Saturday, May 10, 2008

White Privilege

Every day, I face the unwarranted privileges of being white.

It is something that I am ashamed of, something that worries me every day, and something I wish I could change.

I do not blame my parents for this, generally. But I am unable to understand how they were afflicted with a racist desire to avoid procreating with People of Color. Bad enough that they procreated at all! But to curse our beautiful planet with another white person was something that will always be hard for me to forgive.

That said, I found this wonderful resource that lists Fifty Effects of White Privilege in Amerikkka.

Naturally, my busy schedule did not permit me to actually read the entire list, but I wept at the fact that such a list exists.

But, to be sure, there are more than only fifty effects of white privilege, such as:

51. Being white enables you to exploit factory workers in Asia by wearing Nikes.

52. Being white means that you can kill People of Color with the toxic fumes from your SUV.

53. Being white means that you are allowed to attend universities.

54. Being white means that you can run for political office.

55. Being white means that you can be seated at Denny's, instead of being spat on, hauled into the kitchen, being forced into slavery for a week, and then beaten to death.

I could probably list another fifty example of white privilege, but instead I will leave that to my students on their final exams.

“Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary would never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.” - Rev, Jeremiah Wright

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So what part of your link "Stuff White People Like" isn't "racist"?

I mean, are you effectively saying that non-white people not allowed to be called racist?
Are women not allowed to be called sexist or chauvinist?
are idiots not allowed to be called stupid?
Are are we all just "differently right", unless lined up in queues for the "right-wing" untermensch liquidation by those whose guts are filled with greater "truthyness"?

Are going to slap some love onto Rev. Jeremiah "I haven't got a complex about being lighter-skinned than most Italians" Wright for being a paranoid polarising retarded racist whose clearly overcompensating for his personal ethnic identity crisis and inflicting his self-loathing on as many inadequates as possible?

Until someone (preferably with a real PhD) publishes something that tells us where exactly the boundary between "black" and "white" lies, can I just pass on believing in the existence of race? It just sounds like something from the 19th century along with phrenology and ectoplasm. Can we just start recognising that we are different "ethnicities" (gene-groupss + culture), and then stop blaming "white people" for everything, and spot what really goes on all over the world? Can we? Please?

I didn't enslave or lynch anyone recently; and I can't seem to get worked up about north Africans enslaving my Irish ancestors about 300 years ago; but can I not have millions of you turning up in my yard asking for dinner and a room, and turning my garage into a mediaeval fascist temple - I'm still trying to evict this anti-social English bunch.

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