I frequently hear the phrase “white privilege” bandied about as if it’s a self-evident truth. Yet nobody ever asks what it means. That, to me, seems more interesting than anything intended or implied by the phrase itself.
Latest example:
LET ME BE CLEAR: When you exercise your #WhitePrivilege, don’t think I’m not going to remember. I will use it for the future. Uncomfortable?
This is the “tweet” of a Missouri state representative by the name of Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who means business about “white privilege.” But she’s not defining it, either. In fact, I bet she’d be mighty outraged if you asked her to do so.
These are not intellectually honest, kind or sensitive times.
I looked up the word “privilege” in several online dictionaries. One definition I found was:
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people; synonymous with advantage, benefit, prerogative, entitlement.
I understand what a privilege is, by this definition. But I don’t understand what constitutes a specifically “white” privilege. By this definition, a white privilege would refer to a white person — merely by virtue of race — being accorded, under the law, a right denied to people not of that color.
When we’re talking about a context like the American Jim Crow South, I totally understand what a white privilege is. In that time and place, laws were passed and enforced enabling white people to enter certain facilities and black people being denied entrance to those same facilities. Private property owners were not merely permitted to discriminate, but were obliged to discriminate.
I also understand the term in a context like the former apartheid government of South Africa, where black individuals were denied equal rights under the law with white citizens. It also is obvious in a context like the American South during the era of slavery, where the white privilege overrode everything.
But I don’t understand the white privilege of 2015, where the term is routinely applied. It seems to me that if other people wish me to understand and feel ashamed of this privilege, they should be obliged to at least explain what it actually is. In fact, I would think that if they honestly wished me (and other white people) to understand what they mean by the term, they would conscientiously and patiently explain it. Otherwise, how are things to ever change?
I’m not aware of any legal rights — or even private customs, for that matter — which, in America of the early twenty-first century — extend and apply to white people while not applying to black people.
Actually, there are non-discrimination laws in effect which apply to black people (and others), which do not apply to white people. For example, you can appeal to federal anti-discrimination laws if you’re black and you feel that a white person has denied you goods, products or services because you are black. But I’m not aware of any laws that work in the opposite direction.
I know it’s a controversial statement, but it seems to me that if there is any privilege at all, it’s in the laws that apply to black or other persons that do not apply to white people. I may be naive, but it seems to me that if everyone is equal under the law, then there is no need for — nor justification for — any law which singles out any person of any race or group (for any reason) in either a favorable or unfavorable way.
In other words, to pass laws saying that black persons can force persons of a different race to hire or otherwise do business with them seems just as much an example of privilege as laws preventing white and black persons from voluntarily doing business or otherwise associating with each other.
It seems to me that if there’s such a thing as freedom of association, then that’s what all laws should uphold. Slavery is obviously a form of forced association (in the form of compulsory work); and laws like those in the Jim Crow South used government force to prevent association. But today’s anti-discrimination laws impose association on people who might not otherwise want or need it.
I know it’s considered racist to uphold freedom of association above everything, but it has nothing to do with racism in my case. I could not care less about the race of the person with whom I’m doing business or otherwise associating. To me, it seems profoundly irrational to elevate such factors in contexts where they’re of no relevance at all. But the irrationality of racism still doesn’t trump the right of individuals to associate with whomever they please, in my view.
Regardless, we do have these anti-discrimination laws and I know they’re not going anywhere. But given the existence of these laws, I don’t understand where the basis exists for claiming “white privilege.” Weren’t these laws supposed to change that? If so, why hasn’t that happened?
Another definition I found of privilege:
A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. Land-titles and taxi medallions are pronounced examples of transferable privilege. These can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth.
Again, this obviously applies to slavery, Jim Crow laws and apartheid South Africa. How does it apply to any nation where all citizens are equal under the law?
I know that some people are richer than others; healthier than others; and happier than others. These differences in condition can exist for all kinds of reasons, some relevant to the person’s choices and some not.
But how does enjoying better circumstances (by some measure) constitute a privilege?
For example, if I’m allowed to own private property (and I’m white) and another person (who’s black or Hispanic) is not allowed to own private property, then I get how this is an instance of “white privilege.”
But I’m not aware of any such law or requirement. If anything, a person deemed a non-white minority will have access to government benefits, laws or subsidies to which a white person might not. Or it will be much easier to wage and win a lawsuit if you’re non-white and claiming discrimination against someone who is white. So how does anyone reach the conclusion that whites are privileged and non-whites are — by virtue of their race — somehow victims? And why are those of us who are white — merely because we are white — considered their victimizers?
Like I said, it’s not confusion or honest disagreement over difficult social, personal and psychological factors that disturbs me. What puzzles and disturbs me is that nobody in public or intellectual life appears willing to even ask these questions, or to even identify the contradictions and obvious fallacies in concepts and phrases such as “white privilege.” You’re just supposed to “get” it without explanation; and then if you don’t, why then, that makes you a racist (if you’re white) and, if you’re not white and you agree with what I’m saying … it makes you a loathsome heretic. (I know black readers of mine who agree with me will probably support this claim.)
Whenever people refuse to define their terms, they show us something about the lack of reason and facts connected to their ideas. They’re really more interested in intimidation, emotion and force than anything that might be called “progressive” or just. That’s why I have completely tuned them out. They’re intellectually dishonest bullies no better than the villains (real or imagined) they claim to condemn. Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal is a perfect case in point.
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