White privilege was once a serious problem in America before the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement. Whites had an advantage over blacks in almost every area of life, including employment, transportation, and public treatment.
If you were black, you were excluded from certain areas of society, and, before the Civil War, you could be subjected to brutal slavery. It is one of the most atrocious horrors of America’s history.
However, after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era began in the South, and things began to change. When the Reconstruction Era ended, things slid back downhill until the Civil Rights Movement established equality under the law, and black Americans began making progress in every area of life.
Today, it is not uncommon for black Americans to even have the upper hand in employment and university applications due to diversity laws and racial equality requirements in corporate bylaws.
White Privilege
If you are on social media, you already know that white privilege asserts that white people are inherently racist because they have privilege due to the color of their white skin.
Scholar and activist Peggy McIntosh founded this concept and claimed that white people are “accustomed to their social status and the white benefits that accompany it” while also “tend[ing] not to acknowledge their white privilege.”
McIntosh made the case that white people must become conscious of these privileges and “reject and diminish them as much as possible”.
She lists 46 ways that white “privilege” is supposedly evident, a few of which are listed below.
- White people are supposedly protected from poor work conditions and low wages (ThoughtCo).
- White people are thought to have an advantage because they can believe they “worked hard for and earned everything [they] have without receiving any help or advantages” (ThoughtCo).
- White people supposedly have assurance that neighbors“will be neutral or pleasant to” them (Harpers Bazaar).
- White people allegedly have the ability to swear or shop second-hand “or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of […] race” (Harpers Bazaar).
- It is supposedly acceptable for white people “to adopt a victim status rather than engaging in critical self-reflection when accused of racism” (ThoughtCo).
- White people are also supposedly allowed to “remain oblivious” to cultural customs and languages “of persons of colour who constitute the world’s majority without feeling […] any penalty for such oblivion” from their own white culture (Harpers Bazaar).
There are multiple other ways that McIntosh claims white people have privilege over people of color, and the list continues to grow to this day.
A little critical thinking goes a looooong way here, and it’s not hard to pick apart these “privileges” and label them as false.
Want to read more? Read “What is Critical Race Theory”!
Is White Privilege a Racist Lie?
Let’s look at things empirically and critically.
The first question I have is whether people who acknowledge their white privilege actually participate in reparations.
I don’t see that happening, and as Dinesh D’Souza brilliantly points out, it is a blatant act of hypocrisy (not so uncommon on the Left) that they don’t follow through with their proposed plans of reparation.
D’Souza makes a valid point that there are only two ways to fix racism in America.
- Create equality under the law (the Civil Rights Movement did this).
- Or perform reparations and give back what white people stole. This still hasn’t happened because it’s not sustainable, nor is it part of our free society.
Dinesh makes the case that white privilege is hypocrisy. People say they believe in privilege, and they parade behind the banner of Social Justice (in the woke sense), but they never give up the things that supposedly give them privilege. They never go live in the ghetto neighborhoods and surrender their own homes in the suburbs. They never switch jobs if they have a better job than their black counterpart.
The reparations activists never move into a redlined neighborhood. They never give up college and freely hand over their education to a black person.
Why? Because in their hearts, they don’t believe in the reality that they stole their rights. It sounds nice on paper, but in action, it isn’t sustainable, nor does it even feel good.
What White Privilege Boils Down To
White privilege boils down to one thing: racism. It is racist to even start to have a conversation about privilege based on skin color.
Now before you go digging your heels in and saying, “Whoa… that’s racist to say!”, hear me out.
Why are we basing our thoughts, actions, and laws on people’s skin color rather than the content of their character? Why don’t we focus on how hard people work, how they are best suited for a job, or even the privilege that comes from having two parents?
Did you know that 75% of kids in South Side, Chicago grow up without fathers in the home? This puts them at a great disadvantage because “41 percent of children born to single mothers grow up in poverty”. Compare this to only 8 percent of children who end up in poverty yet are born to married parents.
Did you catch that? 41% of kids with single mothers are in poverty. 8% of kids with married parents are in poverty. These statistics strongly indicate that there is privilege related to having two parents who are married.
According to a New York Post article, “in a racial context, the poverty rate among two-parent black families is only 7.5 percent, compared to 11 percent among whites as a whole and 22 percent among whites in single-parent homes.”
That is an interesting percentage to consider.
Did you know that there are twice as many white Americans living in poverty, compared to black Americans? Minority groups including Trinidadians, Ghanaians, Nigerians, and Barbadians all hold “a median household income well above the American average.”
As Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, says, “The very idea that white people inherently have it better because of the color of their skin is a racist idea” without factual or scientific data to back up the claim.
White privilege doesn’t stand up to facts in today’s world, and we can’t rely on the past to create white privilege in today’s culture.
The Real Privilege
Adam Carolla joined PragerU in a 5-minute video to bombshell white privilege and expose the real privilege.
Carolla says, “The real white privilege isn’t privilege: It’s knowing that nobody cares about you, good or bad. No one’s gonna do anything for you because you’re white and no one’s going to do anything against you because you’re white” (emphasis added).
America is the country that attracts oppressed people groups like a magnet. Carolla points out that people are putting their lives on the line just to get into America where they can be safe and have a shot at improving their lives, compared to their native country where they are often stuck in poverty and oppression forever.
The systemic racism that white privilege propagates is a bunch of B.S.
Throw Out the Racist White Privilege & Have a Little Gratitude
There are two great solutions to white privilege.
Number 1: Stop thinking about skin color! It’s a racist thought. Value people for who they are and what they can do. Treat them equally. Follow the great Civil Rights leaders’ leads, and resist the temptation to feel good emotionally just because social media says you’re doing something good by posting the black square or using the hashtag “blacklivesmatter”.
Stop thinking that you have privilege because of your white skin, and stop victimizing black people because of their darker skin. God created all people equal, as the Founding Fathers believed. White privilege doesn’t factor into the concept of equality.
In reality, all lives matter, and people should have equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.
And number 2: be grateful. If you are an American, you’re blessed beyond measure. You have a chance for a good life. You can work anywhere, go to church freely, marry whomever you choose, raise your kids however you like, and live in whatever neighborhood or county you want.
If that’s not privilege, I don’t know what is, but I do know one thing: I am grateful for my freedom and wouldn’t trade my American privilege for much of anything, and I’m proud to claim it. You should be too.
