Huzzah, rant time! The title explains it all and honestly, even simply writing it out makes me feel as if I can breathe again and the social weight of the PC regime in New York City culture seems a bit relieved. This is a post that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now - debating, progressing, retreating, and debating again in cycles of how to best discuss it without it going up in flames as a politically divisive sh*t firestorm. But, sometimes it’s best to just say things plainly and see what shouts back from the eternal darkness, so here goes.
Many of you are already familiar with this phrase of “white privilege.” For the unfamiliar, I’ll explain it very concisely. In the liberal west, mostly countries like the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK, there is this general idea that “white people” experience life through structures of privilege that were construed to benefit them and exclude all others based on the criteria of skin. This concept is supported by arrows towards the enslavement of blacks, disproportionate populations of ethnic people in prisons, underrepresentation of those same groups in higher administrations and corporations, and the so on and so forth. This is an idea that is purported by many, now very engrained in the social politics of the West, and has seeped into several layers of American culture from universities to work places to the mainstream media.
I also have the explain the consequence of such an idea existing in the world. Organizations are pressured to institute and maintain implicit racial quotas, groups of white people are automatically deemed “racist” and “exclusionary,” and the term “diversity” is being wielded as a moral excuse to condemn something simply due to a skin pigment. Many white people are being told to “check their privilege” and more and more social groups are making explicit attempts to exclude “the majority.”
And well, yea, see title again. General global society is letting these theorists get away with this type of rhetoric. I suspect most people who believe this have simply been duped by the downpour of unverified qualitative information that oozes out of every social-media outlet under the guise of real journalism or research. It’s very similar to religion in this way, a hard-to-challenge ideology that is built on belief and rhetoric more than anything.
Even before we get into the specific issues that seem to support this claim, whether they are economic concerns or educational discrepancies or general cultural differences, we must first acknowledge that the entire premise of the term “white privilege” is racist. I’m not calling you a racist maybe holding this belief as racism (or in general the idea of immutable superiority) lines many of most basic institutions including religion. But everyone must admit that the phrase is nothing if not racist. It is a judgement that any white person, regardless of their social or economic standing, enjoys privilege of many forms that no person of color has access to. It is a judgement based on an immutable skin color. That is racism. If you can swallow that truth and still wish to move forward with that conviction, let’s have a more interesting conversation.
Just have a skim through some of these videos that I have watched just by chance, even way before becoming interested in this concept. I time-marked the first as that one was the most nefarious and slimy-
In all these instances, “white privilege” is brought up nonchalantly and unchallenged. The one with the young boy is most chilling. A great part of why I bring up this issue is because I pride myself on my focus and discernment on cultural changes, and nothing disturbs me so deeply than the meekly accepted untruth of white-people’s privilege.
I’ve run through all the argumentative permutations of why the hell anyone would believe and what the purpose of the belief is. I have some interpretations including the massive amount of political gain that comes from victimizing and virtue signaling, as well some more sympathetic ones involving large communities that are stuck in a cultural rut without access to real resources. The concept brings to the surface some real issues in the West and globally, many of which are serious ones to particular races of people. But for all that complexity and needed attention to be boiled down to the most clickbaity, Buzzfeed-masturbatory phrase is possibly the most shameful term to come out of the early 21st century. Reverse-racism is still racism and I think everyone can be investing their energies into issues that warrant much more care than whether Joe and Melinda down the street need to ‘check’ themselves.
Next up (maybe in a few weeks), I’ll hit on the piss-poor concept that Asian-Americans have internalized their oppression and become allies to “privilege” since we’ve “benefitted” from the system instead of being held down by it…
As I wrap up this post, I’m also motivated to go into more extensive detail of why this type of belief system is so detrimental to the people who hold it as truth. That’ll be another follow-up.
Tell me what you think. What do you think of this concept? Have you interacted with people that truly believe this to be the case? I would love to hear from people who agree with and sustain this concept. I’m just so curious why so many prefer to think with such blunt aggression towards such complex topics.
