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There Is Such a Thing as White (and Asian) Privilege and the Left Advances It
First of all, I want to let everyone know that I am not using white privilege as a cudgel to slur white people or people of any color who disagree with me. I like many classical liberals think that white privilege is incredibly overblown and I see it being used as a way to avoid arguments instead of addressing them with reason and goodwill.
For example, I mentioned that some facts written by Thomas Sowell in one of his books suggested that there was very little discrimination in terms of wages between black Americans and white Americans to a lefty journalist. She responded that the book was, and I quote, “white history.” Rather than look up the facts she called stuff that she disagreed with as white in order to dismiss it.
I do not wish to be dismissive and or ignore evidence but I must state that I believe there is white (and Asian) privilege and that it is against the best parts of the American ideals and general decency.
I think that poor Appalachian whites have a distinct cultural advantage that poor blacks in the inner city and Native-Americans on reservations don’t have. The advantage that they have is that they can be judged for doing dumb things while poor blacks and Native Americans are excused for doing dumb things. As ten cents likes to mention, not feeling pain is a serious medical condition and people who don’t feel pain often hurt themselves. Shame and guilt are similar to pain in that they are unpleasant but essential feedback.
When white Appalachians do stupid things like get addicted to drugs, pretend to be disabled to get on the public dole, or have a poor diet that leads to obesity and tooth decay, they can be mocked and shamed. The writer J.D. Vance detailed with great elegance in his the self-destructive behaviors of poor whites in his book, Hillbilly Elegy.
Jason Riley, John McWhorter, Thomas Sowell and a whole host of other black conservatives have written similar pieces detailing how negative parts about the culture of the inner city keep blacks from succeeding and they always have to devote part of their explaining how culture can matter more than racism. With Hillbilly Elegy, Vance is permitted to just focus on the culture because he doesn’t have to endure the soft bigotry of low expectations.
The recent Starbucks incident is emblematic of white (and Asian) privilege. Two black guys behave badly and get a working joe fired because Starbucks has no backbone. Two white (or Asian) guys who behaved like that wouldn’t have gotten anybody fired, they just would have been thrown out. Some would say that this is an example of reverse racism or black privilege. I feel that that belief is short-sighted.
There is a decent argument that the Obama administration hurt the educational opportunities of inner city black kids by pressuring schools not to discipline black students if black students were more disruptive of the learning environment than students of other races. The result is that by not holding blacks to the same standard, black students who want to learn are now at the mercy of the most destructive among them.
Should we expect it to be any different for the black employee at Starbucks or the black customers who just want to get on with the day? What’s more, if they replace the acting Starbucks manager with a black guy, there will be a thought even among the most lefty people that he got the job because of his color. If it’s a white or Asian guy the manager cannot help but be so sensitive to black Americans that he treats them differently. That doesn’t lead anywhere good.
One of the saddest quotes about America’s racial tensions emerges from the lefty impulse to refuse to judge all colors by the same standard. Allan Bloom wrote this in the 1970s when affirmative action become de rigueur on elite campuses.
White and black students do not in general become real friends with one another. Here the gulf of difference has proved unbridgeable. The forgetting of race in the university, which was predicted and confidently expected when the barrier were let down, has not occurred… White students act as though their relations with black students were just as immediate and unself-conscious as with others (including Orientals). But although the words are right, the music is off-key. Here there is an atmosphere of right-thinking, principle and project – of effect rather than instinct.
It’s awkward for white guys to address this but it must be much more difficult for American blacks who often feel like an alien in their own campus, or worse yet, in their own country.
In conclusion, identity politics poisons everything but it poisons those it purports to champion the most.
Published in General
The other side of that is that some schools hold white and Asian kids to a higher standard to make the discipline statistics come out even. The lower-class white kids (mostly boys) really get shafted for just being boys.
This.
And when it is combined with pain, shame and guilt for doing good things (e.g. “acting white”) it’s catastrophic.
Your last sentence is the absolute truth. Identity politics is poison to minority youth. It teaches them, that they can’t get ahead without help from “the privileged”. We should be teaching them they can get ahead through education and hard work, the same way the privileged get ahead. They should understand that most of the privileged are cheering for them and will help them when they see they are trying to help themselves. If a kid is told he can’t get ahead, why would he try? This poison is dragging down our society.
One of the things that hit me about the “acting white” critics that has morphed into “white privelege” is that the things that were considered “white” – like proper dress, proper speech, learning to read, etc – were set up to be reviled and unpursued. As if black people can’t do them?
They wanted to be successful without those things, but they aren’t. Now this is white privilege. It isn’t white privilege, though. White people want to succeed without these things, too. But through generations of pursuing these goals, including stable families, most people adopted them.
