Wednesday, June 30, 2021

The problem with "white privilege"

 

On white privilege

The conservative complaint about the term “white privilege” is that it induces guilt in white people. That, oddly enough, is consistent with my complaint, which is that it naturalizes a social fact.

Here’s a story to illustrate the difference between subjective feeling and the system. A man, lets call him Marcel, lives in occupied Paris in 1943. Marcel considers himself unbigoted – he’s never felt any prejudice against the Jews. He’s even had Jewish friends! Marcel has a friend named Jacques. Jacques comes to him with a sweet deal: Jacques, due to “social circumstances”, has got his hands on a number of apartments at rock bottom prices. Does Marcel want to buy a couple? Now, Marcel reads the papers, and he is aware, in part of his mind, that Jews are being dispossessed of their homes and goods and even seem to be “vanishing”. But that part of his mind he is keeping in the background. In the foreground is a money-making opportunity, and he gladly joins with Jacques.
In 1945, nobody spoke of Gentile privilege. They spoke, instead, of resistance and collaboration. Marcel’s act was an act of collaboration.

Transpose the circs. Mark works for X corp in Palo Alto. It is a high paying job in tech. Now, Mark notices, in part of his mind, that there are almost no African-Americans in his department – or in other high paying departments. Although some African-Americans work there. Receptionist, for instance! Plus the janitorial crew, although that is subcontracted. If Mark wanted to, he could read studies, reported on in the newspapers, about the racial disparity in pay and opportunity in the tech industry. Mark doesn’t have any bigotry against African-Americans. When he was in high school, he even had black friends! But Mark doesn’t spend any effort to think about racial disparities. His kids talk about white privilege, and it makes him mad.

The better term for Mark is the term for Marcel: collaborator. And the better strategy for Mark, as it was for Marcel is resistance. In Marcel's ase, that could lead to prison. In Marks case, that could lead to some of his white coworkers calling him a pussy.
This is my sermon on “white privilege”. Leave at the exits marked in the back.

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