I think that the following article is a must read for anyone who cares anything about equality and justice in our terminally "class-consciousness" retarded society. And I will have a couple of typically blasphemous statements at the end of the article.
This is Your Nation on White Privilege | Red Room
All of this being acknowledged, I would like to state for the record as having "fought in the trenches" along side people of color and other poor and similarly disenfranchised peoples, that the people of privilege have similar distinctions for "lower class" whites. It is just not as readily definable as "the color of ones skin". But rest assured that they can define one within seconds, if not on sight.
One must be white, christian, and republican, aside from being demonstrably committed to the institutionalized "system" of "privilege. If one has even the slightest deviance from any of these notions (and more), one is of little more use to "them" as an aboriginal bushman or an Islamic Fundamentalist. (And I have yet to distinguish between an Islamic Fundamentalist and a Christian Fundamentalist save the fact that Christian Fundamentalists have bigger guns and bombs).
If you would like a clearer picture of how these distinctions work, read How to Make a Revolution in the United States by Peter Camejo.
The tragic news on September 13, 2008, that Peter Camejo had lost his battle with cancer is a blow to all those on the revolutionary left who have been olitically and personally influenced by him. Peter Camejo was a longtime leader of the United States Socialist Workers Party. As a leader of the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth group associated with the SWP, Camejo was a prominent activist in the student movement at the University of California in Berkeley and in the anti-Vietnam war movement. He was the presidential candidate of the SWP in 1976. He parted company with the SWP in 1980 as its politics increasingly became more sectarian.
His “How to Make a Revolution in the United States” is the abridged text of a speech delivered by Peter Camejo at an educational conference of the SWP and the YSA in New York on May 3, 1969. It is taken from the May 30, 1969 issue of The Militant. And it would serve a reader well to review this text to better understand class distinctions, why they exist and how they are perpetuated.
My point is that it makes little difference whether you are black, white, red or green. What matters is who's ass you kiss. Though I will concede that if you are white, and you kiss the right asses in the right manner, you have a marginally better chance of being "granted privilege" than you would if your skin were, shall we say, off white... and your nose is not brown with christian Kilngon's.
(A special thanks to Diane Stirling for bringing this article to my attention.)
This is Your Nation on White Privilege | Red Room
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
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.
All of this being acknowledged, I would like to state for the record as having "fought in the trenches" along side people of color and other poor and similarly disenfranchised peoples, that the people of privilege have similar distinctions for "lower class" whites. It is just not as readily definable as "the color of ones skin". But rest assured that they can define one within seconds, if not on sight.
One must be white, christian, and republican, aside from being demonstrably committed to the institutionalized "system" of "privilege. If one has even the slightest deviance from any of these notions (and more), one is of little more use to "them" as an aboriginal bushman or an Islamic Fundamentalist. (And I have yet to distinguish between an Islamic Fundamentalist and a Christian Fundamentalist save the fact that Christian Fundamentalists have bigger guns and bombs).
If you would like a clearer picture of how these distinctions work, read How to Make a Revolution in the United States by Peter Camejo.
The tragic news on September 13, 2008, that Peter Camejo had lost his battle with cancer is a blow to all those on the revolutionary left who have been olitically and personally influenced by him. Peter Camejo was a longtime leader of the United States Socialist Workers Party. As a leader of the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth group associated with the SWP, Camejo was a prominent activist in the student movement at the University of California in Berkeley and in the anti-Vietnam war movement. He was the presidential candidate of the SWP in 1976. He parted company with the SWP in 1980 as its politics increasingly became more sectarian.
His “How to Make a Revolution in the United States” is the abridged text of a speech delivered by Peter Camejo at an educational conference of the SWP and the YSA in New York on May 3, 1969. It is taken from the May 30, 1969 issue of The Militant. And it would serve a reader well to review this text to better understand class distinctions, why they exist and how they are perpetuated.
My point is that it makes little difference whether you are black, white, red or green. What matters is who's ass you kiss. Though I will concede that if you are white, and you kiss the right asses in the right manner, you have a marginally better chance of being "granted privilege" than you would if your skin were, shall we say, off white... and your nose is not brown with christian Kilngon's.
(A special thanks to Diane Stirling for bringing this article to my attention.)
