“White Privilege” is a Racist Idea

Attributing racial epithets has been, is, and always should be considered a racist thing to do.

With everything going on in the world right now, you’d be forgiven for wanting to take a step back from politics in general and just focusing on your life. It is not hard to see how the election, it’s fallout, and the ongoing battle over every aspect of COVID relief would lead to exhaustion and ultimately just a general lack of desire to participate in political discussion. However, in America today there is no escaping the constant reality that is that every aspect of our lives must be made political.

We cannot go to school without hearing about political opinions in our classes as early as elementary school. We can’t turn on the TV and watch a sporting event or the local news without being inundated with messages promoting this or the other political idea. We cannot get on our social media without seeing everyone trying to be an activist. It is truly an inescapable hell for someone who wants to stop focusing on politics. Currently, there still are spaces where politics aren’t at the forefront, but the point is that the topic is creeping up into every single aspect of our lives slowly. Why is this?

The answer lies in the strategy adopted by the Democratic party to secure votes; Identity politics. When people feel that their identity is inherently connected to their political thinking, it becomes who they are. When we introduce ourselves, we might as well include our political affiliation and the number of groups we belong to and their order on the hierarchical identity totem pole. If you’re straight, white, male, and heterosexual, the value of your opinion based on your characteristics means far less than others. Nobody calls for your voice to be amplified or asks for your opinion on a topic because they assume they already know what you’re going to say. You have your positions attributed to you and you’re told what you have a right to speak on and what you don’t. You are told to be cognizant and aware of how your white privilege affects society, all the while being shut out from many parts of civil society because of the inherently bigoted views that you naturally harbor according to Harvard or other institutions.

But if you are part of any number of historically oppressed groups, you are given a larger platform to speak from in leftist circles. You can begin your sentences with “as a gay man”, or “being an indigenous person”, and people automatically listen with more reverence. While this might be sustainable in liberal circles where they willingly accept the hierarchy of identity politics, outside of these circles the notion breeds resentment and disdain. Even among moderates, people do not like to be told that one person’s opinion or words matter more than theirs because of their skin color, ethnicity, sex, gender, etc. This has been a basic truth for as long as we can remember.

If you wonder why there is so much resentment to the term “white privilege” when it is such a simple term for liberal University students to grasp, it’s not because the people who don’t accept it are just too stupid to understand the meaning. It’s because they know the meaning and they feel like that puts them in a position where they are being discredited or shamed for the color of their skin, and they aren’t wrong. If not to invoke some sort of response from white people, what is the term “white privilege” meant to do? The entire point of using the term is to exact some form of retributive justice on society and make white people react in some way that liberals hope will better society, somehow.

And yes, I know the definition of white privilege. I understand that it doesn’t mean white people are given a leg up, only that their skin color doesn’t hold them back. I know what the meaning is, and frankly, it’s not the meaning of the term that is so inflammatory and/or harmful. It’s the persistence with which members of the non-white groups attempt to throw it out in conversation and popular media. The resentment comes from white people who have problems just like anyone else, being constantly chirped at about how at least they have white privilege.

Imagine being a middle aged white man living in a place like West Virginia or Detroit or any number of small factory/fossil fuel towns across the United States. You’ve lost your job due to the government, you live in a rural area with not much infrastructure, you have limited access to resources, likely have health problems as most people do, you feel like your politicians do not represent you, and every time you turn the television on all you can hear about is how privileged you are. This doesn’t contribute anything to society, and in fact, it drives us apart and separates people based on the color of their skin.

And is it not true that the word privilege could be applied to any group of people if you single out certain aspects of society? Are women not more privileged to have less workplace injuries and benefit from lower suicide rates than men? There are more black professional NBA and NFL players than other races, so is that not a form of privilege? Certain countries have higher life expectancy rates than the United States, so is there a Swedish privilege? Some of these are silly examples and shouldn’t be taken to mean that we should start using the terms, but rather that any group can be privileged if you single out things that they tend to do better in. We can have a conversation as to why these groups are in the position they are in with regards to any number of aspects of society, but automatically deferring to the “privilege” argument does nothing except close the ears of the very person you’re trying to convince.

This article is probably not going to be taken well by some people, and that’s fine, I don’t care. The truth often has opposition. Would Martin Luther King Jr. have advocated for using the term “white privilege” to put your neighbors down and bring shame to an entire race for the color of their skin? I don’t think so. Was America not founded on being better than that? I think it was. Decrying entire groups of people as being one thing or another based on their physical attributes has been phased out of society for a good reason. Bringing it back will do nothing to combat the racial division that I know most people want to destroy. Instead, we should focus on the character of the individual we are speaking to. If they present bigoted ideas, correct them and confront them. If they do not, then don’t inflame the situation by reminding them of this abstract form of privilege that they supposedly have.

I really do think that liberals are good people at heart and I give them the benefit of the doubt most of the time, rather than automatically assuming they are too stupid to know what I am saying or thinking they’re just held back by their own bigotry or backwards thinking. This is not a favor that is often returned when speaking to my liberal friends if we disagree. I do think our society can begin to heal and have unity between races, but it will take breaking down the barriers we’ve erected between each other to alienate ourselves based on skin color.