Hi there everyone, I'm white...

[jobycom]

203. That DUer asked a question you didn't answer. Do you have an answer?

The thing you are fighting against that says that sometimes white people have to face bias, too, isn't what White Privilege is about. That's why this topic needs to be discussed every day. Because even wonderful, caring, compassionate, liberal people like you, who really care about the subject and want to find a solution, don't understand what people are talking about when they talk about White Privilege.

It's a complicated subject, and sadly people are starting to close their minds to it, just as they do to words like racism, white supremacy, and probably soon to "unarmed black man." Some have started using the term "white fragility" to explain why white people can't handle these terms. White people (and I'm white, as I'm sure you know, so I'm included in this) have a reflexive series of reactions which goes something like "Wow, it's hard being a person of color, but it's also hard being white, and I'm a good person and earn my way, and at some point people of color need to stop whining and work as hard as me, and then their problems will go away."

No one is saying white people don't work hard for what we have and accomplish. No one is saying being white means everything is easy--obviously we have our own hells. No one is saying that being white means we never face bias. No one is saying that any individual white person is to blame, or that anyone alive now is to blame, for creating this system. No one is saying white people should feel guilty for being white or having this privilege (although, actually, that's not completely true--some individuals do try to say exactly that, but that's not what the message of White Privilege is supposed to be). No one is saying that there aren't white people who fail, or there aren't people of color who succeed, or there aren't people of color who get lucky breaks over white people, or there aren't cases where a black man working hard succeed better than a white man with the same qualifications working equally hard.

All White Privilege says is that people of color aren't lazier, stupider, or more inclined to crime than white people. They are at the bottom of the pile, in general, statistically, in most quality of life measurements not because they are inferior to whites, but because White Privilege makes it easier for white people than for people of color to succeed, and that this privilege is built into the hardware and operating system of this society, and while that's no one's fault, it has to be recognized and changed or we will ALL continue to live in a condition of virtual Apartheid in this nation.