“Everyone
hates me.”
“The world
is out to get me.”
“I just have
bad luck.”
“But you
can make it up to me by giving me everything I want...”
Sometimes
people embrace victimhood when they don’t want to take responsibility for
what’s wrong with their lives - for the choices they’ve made, for the things
they did or didn’t do (or don’t want to do), for the failures they would rather
not analyze or own.
That’s
pretty much the mentality at the root of the “white privilege” canard. It’s a term invented for the purpose of
giving an entire race justification for self-pity, for wallowing in resentment
and for never facing the truth about the self-destructive norms that have
become entrenched in much of its community over the past 50 years (thanks to a
lot of help from meddling liberals). And
for those who are a bit more calculating, “white privilege” is the natural segue
into talk of reparations, i.e. taking money from people who never had slaves and
giving it to people who never were slaves.
There’s a very
long list of successful black Americans.
Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Michael Jordan,
Will Smith, Clarence Thomas, Tiger Woods, Ben Carson, Loretta Lynch, Tony
Dungy, Herman Cain, Colin Powell and Thomas Sowell, just off the top of my head,
are proof that today Americans are happy to reward talent and skill
irrespective of race (and gender, for that matter), and this list doesn’t
include the millions of black Americans who may not be celebrities but who are
just as successful as any middle class white American. Are we supposed to believe that the children
of the Obamas or Will Smith or Tiger Woods are less “privileged” than millions
of other children in this country born to parents without fame or fortune? How is it possible that all of these people
have achieved success when they aren’t “privileged” by virtue of their skin
color? And here’s another good question:
how is it that the “privilege” of being
white hasn’t spared millions of Caucasians from the clutches of poverty, the misery
of drug abuse or the despair of a prison cell?
Now that we’ve
established that “privilege” isn’t necessarily tied to race, how else can we
explain the reality that whites, on average, fare better economically than
blacks even though the playing field has been evened out legally for
more than half a century now?
Everyone knows the answer to that question, but few are honest enough to
say it out loud. You see, my dear
Virginia, “privilege” doesn’t come from race.
In most cases it comes from the manner of our upbringing, which – by and
large – is defined by the norms of our culture:
our attitudes towards sex, family, education, work, respect for the law,
etc., etc., etc. Children tend to have
the best shot at success when they grow up with two loving, involved parents
who are good role models, economic stability, a safe and strong community, commitment
to education, belief in personal responsibility and the goal of economic
security by learning a trade or profession.
This type of upbringing does not
guarantee success. Nothing can do that.
But, it sure helps.
Generally
speaking white children are more likely than black children to grow up in something
resembling this environment, but expressing this out loud is considered blasphemy
to those for whom the truth is, well…, inconvenient to other agendas. Better to blame “white privilege” than to risk
the backlash of the black community and liberal politicians who don’t want their
own culpability to come into question. If
there is “white privilege” no one will look to the black community to fix
itself. “White privilege” is easy and potentially
lucrative. Self-examination is uncomfortable
and requires patience and honesty.
Does this
mean that there’s absolutely no such thing as “white privilege?” Actually, yes, because the term “white privilege”
suggests a benefit that is universal to the white race, and yet I just
easily demonstrated to you that, based
upon easily observable realities, there is no such thing as universal
race-based “privilege.” Ever wonder how
we went from talking about “racial discrimination” to talking about “white
privilege (kind of like how we went from talking about “global warming” to “climate
change”)?” If you think that was an
accident, then you’re very naïve.
Nothing is accidental when it involves the “woke” agendas of leftists
and race agitators. Nothing. “Racial discrimination” put the target on the
act of discriminating. It was
more objective and easier to quantify. That
was problematic because discrimination can be (and was) outlawed. But “white privilege” assigns a blanket of
guilt to an entire race. You can stop discriminating. You can’t stop being white. So the problem can never be resolved, which
makes it a very valuable political weapon that can be wielded in perpetuity. Are you beginning to understand yet?
“But!” you object,
“I’m a middle-class white person and I believe in white privilege. How does that fit your theory when I have
nothing to gain from reparations?”
Oh, that’s
easy. If you’re white and you still buy into
the “white privilege” canard despite the logic I cited above, then this means
you’re a liberal or a leftist, and what you gain from jumping on the “white
privilege” bandwagon is gratification of your liberal/leftist ego. You’re now in the “woke” club, chastising the
sins of your own kind (smugly knowing, of course, that the sin does not apply
to you) and feeling self-righteous about your own superiority. Oh yes, that kind of gratification is better
than gold to a liberal or leftist.
Racism
exists, as does sexism and ageism and a lot of other isms. It will never be eradicated because it is natural
to humans – in a wide range of varying degrees – to feel more comfortable
around those who look like us, generally speaking. White people tend to have white friends. Black people tend to have black friends. We gravitate towards those we can relate to
because of shared experiences. I’m not
excusing real racism but never will I join the throngs of white
apologists who so desperately want to be lauded as “woke” that they are eagerly
becoming part of The Great Lie. Broad,
systemic attitudes towards other races are based on stereotypes, and
stereotypes are often rooted in some truth. In the U.S., blacks commit murder at nearly
eight times the rate of whites. That’s a
fact according to the FBI. Every week or
so there’s a news report about the number of people shot and/or killed on the
streets of Chicago. Almost always the
victims are black. Almost always the
shooters are black. It is UNREASONABLE
to require the world to pretend not to see the reality (never mind that so many
do), but that is what is demanded of us.
And yet on the other side, a small fraction of our nation’s cops do detestable
things, and not only are all cops under indictment but our entire nation
is condemned as inherently racist. Pot,
meet kettle….
Sorry, I won’t
go along with that.
We are living
in dangerous times. I’ve done this long
enough to know that when I find myself stating the obvious, I’m wasting my time
with people who are either deceitfully disingenuous or willfully blind to the
truth, and that happens when people have motives that are not best served by
the truth. Maybe you’d like to take a
moment to ponder what those motives are…
~CW
