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I posted something similar on my site a couple weeks ago, but I have not seen this one. Palin is insane… I’m terrified of her. I’m looking forward to the VP debate because I think she’ll be a moose in headlights. I’m hoping karma will not fail to expose her insanity.
-Shepard
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
September, 14 2008By Tim Wise
Tim Wise’s ZSpace Page: http://www.zmag.org/zspace/timwise
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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
200, and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also
by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply
to publicity@softskull.com
