Noun; Debate Fallacy: the genetic fallacy (AKA 'damning the origin')
Definition of "White Privilege"
- Racist deflection used by black activists and their acolytes for not forming a cogent argument
- Dismissing an argument or opinion because the person hate whites and/or Western civilization (based on the genetic fallacy, "damning the origin")
- Talisman or verbal spell used to excuse blacks for a lack of effort, social grace, or behaving like a complete jerk (or murderous psychopath)
- The unspoken advantage that the dominant “white” culture has over “people of color”: power, benefits, and other advantages are distributed unequally among the different groups in society, but “white privilege” protects white people any form of discrimination related to their ethnicity and race." Coined by Peggy McIntosh "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" (1988)
Examples of "White Privilege" include:
- Saying “Check your white privilege” doesn’t explain away why you defend thugs and gangbangers in your community. Seriously, does ANY other race make excuses for criminal behavior?
- March 6, 2021, BLM nutbag Carmen M. Jones accosted and screamed at cheerleaders for their “white privilege” and told one of the women they better “make sure your kids aren’t somebody my kids are gonna have to beat up… “
Questionable Proof of White Privilege
Beginning at the height of woke condescension, “White privilege” can evoke reactions of defensiveness and even outrage, but that’s just an example of “White Fragility,” according to Robin Diangelo. Whites may react with a range of emotions, from shame, guilt, fear, avoidance, and defensiveness to outright aggressiveness, intolerance and intimidation. They might even “weaponizing privilege” by calling 911.
You see, they believe that white people don’t face challenges related to the color of their skin.
This might seem to be a self-defeating argument, except that there’s so much more hole in this rabbit hole. Websites like the “Very Well Mind,” and even “Good Housekeeping” go into absurd detail on the ways “white privilege” manifests itself, from color of adhesive bandages and cosmetics to “nude” lingerie.
Even cell phone facial recognition software is racist when it fails to scan a black face as easily as a white face. Cell phones are calibrated for white faces, you see. Forget the fact that professional Hollywood camera men also struggle to adequately light black people in film. That’s all part of white privilege.
In the workplace, certain hairstyles like braids or dreadlocks, considered “untouched or unprocessed natural hair,” are unacceptable and unprofessional. You know, because white people can always march into business meetings with the naturally wavy bed head. And of course, no shop owner would ever suspect a white person of shoplifting… because, you know.
Before we start quoting lines from that SNL skit where Eddie Murphy disguises himself as a dorky white guy, “Think of white privilege as an unearned, almost randomly assigned head start,” explains Mikki Kendall, author of Hood Feminism. “It doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to win the race. It just means that you get to start a few feet further forward. White privilege doesn’t mean you don’t have any hurdles, it just means you have fewer of them.”
Okay, but hang on: this projection of white privilege is predicated on the perception of lived experience. We hear that whites don’t know what it’s like to be black. But lived experience cuts both ways. Blacks don’t know what it’s like to be white either (White Chicks and Eddie Murphy notwithstanding).
You say the phrase is only to alert whites to their privilege: power, benefits, and other advantages. But who do you think is distributing? What benevolent socialist utopia do you imagine is even capable of equal distribution of privileges that somehow it’s the white man’s burden the provide?
And what about all those the poor whites without power, benefits, and the advantages afforded to the black community thanks to media elites and race hucksters? Can we say at least they’re not trading on their skin color for these benefits?
J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, says “white privilege” is disgusting.
“There is a narrative in our country, right now, that if you’re white, you’re privileged,” Vance said, “and the idea that there is a family that is white, that is working class, that is struggling in ways that are identifiable to a lot of non-white Americans — and a lot of white Americans, too — is just not something the current cultural zeitgeist is comfortable with.”
But the cultural Left and black activists don’t want to discuss common experience, unity, or the brotherhood of man.
The reality is, the very notion of “white privilege” shows that whites ARE discriminated against based on the color of their skin. These activists are merely rejecting someone else’s lived experience (AKA, prejudice and discrimination). And worse..
How "White Privilege" Plays out
The phrase is not used to start any honest conversation about equality or implicit bias or embracing the other. It’s used by angry, historically ignorant black activists as a license to attack innocent people, as BLM nutbag Carmen Jones proved on 3/6/21:
Not to get lost in the mud but Breonna Taylor‘s death had nothing to do with anyone’s ancestors not doing right. She was a drug-dealer’s girlfriend caught in the crossfire during a police raid.
The bigger problem is thinking that children should inherit the sins of their forefathers. This is not only bigoted and racist, it’s pagan nonsense. Spewing racist bile at white cheerleaders over slavery is like targeting every unemployed actor for Lincoln’s assassination.
The real problem here is a kind of “minority privilege” that allows activists to rewrite history and cherry-pick cases to concoct a false narrative of “white-on-black” or “blue-on-black” violence while dismissing mountains of evidence and statistics as mere “white privilege” and “white fragility.”
What do I mean? This BLM radical suggests that accosting white children is justified based on a perceived violence that black children experience in the culture. How is that argument valid?
Based on this table, children are far more likely to experience violence from people of their own race than others. For blacks, it’s 7 times more likely than white-on-black crime. If there was a culture of white-on-black violence, those statistics would be different.
What is more evident from the table is that black-on-Asian crime is not only higher than white-on-Asian, but higher than Asian-on-Asian crime!
Blacks disproportionately attacking other blacks and Asians might be a form of white privilege but I fail to see how it’s the white man’s burden.