Enter a new group into our midst, and they are loathe to adopt the manners and culture of their historical oppressors. Was it like this in the romanization of Europe? Most of them were oppressed by Rome, but they seem to have allowed Rome to “civilize” them by adopting much of its culture.
Or did the fact that they were all white blur lines, making it harder to tell who is oppressor and who is oppressed? Did they blend in and spread culture by not knowing who was who?
The only “privilege” I have being white is the privilege of going through life without a chip on my shoulder . . .
My gravest concern is how it is creating fear in children and teenagers.
Teaching children that people hate them and that they should fear people and stay away from people is toxic for those children. It is a prescription for mental illness.
Sam Harris when discussing the work of Charles Murray makes an incredibly funny joke about Asian privilege. (That also applies to those privileged Irish.)
https://youtu.be/5r_E0bXF54U?t=325
Who?
So let me get this straight. As a white straight male, i get special magical powers that give me cool stuff?
And you want me to give that up?
Uh…No.
Henry, great post!. In fact, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever read on race. It approaches the issue with a new slant, and that’s the way to do it. I wrote something awhile back on the same problem, using my personal story to make somewhat the same point, but I didn’t go as far as your argument goes—and as a result it wasn’t half as good as yours.
Darn, I wish your essay could be reprinted on the op ed page of one of our major newspapers. But that couldn’t happen, could it? They are so frozen in their racist (I don’t use that word carelessly) mindset that they would dismiss your essay as just another attempt by the Right to get around the issue of “systemic racism.” Can’t they see that their frozen and racist mindset is ruinous to blacks, especially those in the inner cities?
As what’s-his-name would say, “Sad.”
Kent
Surely one can avoid the bigotry of lower expectations while being able to recognise that how we are treated in life is often a function of how we look rather than how we believe, that “race” can come into it and that it often involves more than salient personal criticism. Iow: can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time?
Insisting that it is “all the consequences of bad personal decisions (or even of minority cultures)” or that it is “all the consequences of dominant group racism” both seem muddle headed responses to me.
The best worker in my section is a 20-something black man. He is a soft spoken, well dressed college graduate with a strong work ethic. Granted it’s not a particularly glamorous job, but neither his age nor his race holds him back because he doesn’t allow them to. Whether he decided for himself or whether his parents guided him, I don’t know, but either way someone decided he was better than the stereotype, and he proved them right by making good decisions.
Yes, Zafar, but. . . .
What is your solution? Do you, for instance, want the government to step in and try to distribute their favors on the basis of shades of black, shades of brown, shades of grey, shades of gender? Perhaps favor Asians from Cambodia over those from Japan? Kids with red hair and freckles over those with even complexions.
I’ve brought your ideas to a reductio ad absurdum conclusion because, really, if you’re going to be “equitable” to blacks, it follows that you should be equitable to others who, for no fault of their own, are discriminated against daily. My suspicion is that short ugly girls are discriminated against far more than blacks. Do you want the government stepping in to sort that out?
Let’s keep all of that out and let the chips fall where they may and let us use our powers of discrimination wherever we want to.
Kent
I’m not sure we can avoid it. And I’m not sure, based on the evidence, that we (meaning human beings) are much good at walking and chewing gum either, but I don’t think anyone here at Ricochet or, indeed, most people in America are unaware of the history of racism in this country. I don’t believe most Americans are racist, and I don’t believe that racism is the primary reason for disproportionate dysfunction in poor black communities. To name the obvious, Asian Americans are also treated differently because of how they look, are also “marginalized,” “lack role models” and all the rest of it…and yet they are doing fine.
It’s not that it’s all the consequence of bad personal decisions. It is that—as Oprah or somebody like that would be sure to agree—your personal decisions are the only ones you get to make. Telling young people, especially, that their lives are going to suck until the inside of a bunch of other people’s heads have been scoured clean of bias is, essentially, telling them their lives are going to suck.
Donald Trump is the personal embodiment of this principle. He is white privilege to the nth degree, which is why he’s the best person for the job. He is held accountable for every little infraction, real or imagined. He is hemmed in on all sides by enemies, so he has to succeed or he will be impeached.
Arguably true – so how come when it comes to this issue so many of us feel comfortable telling racial (and other) minorities what they should think and feel about their experience instead of focusing on our own personal actions and decisions? Which, as you point out, are what we actually have the most control over.
I think it’s the human preference to be the subject rather than the object (grammatically speaking) – though of course we’re all both.
TRIGGER WARNING: USE OF THE WORD SLANT ON A POST REFERENCING ASIANS!!!
There will be play-doh and coloring books in the PIT for those who need them.
