I suggest reading the whole article (below) it is only one short page
http://www.tolerance.org/article/racism-and-white-privilege
Excerpted from
White Anti-Racist Activism: A Personal Roadmap by Jennifer R. Holladay, M.S. (Crandall, Dostie & Douglass Books, Inc., 2000) and published in the magazine
Teaching Tolerance, a project by The Southern Poverty Law Canter
"On White Privilege
White skin privilege is not something that white people necessarily do, create or enjoy on purpose. Unlike the more overt individual and institutional manifestations of racism described above, white skin privilege is a transparent preference for whiteness that saturates our society. White skin privilege serves several functions. First, it provides white people with “perks” that we do not earn and that people of color do not enjoy. Second, it creates real advantages for us. White people are immune to a lot of challenges. Finally, white privilege shapes the world in which we live — the way that we navigate and interact with one another and with the world."
Can we finally agree that white privilege exists? Yes or No?
I have heard it said by some prominent people (Namely Talib Kwieli Green Artist and philosopher) that those who do not acknowledge white privilege are racist. Yes or No?
This may come off the wrong way (as I appreciate what you've noted here) - but in my own academic studies, I must say that there's really NO such thing as "white people" ......
Tim Wise did an excellent job of tackling the issue for what it is when he was talking about how the elite have historically used racism to divide and conquer (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=477QqWOVBHw )....and people did the same thing in MLK's day and other scholars such as Dr.
Michelle Alexander have spoken on that matter when pointing out how Dr. Martin Luther King spoke on the issue (
https://soundcloud.com/mipdo/rare-mlk-jr-on-how-the-races).
The concept was invented and the language itself is part of why there's such disconnection between camps AND not seeing people as people.
Being Afro-Hispanic on my mom's side and having Caucasian family (i.e. Scottish Great-grandfather, Aunts who are Irish, etc.) and having to negotiate identity a lot growing up, it has been wild over the years taking fire from both sides of the aisle - be it others upset if trying to check them when you say "You can have a culture of white privilege from one group harming in certain areas, even though there's no uniform 'white culture' whenever you examine the harm coming from a dominant group and thinking there's a uniform 'black culture' to lump all into like we're all one happy family...and haven't discriminated against one another."
Or others upset when noting experiences growing up and saying things are WAY more complicated than simply having diversity in image/skin shade in order to address racial discrimination ..as if it's a "Crayola 8" project that will change solely change things because of color...
Or pointing out how often folks tend to think in binary terms (i.e. "White vs. Black") all the time when seeing problems in the nation with racial/ethnic divides - and sub-divisions within cultures as well. We cannot avoid that it wasn't always about whether or not you were "white" since there were multiple divisions in the camp and just as much hatred (i.e. Irish vs. English, Dutch vs., Russian, slavery of other groups within Anglo-Saxon/Caucasian culture, Hillbillies/folks in Appalachian or rural areas not respected in the camp when compared to other groups from Upper-Classes, etc. etc.) while also having unification between camps where people had multiple shades (even Afro-Russians and Black French Nobility -
http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2009/10/black-history-black-european-nobility.html )........identity not based solely on color, even though your shade was seen as part of the expression of who someone was.
W.E.B DeBois pointed out the issues in his day repeatedly with labor movements when saying it has never been about "Us vs. Them" - but about POWER, those who have it and those who don't...the entire reason why the concept of being "white" got invented by those threatened by unity in groups (especially with aiding each other economically/being a real neighbor to others) in order to divide the camps from seeing where their common struggle gave them common strength. Language always is a means to either free people or control them and glad for Scholars/activists such as Theodore W. Allen ahead of the game for showing how to deal with the issue.
