This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
9/13/08

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.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to publicity@softskull.com

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<table style=”font-size:11px;color:#555;border-collapse:collapse;”>
<tr>
<td>Jared Rourke /</td>
<td> 314-313-9683 / </td>
<td><a href=”http://www.jaredoruke.com”> http://www.jaredrourke.com</a> /</td>
<td>graphic design and digital lettering
</tr>
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A second part of this is podcasts. We’ve gotten our hands on the largest network ever made, and we’re using it to write blogs and post podcasts. We’ve taken the largest and most important technological advance that we’ve ever seen, and we’re using it to write diaries and make radio shows.

David Belle - Rush Hour Le Parkour(BBC)