism. This is one of those phony double-standards. Liberals feel free to criticize Bristol and defend welfare-moms. Why not write about that?
The problem has always been black and Hispanic racism. Fueled and excused, dumbed down and condoned by people like him. The only entitlement in this country is one of black or Hispanic racism without consequences. Hear it all day long on the streets of NYC.
People like this are running scared because they know they can’t win this one. They basically run everything down that doesn’t go along with their thinking. Not worth listening to. This is typical ranting of the communist party. When will we run the communists out of this country?
B. Hussein a “constitutional law scholar”?
I think not.
I know more about the Constitution than he does... but then again, I’VE read it a couple times.
My understanding is that school for the Obama children began of Monday of last week (Barack Obama escorted his daughters to school in a five SUV motorcade). Mrs. Obama claims she needed to stay home during the first "week" of school, but then spent at least Wednesday (and Wednesday night) campaigning. She then chose not to attend the memorial on Thursday. So spare me the "she stayed home with her kids" nonsense. It looks like the bottomline is that she ranks campaign events as more important than a 9/11 memorial.
People like this make thier LIVING promoting Racism.
And then they whine about how we live in such a “Racist” society.
Quite frankly, it’s sickening to read a screed like this, and realizing that he’s using Racism as an EXCUSE for Obama’s failure.
0bama is versed in “Constitutional Law”,
which has nothing to do with the actual Constitution, and everything to do with what lawyers say about the Constitution.
So, yes, you’re correct, you probably know a lot more about what the Constitution ACTUALLY says, because you’re ACTUALLY read it.
Is Bristol Palin going on welfare, or is she marrying the father of her child? That’s a huge difference.
The reason that white gun enthusiasts are viewed with fear has to do with relative crime rates among the races. Even Jesse Jackson admitted being more scared of young black men than young white men.
Sarah Palin struggled through college without anyone chasing her around offering her scholarships and admissions to fancy schools that she clearly hadn’t earned. Obama got his education because of “black privilege,” commonly called “affirmative action.”
What Sarah Palin has accomplished, she has accomplished on her own.
If anyone has been consistently privileged because of the color of his skin, it is Obama, and his nasty wife. And yet they still hate America, and are still filled with resentment.
White privilege is being forced to endure ridicule for realizing the American dream via the fruit of your own labors.
White privilege is being turned down for a job you are qualified for, in favor of someone who is not as well qualified, in order to create a racially “balanced” utopia.
That should be “white gun enthusiasts are NOT viewed with fear”
Tim Wise is a punk who gets rich on the speaking tour going to colleges and making money off of leftist white guilt.
What Tim Wise calls white privilege is actually white accomplishment. Whites created a prosperous civilization, and then brought and/or allowed in people who have never created such a civilization. This automatically raised the standard of living of those people, far above any standard in their own lands. But when they fail to reach the same economic and power level as whites, nitwits like Wise blame it on white people.
Having spent 20+ years working for the public assistance agency in IL I see one of the big differences in the Bristol Palin situation being that her family and future (if awfully young) husband-to-be and his family will help with the expected child while those of black and Latino children are more-predominantly supported by the rest of the taxpaying citizens of the country. Bristol isn’t likely to apply for public assistance while the prepnderance of those other children are born to too-young mothers (with missing or never-identified fathers) whose mother and nowadays even their grandmothers are already collecting public assistance. The circle remains unbroken as another generation of welfare babies are birthed to children already on the dole.
The only thing “constitutional scholar” Obama knows about the Constitution is that he disagrees with it.
I guess we can also include in white privilege the Author’s privilege of referring to the Palin family as White when Sarah Palin’s husband is not white but native Alaksan.
Ooops.
There you go again disrespecting indigenous cultures. I guess we will just have to dismiss you as a neo-colonialist fraud.
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