This is Your Nation on White Privilege

Make no mistake. I am a staunch Obama supporter. I as well as many others feel that Obama is the right man for President of these United States of America.

The following was sent to me this morning and I felt that I must share it. Please share it with others.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

September, 14 2008

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.



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