You and I need to talk about — consider — think about — privilege.
Privilege is about power. To be called privileged is to be called powerful.
But it is also to be told that you did not earn (at least in part) your power.
People don’t like to be told they haven’t earned their power. They believe they’ve scraped and struggled for whatever power they have. Nearly everyone believes their life is a struggle — in fact, according to both Buddha and biology, life is struggle. Every living thing — from human to paramecium — struggles in its own way, and we hope against hope that life is just chrysalis.
If you’ve made it this far in life, you feel it’s because you’ve struggled to achieve and maintain whatever power is yours.
But to be told you’re privileged is to be told you possess more power than you’ve earned.
On White Privilege
I bring this up because of the increasingly common phrase, “white privilege.”
White privilege is a way of simplifying the entire history of the white race and bringing it to a conclusion that says all of the white people on the planet right now possess at least one benefit that they, themselves, did not earn, a benefit that comes from a wicked notion, spread by lies and propaganda, that those with white skin deserve, by virtue of their skin, more attention and respect than everybody else.
This benefit has a flip side. It reinforces the notion that those without white skin do not deserve attention and respect.
The concept of white supremacy, and its attendant benefit of white privilege, has been called into question and deemed unworthy of the humanist wisdom enshrined in the Declaration of the thirteen united states of America, the United States’ Bill of Rights, the Universal Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Millions of people have died — and continue to die — due to the widespread notion that people of color (i.e., nonwhite people) do not deserve attention and respect, that their lives, in fact, do not matter. Thankfully, we continue the fight against overt and covert racism, but to be on the right side of that fight, those with white privilege have an obligation to admit their privilege to themselves.
Let’s take the most fundamental right we have in the United States, the right to determine our representatives and leaders without fear of reprisals via our right to vote. For hundreds of years, any person of color who tried to vote was beat down and killed. This continues today. Pay attention to what the white men in power are trying (and succeeding at doing) to the voting rights of people of color in this country, and then peruse the history of the expansion of the franchise and see how many white men can be found wielding bats and guns to defend their exclusive right to vote.
The political conversation, the money, the culture — the power — has long been and continues to be dominated by white people. The act of domination is so absolute that it changed the very skin color of Jesus Christ, the majority’s Lord and Savior, from brown to white.
Follow the history of white power — from the housing crimes in Chicago to the lack of access to education throughout the country, from the institutionalized slavery contained within the 13th Amendment to the bona fide slavery of Washington D.C., Virginia, and the other southern states, from the rise of Elvis to the rise of Iggy Azalea; follow it from the original sin of Native American genocide to the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade to the paranoia of the Japanese internment camps and immigrant detainment camps, from the ghettoization of urban neighborhoods to the gentrification of downtown lofts and coffee shops — follow the history and ask yourself: have I, as a white person, benefitted in some way solely on the basis of my skin?
Have I been immune from the harassment of authority figures, whether that be police officers on the street or security guards in the aisles of a pharmacy? Have I been given second, third, and fourth chances solely due to the color of my skin (even if no one acknowledged the reason)? Have I been able to find representatives in our culture’s stories, enabling me to imagine different paths for my future? Do I struggle against racial stereotypes in my professional life or am I given the benefit of the doubt? Do the laws apply differently to me and to my children because of our skin color, allowing us to be given warnings or community service when people of color who broke the same law receive maximum sentences? Does my skin color and my culture not work against me when it comes to people’s expectations of my financial responsibilities, my verbal abilities, and my style of dress? Do I expect to find shampoo that works for my hair texture inside every hotel bathroom? Do I expect adhesive bandages to match my flesh tone? Can I expect my neighbors to welcome me into their neighborhood? Am I taught about the history of my racial heritage in school without an overtone of pandering to identity politics, allowing me to see my race’s history as “the real history” and all other histories as “alternative”? Can I count on grocery stores providing me access to foods that are staples in my cultural tradition? Do I have to talk to my children about the dangers of being a minority race in a racially charged climate? Can I have a day when my hygiene is poor without it reflecting on every member of my race? Can I start a new job without having some of my colleagues wonder if I only got the position because of my race?
In short, can I consider all of life’s options without worrying about whether my race (and my race alone) will hold me back?
If you are white and you answer those question honestly, you have to admit, on the basis of whiteness alone, you possess privileges that others do not possess.
That privilege is power, and it’s time to admit — it’s your obligation to admit — you have it.
What To Do With Your White Privilege
Do nothing.
Look around you for a second. Look at the world around you and recognize that some great wisdom comes from other cultures and other ways of being, wisdom that people have fought to preserve for a very long time, wisdom that survived despite white people forcing it to go underground, wisdom that, in fact, stood opposed to the horrors enacted by white colonialism.
This wisdom stood (and stands) proudly and strongly and without a trace of fear. We ought to hear from it more often. We ought to allow it — invite it — into our politics, boardrooms, bedrooms, and classrooms.
Women. People of color. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered, and every other color of pride. Their lives — their historic and cultural ways of being — have led them to wisdoms that white men have long been blinded to, focused as we have been on the struggle to become and maintain the dominating power, wisdoms of tolerance, acceptance, and cooperation, not to mention wisdoms of empathy and service.
Now is the time for white people to stop. To do nothing. To give someone else a chance to speak up and make decisions.
As a white person, don’t speak, don’t argue, don’t run for office.
It’s not that you don’t have the right to. It’s that it’s no longer right to.
And what do you do if you’re in a room full of white people? You use your privilege to make sure there’s never a room like that again.
As Jon Fishman, a white man, once sung, “I want a fat, black, poor, and handicapped, old single mother lesbian with a high IQ in the White House for President and non-denominational too.”
What does that mean for Fluid Imagination?
I am a white person who self-publishes a blog. I find some topic of the day or week, and I write an opinion about it. I share my argument.
Does my advice to “do nothing” mean I should stop? Should I just shut up and close Fluid Imagination down?
I suspect the answer is yes.
But I like to think of myself as an ally in this fight, and right now, I’m willing to die for the cause.
Or at least, I’m willing to write for it.