The original sin of white privilege

The Globe and Mail ^ | May 27, 2017 | Margaret Wente

[DeweyCA]

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.”

Karen Walker disagrees. “If you took out the word ‘white’ and used any other race, it would be perceived as racist,” she said. “It’s stereotyping in reverse.”

I spoke with Ms. Walker after the program. Other parents in the school were also uncomfortable, she said, but were reluctant to speak up. As a dark-skinned person, she felt she could stick her neck out. “A lot of people are afraid to say that this is racism,” she told me. “But it is.”

Ms. Walker grew up in a small Ontario town where minorities were rare. Her Jamaican father told her she’d have to work harder and do better because she was a woman of colour. But for her, discrimination wasn’t a problem. “I’ve never really felt outside of the Canadian culture.” She hoped that Canada was becoming “the colour-blind society that Martin Luther King advocated for.” Instead, she says, “we’re trying to force people back into these boxes, to the detriment of our kids.”

Canadian schools have long been preoccupied with social justice. As the schools became secularized, they replaced the old doctrines of morality and Christian duty with the new doctrines of multiculturalism, anti-bullying and environmentalism. The doctrine of white privilege entered the Ontario school system around 2013, according to Mr. Kempf. It is a modern version of original sin, which demands confession and atonement – even from people who are deeply anti-racist. “The term implies that whiteness itself is a problem,” Ms. Walker says. “That’s profoundly hurtful.”

Like many other education fads, this one was imported straight from the United States. The questionnaire, developed by an anti-racism activist named Peggy McIntosh, is known as “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” and is nearly 30 years old. It was not modified for Canada, which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is quite a different country.

Most of the callers to the CBC program were not in an atoning mood. They were angry, defensive and dismayed. They pointed out that not all white people are equally advantaged, and cited their own family histories at length. “I have a labouring job because I don’t have Grade 11,” said one caller. “I don’t have privilege. Professors at OISE have privilege.”

No one would argue that privilege doesn’t exist, or that racism is extinct, or that these things don’t matter. Of course they do. But privilege comes in many forms. One of the most important privileges anyone can have – far more important to life outcomes than skin tone – is an intact two-parent family. Too bad they don’t teach that in school. Maybe they should.

The other day I read a tweet from Sunil Sharma, who manages an elite program for budding entrepreneurs at the Founder Institute in Toronto. “40% of my new class of entrepreneurs are women,” he said. “75% of the entire class are minorities.”

So much for white privilege. Time to rip up that lesson and move on.

[DeweyCA]

Finally, even some people in Canada are seeing the stupidity and racism of the white privilege activists. The Social Justice warriors are purposefully creating unnecessary racial resentment in our society, just as Saul Alinsky, Obama's hero, advocated doing, so as to further their political ambitions. It makes me sick that these people intentionally hurt our free societies in order to achieve their own selfish goals.

[DoughtyOne]

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[equaviator]

There are Americans who still remember the Dust Bowl years in their states. Where was their “white privilege” then?

[stinkerpot65]

“White Privilege” is lefty thug code for the brutal oppression of Western culture and democracy.

[SecAmndmt]

Simple solution: homeschool (which I believe is also quite popular in Canada); private school, although many are probably infected with the SJW trash as well. Conservatives and Christians need to stop complaining about government school indoctrination. It is only going to get worse.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

There is white privilege, but only if you are a white Democrat.

"The law? What's that?"

[Islander7]

Whiteness ain’t a privilege; it’s a gift from God.

Tell the snowflakes that and watch ‘em melt.

[GnuThere]

Maybe it’s time to define multiculturalism and environmentalism as religions, because that seems to be what people have replaced Christianity with.
So get those religions (and ISLAM) out of our schools, since Christianity is banned!

[Paladin2]

Albinos have excessive privilege?

[FamiliarFace]

Very good article on how “white privilege” is really reverse racism. Thank you.

[donna]

It’s racism against whites.

The “privilege” part is just a replacement for the white hoods the haters would have worn on their heads in the old days.

Privilege hides the face of hatred same as the hood did.

[ytrebil]

"Her Jamaican father told her she’d have to work harder and do better because she was a woman of colour minority."

[right way right]

If I say what we whiteys need to do to put an end to this crap, I could be banned.
I don't think we have any friggin special privileges and these people who think we do can get stuffed
(literally)

[Macrinus]

It should be illegal to even ask someone’s race on a job or school application. But putting an end to the practice would be the death knell of the diversity industry.

[ichabod1]

I don’t call it reverse, I just call it racism - hatred for another because of the color of their skin.

[Cubs Fan]

progressives want to take the pre 1960s racial pyramid and turn it upside down. Putting minorities at the top and whites at the bottom.

[Crucial]

Original sin in the hands of men, it’s nothing more than a vehicle for blackmail.

[DoughtyOne]

When you first hear about these issues, some of them stand out. So yes, sure, some of them sound reasoned. It sounds bad on first blush.

The idea a person wouldn’t have food access in their neighborhood sounds pretty rotten. And then you find out why.

Markets don’t open in certain high crime neighborhoods.

Now while the folks that live in them are very quick to blame business owners for not locating in their neighborhood, they are loathe to admit there is a crime problem and there are very good reasons why people are afraid to locate their businesses there.

If it was safe, there’s money to be made there. Businesses would be motivated to move there. They just can’t, because they don’t want to expose themselves and their staff to armed robbery, shoplifting, gang activity just outside, and drug addicts frequenting the place and causing problems.

Ethnic neighborhoods have to clean up their act. If the crime rate falls very low, there will be people move in to serve the community.

If it is an under-served community and the crime rate is low, business owners would have a very good reason to want to move in.

[soycd]

>“75% of the entire class are minorities.”

For any intelligent people paying attention, that would make them the majority. I’ll shy away from personal opinion here and just say they need to be told to STFU and STFD as the MAJORITY they are.

My radar says I’ll be long gone when we have to start cutting these filth down to survive an our back roads, but part of me wants to get this party started...if the filthy, scum sucking, ugly trash come knocking.

Make the dog bark and you had better back the copulation off scumbag.

[Slyfox]