White Privilege

White privilege.

Friend Xerxes has recently weighed in on “white privilege.” 

Don’t believe you have any “white privilege”? He gives examples.

“-no one has ever called you a racial epithet.”

I’d guess that is more likely to be true for non-whites. But it depends largely on what we are prepared to declare a “racial epithet.” In the media, or at any social gathering, it is unacceptable to use any number of terms referring to blacks or most other groups designated “non-white.” But there seem to be no particular terms referring to whites that have been ruled beyond the pale. Not “cracker,” not “honky.” Nobody blinks at the term “redneck.” That’s racial epithet based explicitlyon skin colour. Only pale-skinned people get a red neck from working in the sun. Other anti-white racial slurs that are common enough, and unremarked on, in media and polite society are “hillbilly,” “white trash,” or “WASP.”

By contrast, even essentially neutral terms about non-white groups have been declared beyond the pale. Witness the current turmoil over teams named “Edmonton Eskimos” or “Washington Redskins” or “McGill Redmen.” Yet nobody troubles about the Minnesota Vikings, the New York Yankees, or the Queen’s Golden Gaels. Nobody objects to “Caucasian,” but the two parallel old scientific racial designations “Negroid” and “Mongoloid” have both been declared out of bounds. Nobody objects to “Westerner,” yet the parallel “Oriental” has been declared offensive.

Include such terms, and I warrant either you or I have been referred to by racial epithets far more often than most non-whites. We must be forever careful how we speak of non-whites; nobody needs to be careful of how they speak of “whites.”

Scott Adams make the case that the very term “white privilege” is a racial epithet comparable to “nigger.” It is reminiscent of claims historically used against the Jews—of “blood guilt,” or of them colluding to control everything and give each other special privileges. To say someone has “white privilege” is to look at them and say “you owe me something, because of the colour of your skin.” Yet everyone thinks it is perfectly fine to use.

Never mind. Xerxes has other examples of “white privilege”:

- "Nobody ever suggested that I shouldn’t go to university. Although, interestingly enough, that suggestion was made to my wife -- the first person in her extended family ever to seek higher education. "

Xerxes here expresses the truth apparently without realizing it: the issue about going to university is a class issue, not a race issue. In the working class, it is often seen as some kind of betrayal of your own identity, to go to university. Not only is this unrelated to race; it is also mostly self-imposed, not something imposed by the wider society.

Just the reverse: the actions of the wider society, for non-whites, is all the other way. Across the US and Canada, black or Hispanic students are given places in universities, and scholarships, with lower marks and SAT scores coming out of high school than are “white” students. As a necessary result, poor white students who might otherwise have gone are barred from going. This is a far more serious, and systemic, racial discrimination than simply having your parents or your buddies suggest you not go.

Of course, Xerxes also brings up the police.

- “I have never been pulled over by police on suspicion. If I’ve been pulled over, it was for some clear violation, such as speeding. Or failing to yield the right of way to a pedestrian.”

It is an objective, statistically demonstrable fact that blacks and aboriginals are more likely to get pulled over by the police than are whites. If this is about being “non-white,” however, how account for the fact that East Asians are also far less likely to be pulled over? It is equally an objective, statistically demonstrable fact, that blacks and aboriginals are much more likely to commit crimes than are whites or Asians, street crimes of the sort that lead to being pulled over. It is a statistical certainty that they are more likely to fit the profile of someone the police are looking for as a suspect in a serious crime. It may be an unfair burden on innocent blacks or aboriginals, but it is not the fault of the police or the wider society.

- “I’ve never been roughly treated by cops. As soon as I open my mouth, it’s obvious I belong to the educated classes.”

Again Xerxes reveals the truth without seeming to be aware of it himself: as soon as he opens his mouth. Not about skin colour, is it? It’s about how you speak. It’s about class. A scruffy-looking, unshaven white man with a heavy Southern or South Boston accent who immediately acts belligerent would probably be treated the same as an unshaven black man wearing clothing obviously inappropriate for an office job, speaking ebonics and sounding threatening. But as soon as an well-spoken black man wearing a suit and tie, an Arthur Ashe or a Barack Obama, opened their mouth, they would probably be treated well.

- “I have never been turned down for a hotel room, or barred from a restaurant.”

Xerxes must mean because of race, since otherwise the experience of being turned away from a restaurant or motel is common.

But neither has any non-white person in Canada or the US who is younger than seventy or so. This has been illegal in the US since the Civil Right Act of 1964. If it happened, one could get satisfaction in a court of law. If it happened anyway, you can’t blame society. Society does not condone murder, either, yet sometimes it happens.

- “I have never felt that the books I read ignore or belittle my experience.”

This one is delusional. Hey, average “white” reader, how much of your own life experience is reflected in Harry Potter? Star Wars? James Bond? 1001 Arabian Nights? Gulliver’s Travels? Robinson Crusoe? Moby Dick? Treasure Island? Peter Pan? The Last of the Mohicans?

Fiction sells because it lets people imagine lives entirely different from their own. That is the whole point of fiction. Any non-white, i.e., “minority,” writer has a huge advantage—one might say “privilege” —in this regard. It is enormously easier for them to get published and to sell their books.

As to non-fiction: no book published today would dare to ignore “non-white” experience. Have you had a look at the textbooks your children are reading at school?

In fact, white ethnicities, by contrast, are generally ignored.

Xerxes quotes in support of his claim of “white privilege” a young black woman of his acquaintance saying “In order to see me and who I am and will always be, in order to truly acknowledge what is going on with the black community around the world, you HAVE to see my colour!”

She is arguing directly against Martin Luther King, who said “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Why have so many blacks reversed themselves since the 1960s? Then they wanted to be treated as the same, and fought colour distinctions. And why, over the same period, have many whites gone from seeing skin colour as important to claiming it is not?

The answer is obvious. Human nature is human nature. If you can claim some privilege because of the colour of your skin, you want people to notice the colour of your skin. If it does nothing for you, or even works to your disadvantage, you don’t want people to make anything of it.

This pudding proves there is no “white privilege”; there is black privilege.

The present system privileges non-whites—as in, “systemic racism.” It gets them into a better university, and may get them scholarship money or extra government funding. When they graduate, it puts them at the head of the queue for a nice government or corporate job, thanks to “affirmative action” and “diversity quotas”—hiring preferences for non-whites. Then their skin colour puts them on the fast track for promotion.

Xerxes then quotes another black woman saying “Many of my friends -- especially the white ones -- have no idea what I’ve experienced/dealt with unless they were present (and aware) when it happened.”

This illustrates why we are generally not aware of the systemic discrimination against whites, and many of us think, like Xerxes, that it is all the other way.

White people can indeed have little ideas what it is really like to live life as a non-white. But by the same token, non-white people can have little idea what it is really like to live life as a white. It may be either better or worse. We simply hear non-whites complaining loudly; perhaps only because the wider society has given them full sanction to do so. Remember the nursery wisdom of “The Princess and the Pea.”

Unless we go with statistics or, better yet, the actual laws, government programs, and stated corporate policies, we are only guessing.

The statistics show that some “non-white” groups are less materially successful than “whites”; and others are more successful. This is not evidence of discrimination. At the same time, actual laws, government programs and corporate policies do not support any claims of “white privilege.”