Imagine there’s no heaven… It’s easy if you try … Imagine all the people living for today[i]
Imagine there’s no privilege, it’s easy if you try. Imagine all the people living as equals, living as one.
White Privilege! Most of us never thought about it. We didn’t have to; we had it. It came naturally to rich and poor. It’s who we are. I began hearing about White Privilege a couple of years ago. It was a chant on college campuses where they measure the past by today’s standards. The next generations call us to “walk the talk.”
Our creation story,[ii] and birth documents state “all men are created equal.”[iii] But it wasn’t true. Our Constitution, one of the most important documents in the history of the world, says that “We the people” can rule our own land, but then defines some people as more privileged than others. The document would not have received a plurality of votes without enumerating slaves as only 3/5th of a person. Many of our Founding Fathers were slave owners. We grew the Union based on whether territories allowed slavery or not; the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, and others. Some claim we are a nation of immigrants, but we are occupiers as well; we took other people’s land and made it ours. The victors write history, so ours is very white, loaded with privilege. We are also a nation that expanded by use of force. We encouraged homesteading of other people’s land, we fought wars to take over most of northern Mexico, the Philippines, Guam and other territories. Much of our growth was expressed as Manifest Destiny, our God-given right to bring the White ways to the less regarded. Our history effused White Privilege without using the words, and we learned it well. It’s who were and who we are.
Ask yourself if you are privileged. Did your parents have “the talk” with you, or did you feel the need to have it with your son? When police stop you for a traffic violation, do you wonder if you will get home alive? When you buy an expensive item in a store, do they look at you with suspicion when you hand them your American Express Card? When you went to school, did the teachers assume you couldn’t learn as well as White kids, so you were sent to shop classes instead of math and science?
White Privilege is systemic in our society and that of many other nations. Nice people don’t know that they behave with an assumption of privilege. It’s not racism, which is much more a singular act or belief compared to a societal belief. The truth is we are trained to be that way. Survey courses in literature were always about Western Civilization. In high school, we learned Greek mythology, read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, gushed over the Song of Roland, survived through at least one Shakespeare play each year and read the poets that best exemplified the supremacy of whiteness. World Literature was really Northern European and English writings, as if Africa, Asia, and South America had nothing to offer or were not part of the civilized world. U.S. history pretty much, until recently, ignored the Spanish settlements in the western part of the continent. We were, oh so subtly,” taught before it’s too late.”[iv] We learned it well, without knowing it. It's nearly 2020 and many still find it difficult to deal with the idea of equality.
Ultra right-wing commentator Laura Ingraham[v] launched into a diatribe about how “massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people…”The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore.” A preponderance of young people on social media took her to task, but she was talking to a political base that listens and believes her. Their world is being turned upside down and they have yet to figure out how to cope with the new technologies, the closing of manufacturing plants, the regulations that make it difficult to eke out a living, the push for equality, all taking away their unearned privilege. They feel trapped and blame their problems on immigrants, legal or undocumented. They blame it on anyone of color. They blame others for taking away “their” jobs, which weren’t theirs, to begin with. Their loss hurts.
The fight for White Privilege reared its ugly head in Charlottesville when Unite the Right mounted a protest with a mission to “unify American White Nationalists.”[vi] The hidden anger coursing through a small segment of the populist movement in the country showed itself and the President allowed that they were good people, rather than condemn their actions.
Does this history of White Privilege have an effect on how America operates as a country? Yes, it does. The country is 61% White, 18% Hispanic/Latino, 12% African American/Black, and 5% Asian. Yet, there are only four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500. Of the nine million students in college, only 2.7 million are Black and 3.3million are Hispanic. Of the nearly two million students in graduate school, only 364 thousand are Black and 243 Thousand are Hispanic. Blacks own only one percent of the land in the country.
Some say that there is an interesting difference between racism and White Privilege and White supremacy.[vii] Racism, for example, occurs when a police officer is found guilty of using deadly force unnecessarily and we write it off as one-bad-apple rather than looking at the systemic issue of a police department overwrought with feelings and attitudes about White Privilege. Those old enough to remember Dr. King’s efforts to change people’s foundational thoughts about privilege know that much has been accomplished toward the goal. But, one of the unintended consequences of the drive for equality is the rise of resistance from those who see their place in society dwindling.
Congress and the Executive branch of government have been loath to do anything about the consequences of the inbred White Privilege. That leaves it up to the people to bring about change. The usual bromides about voting the rascals out of office don’t amount to much, so we need to ask people to be more aware of the fact that they have an unearned privilege and to try not to take advantage of it.
People, on their own, can do simple things to move the needle. They can insist on schools that are equal for everyone, with good teachers, good materials and safe environments and buildings. They can insist on pre-schools for every child. They can insist on some form of good basic health care for everyone. They can resist housing based on race. They can ensure a level playing field for everyone. They can stop assuming that everything is for the Whites and others get the leftovers.
“You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one.
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”[viii]
[i] Imagine –John Lennon - 1971
[ii] Elizabeth Martinez – SOA Watch: Close the School of the Americas – 2018
[iii] Declaration of Independence 1776
[iv] Rogers and Hammerstein – South Pacific - 1949
[v] Fox New – August 9, 2018
[vi] Benjamin Coggin – Digg –August 14, 2017
[vii] SOS Watch ibid
[viii] Imagine – John Lennon - 1971