Fun Fact: The Ugliometer was first tested in a Harvard lab in 1973 and measured ugliness in units of paper sacks.
I don’t that much care how they think and feel – nor do I particularly care how racists think or feel.
It is what they do that matters.
So I, as a white guy, am privileged that people are permitted to call me dumb when I do dumb things. Then why are so many white people killing themselves with drugs? Is it the guilt?
[Wrong thread]
There’s a connection between thinking and doing. So if you truly care what they do, perhaps you should alsocare what they think (and why) as well? Two sides of the same coin.
I cannot deny the connection – and yet a racist, constrained by law and the opinion of his fellow man, may still treat those he thinks less than him scrupulously. So might a young minority, despite being assured that he can’t win, still strive for excellence for its own sake.
Moreover, both the racist and the loser-minded minority are innately entitled to their thoughts and beliefs and may well be unwilling to change.
That people can be hobbled by their own thoughts is certainly true. But self-interest is a strong motivator.
I agree (I think?) that legislating thoughts is crazy – but I was asking what we, so as people or individuals or community rather than as the state and its organs, should/can do – and why we so often tend to do one (relatively ineffective) thing rathan than another (relatively effective one).
Changing thoughts, especially our own, is something worth striving for – but it isn’t the proper realm of legislation. Everything we do doesn’t require legislation. Perhaps even the most important things we do, together, don’t require legislation?
Legislating behaviour can be a reasonable response (imho), but it’s a Sisyphean Task if thoughts and behaviour diverge at a basic level.
And I think it opens other people to changing their thoughts if we are open to changing our own. Easier said than done, but we change (and become better) together. Light calls to light and dark to dark?
Because thoughts laid bare are not always cogent. I think minorities have been the most affected by lack of vocational learning in school. If you know that thought, do you think I’m racist? I guarantee you someone does.
The only consequence of thought we care about is the action. It doesn’t matter if he killed a guy because of racism – it matters that he killed a guy. As an impersonal society, that’s how far it should go.
In personal relationships, by all means talk it out, but wrong words and bad phrasing is not how you should be judging people, which is what I see when we call little old ladies racist for commenting on what a nice colored fella so and so is.
In my denomination, there are extremely credible reports of black people being told by other black people that their thoughts, ideas, perceptions and suggestions are no longer acceptable. The victimization narrative Henry is talking about isn’t an organic, ground-up, “this is how the world looks to me.”
It is quite possible that individual white people don’t listen to the actual experiences of complex, nuanced, thinking, feeling human beings because they are black, but not only is that disinterest reciprocated black-to-white, blacks who would like to provide their own, alternative perspective get stomped.
In order to succeed in America, any member of a minority group must form relationships with the wider society and that means they must form relationships with white people. That’s simply a matter of demographics. The black activists have formed a relationship with white Americans, and it is a very lucrative and successful one for them. It is not, however, doing much to improve the lives of poor black Americans. The “up by your bootstraps” message has never been my favorite, but there is truth in it. Black Americans have always succeeded and are succeeding now not because they managed to berate the white people around them into giving up their Unconscious Bias, or conjured and then exploited pity, but because they did what any successful person does—worked hard, postponed gratification and seized opportunities where they found them, including those provided by imperfect but generally good-hearted white people.
Yes—exactly. We all want to be the subject. And the anti-racist activists keep insisting that black people (or women, or LGBT or whomever) are perpetually objects. They can be abused /exploited or rescued.
Responsibility and power go together. You can’t have one without the other. The “advantage” to being a white male in America is that you are held responsible…and this means you have power. Heck, I apparently have the power to heal a black person by changing my own racism—that’s what being responsible for privilege is! I have the power to give away all the money that I, as a white person, was unfairly given, and grant a black person a good life! Dang! I get to be downright Goddish!
Or I can—reprehensibly, but still Goddishly— walk away.
The black person, meanwhile, is not responsible, so she can’t heal herself and she can’t make her own money and live her own life. Oh, and she can’t walk away either.
Yeah. It’s not a good formula.
Sometimes I think it’s better to respond to what’s actually been said than to our fears and resentments – which can caricature or exaggerate a pov to ridiculousness. It’s true for minorities, and it’s true (imho) for you and for me. Would you agree?
Edit: I think it’s often useful to consider why we react the way we do. (And don’t.) What’s going on?
[huge snip for word limit purposes]
I’m much more comfortable changing other people’s thoughts than my own. :)
You’re quite right, changing minds is important. And some flexibility (at least) in one’s own mind helps make others’ minds more supple if they are willing or able to risk change.
Personally I find the seeking of common ground to be wearying. I tend to give too much away and feel frustrated when I don’t get reciprocal good will. That is the crux I think; good will. There ain’t much.