It’s even more stark when we consider the racial percentages in the US Population (at right). At only 14% of the population, violent black men are punching well above their weight, as Obama liked to say.
But no media outlet is making an effective case for systemic black violence, not even in Chicago (AKA Chi-raq). Nor has anyone rioted and burned businesses across the country to protest violence against Asians.
And no, this is no straw man argument. For every George Floyd, there are several Daniel Shavers (or a horrific Dorothy Dow case) that didn’t get news coverage. And that is hardly a privilege.
Stop Referring to White Privilege
“Privilege” is simply the wrong word. This not merely a semantic exercise because words, as we can agree, color our perception.
The only way someone can describe the white male “lived experience” as “privilege” is to somehow believe that they are not the standard by which you compare other things on a spectrum. But white men are.
Like it or not, white men founded the United States based on Western European civilization values, beliefs, and experiences. Until very recently, whites were the overwhelming majority and our society’s education and institutions reflect that. The majority of leaders in every endeavor and every POTUS except for one has been a white male. When we compare the lives, career choices, and cultural interactions of native Americans, African Americans, Asians, women, or any other “victim” or minority group we might conjure, who else are we comparing them to except white males?
See where this is going? The standard cannot be privileged. That’s not how privilege works. If any minority feels unsafe or unwanted in a majority environment, we’re not describing majority privilege.
Consider it another way: do anemic people call everyone else red-blood privileged?
No! So how about we stop projecting “privilege” onto the majority?
Fixing "White Privilege"
In order to reset to a unified society, we need to move past our awkwardness and racial sensitivity and describe the problem accurately. We need a paradigm that is both descriptive and functional.
And no, we’re not accepting the “power imbalance” argument, especially when the unfortunate overdose of one criminal in police custody sets off riots across America that cause $Billions in damages. This “No justice No Peace” narrative means NO PEACE, because you can’t get justice until there’s peace. The race-baiting activists know this and will settle for power.
If we’re still harping on privilege, try to describe it along a cultural spectrum. After all, defining the spectrum determines what it is we are actually measuring, right? In that case, “Deficiency” to “Abundance” seem to fit, except who wants to identify as being deficient (especially when you can project privilege onto others)? And it’s a deficiency of what exactly?
As Shelby Steele points out, much of what passes for civil discourse today is the result of whites trying to avoid being considered racists and a desperate desire of blacks to avoid being considered inferior.
If we let that simmer for a moment, our first thought is that we are really talking about managing our racial brand. But how is that done? How can we dictate how others associate us? “No, I’m not that psycho on that poster. Whoever hurt you before, that wasn’t me, okay?”
Besides, marketing experts will tell you that you can’t improve a brand by running down the other guy. From that perspective, we have to recognize that “white privilege, white fragility” and the rest don’t actually reflect white culture. They’re projections to obfuscate the unspoken problems in the black community.
Until we’re ready to address the deeper issue, if we can only talk about that relational imbalance that causes blacks to wave that privilege talisman about, then may I suggest that we talk about discomfort and distrust.
Do those terms express the tension between us accurately?
Overcoming discomfort and distrust requires that we identify it when we sense it, ask if these feelings are warranted in this context, even express these feelings openly (Leftists love that so buy-in should be easy), and then explore ways to mitigate them.
A few things to keep in mind:
- Discomfort and distrust are universal. EVERYONE feels that way when entering a room. Unless your spidey-sense is picking up something more than what constitutes "dog-whistle" racism today (from syrup to trees), assume it's nerves, an introverted moment that will pass. Smile, extend your hand, and introduce yourself.
- Discomfort and distrust work both ways. BOTH whites and blacks have historical data and current events feeding the problem. Blacks feel unfairly scrutinized and whites feel unsafe. Fears of racial uprisings caused violence in both the 1860s and today
Memphis 1866
Minneapolis 2020
- Comfort and trust work both ways too. The great irony is that the opposite of privilege is duty or responsibility (leave it to leftists and race-baiters to be completely wrong on everything). We should consider it a civic duty and a sacred responsibility to make the "other" feel welcome when our side is the majority, whether its a BBQ or an away game.
- Let me say that again: the opposite of privilege is duty or responsibility. We should consider it a civic duty and a sacred responsibility to make the "other" feel welcome. On both sides.
- Learn to call balls and strikes. Not everything is a racial incident representative of hatred, intolerance, or systemic injustice. If you believe in being judged by the "content of your character," stop viewing everything and everyone else through that racial prism. You don't have to stick up for criminals. That's not your brand.
- Stop your self-indoctrination. Socialists and other leftists want to divide us by superficial characteristics and demand more government to control citizens. But no government is able to equally distribute benefits. Instead, recognize that the vast majority of America has not talk out, repented, and forgiven racism, they've moved on. Don't you want to join that team?
- Yes, you can switch teams. Stop pretending that the racists were right about demographics and destiny. So you had the wrong upbringing. So what? You are now the sum of choices you make and you don't need anyone's permission to think differently.
- Stop following "race representatives" who have a vested interest in dragging the past into the future. These hucksters are looking for fights for their profit. Has any of them made the situation better? Did South LA? Ferguson? Minneapolis?
Did We Leave Anything Out?
Thank you for reading this far. Obviously, this is not the end of the racsim debate, but it should be the end of “privilege” as a viable conversation piece. Let’s reset the mindset.
If you think there’s still more to dig out, please let me know.
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