For more on what Theodore W. Allen has noted when seeing what happened on the development of being "white" and contrasting against being "black":
-"“Theodore W. Allen -- Theses on ‘The Invention of the White Race’ and Lessons from Three Crises” (
&
https://www.youtube.com/user/jeffreybperry/videos )
--"Theodore W. Allen – There Were No White People There – In Early 17th Century Virginia" (
)
Jefferey B. Perry is astounding, IMHO, in how he gets the ways that concepts evolved - and addressing both what it means to be "black" in the U.S. and what it means to be "white" in the U.S...and showing the variations of that as well as unifying factors in both sides - and how to address the issues of white supremacy in the U.S. and understanding why there was such a development of identity focus in black culture in response to that
Having to do one of my papers for Graduate school this year on the issue, it is something that I do think needs to be noted more and seen for what it is. I was astounded, for example, at what occurred with the Chinese when they came to the U.S. alongside other groups from throughout Asia. They immigrated over and were often called over by the U.S. as slave labor - and other Immigrant groups present in the U.S such as the Irish were able to work alongside them extensively/have working relationships.....especially as seen in the Transcontinental Railroad. Of course, when competition occurred and the Chinese became more successful - or found ways to be more efficient than the Irish, the private companies not liking labor strikes by the Irish for higher wages convinced others to start seeing the Chinese as being a threat to "white people"/the plight of the White Struggle" - convincing the Irish to fear them and fight against them. A lot of anti-Immigration laws and restrictions were made against as a result, until full out acts of violence occurred - causing the development of China towns throughout the West. For more, one excellent book on the issue is "Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America" (
https://books.google.com/books?id=Iiq0ZDlzDoYC&pg=PA296&dq=Railroaded:+Chinese+Irish+workers&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMIur2QtaqKyAIVicyACh3PaAe3#v=onepage&q=Railroaded: Chinese Irish workers&f=false ). Also, for other documentaries:
-"The Transcontinental Railroad (AMAZING AMERICAN HISTORY DOCUMENTARY" (
)
-"Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial - YouTube" (
)
--"Asian Immigration / Transcontinental Railroad" (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lKZpGqoPE )
Additionally, as it concerns the reality of the Irish and their own history with slavery prior to the Chinese experiencing it (which is a BIG deal since shared history being forgotten is always at the root of a lot of divisions), one can check out Irish Slavery and "Ireland & the Slave Trade - DNA & Family Tree" (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxCKKqZ2iKU ) - or "The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves The Slaves That Time Forgot." (
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...set=a.1145095023927.2021869.1124053773&type=3 )
One can check this out as well - as it concerns how the British brought other Asians throughout the Caribbean and mix them in with the intention of shifting division in camps when they could no longer allow for slavery of blacks - Coolies: How British Reinvented Slavery"(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxl4q_jfDPI ). All of that was happening near the same time as the battles the Chinese had going on with being mistreated with the building of the Railroad.
Also, for an excellent presentation that REALLY gives food for thought, one may go here:
It was written by one Caucasian individual noting the ways that things evolved and it was a really challenging perspective, IMHO, that I think others need to consider.
As said best there on how things evolved:
___________________________________________________________
-"There’s a perception that whiteness is working for white people. It’s not. Whiteness is one of the biggest and most long-running scams ever perpetrated. It started in the late 1600s in America, but like so many scams, it spiraled out of control until it had a life of its own.
Not long after Europeans started arriving on the east coast of North America and the Caribbean Islands they found themselves rich in land but desperate for labor to work the land. The answer they struck upon was importation of bond labor, initially mostly Irish. The Irish had not been considered fully human under English law for centuries, and they ended up in plantations and working sugar under the Caribbean sun. The easy part of importing Irish (and Scottish) slave labor was that they were right next to England. The downside is there wasn’t enough of them for the amazing amounts of land laid before the eager English settlers, and thus the Atlantic slave trade with Africa was born. This is the story we hear in school, but the abridged version we get, intentionally or not, hides the scam of it. Initially the bond terms of convict, Scotch-Irish, and African labor was a set period of time, at the end of which they received bond money and their freedom in this new land. In fact, not that many bondsmen and women lived to be free, but some did, and established themselves as a mixed-race, free peasantry of the new world. If you’ve ever wondered where the free blacks of so many stories of early America came from, a large number were the families of freed African bond laborers.
The white cry, from the 17th century, to George Wallace, and still alive in the present day.
As time went on, the labor needs of the land holders continued to grow, and desperate to cultivate the land, they were loathe to let go of their bond servants and the bondsmen and bondswomen’s children (whom they kept in bondage for a legally defined time as well). In the mean time, a growing American peasantry was proving as difficult to govern as the European peasantry back home, periodically rising up in riot and rebellion, light skinned and dark skinned together. The political leaders of the Virginia colony struck upon an answer to all these problems, an answer which plagues us to this day.
The Virginians legislated a new class of people into existence: the whites. They gave the whites certain rights, and took other rights from blacks. White, as a language of race, appears in Virginia around the 1680s, and seems to first appear in Virginia law in 1691. And thus whiteness, and to a degree as well blackness, was born in the mind of America."
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That said, I really appreciated Dr. Camara Jones talks about race and the construction of racial categories in how we interpret our appearance and existence in the world through allegory. Her deconstruction was very dynamic in showing the many layers that get lost in conversation because of things we don't even realize in an everyday context (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNhcY6fTyBM )
