In case anyone thought racism in America was dead . . . (1 Viewer)

Alisa

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It is been far too quiet around here. Let's talk about this:

This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise 9/13/08

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while if you're black and believe in reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school, requires it), you are a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn't fit to safeguard American institutions.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto is "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and the fact that she lives close to Russia--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because suddenly your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP, while if you're a black candidate for president and you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're irresponsibly exploiting them.

White privilege is being able to give a 36 minute speech in which you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for being too vague about what he would do if elected.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school, then to Yale and then Harvard Business school, and yet, still be seen as just an average guy (George W. Bush) while being black, going to a prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and then to Harvard Law, makes you "uppity," and a snob who probably looks down on regular folks.

White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.) and that's OK, and you're cut out to be president, but if you're black and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be trusted to make good decisions in office.

White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and married for nearly twenty years to the same woman, your family is viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called "terrorist fist bumps."

White privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction, having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong, while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still get high, and even ask whether or not you ever sold drugs.

White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them, makes you "dangerously naive and immature."

White privilege is being able to say that you hate "gooks" and "will always hate them," and yet, you aren't a racist because, ya know, you were a POW so you're entitled to your hatred, while being black and insisting that black anger about racism is understandable, given the history of your country, makes you a dangerous bigot.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among the "lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin explained in her convention speech.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because a lot of white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.
 

pbaldy

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Personally I'd change the thread title to something like "Here's some things I think are wrong with the Republicans". To call this a discussion on racism is somewhat disingenuous.
 
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Gotta go with Paul on this. The writer clearly has an agenda, we are all intelligent here and can see straight through that agenda, and it really doesn't fly. A bitter person on the other side can say things just as mean spirited.
 

Alisa

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It is not disingenuous to call this a piece on racism - racism is the ONLY thing that explains the wildly differing perception of Obama's history and actions vs. his counterparts' actions on the other ticket.

I would even add one more example:
The New Yorker published an exceptionally inflammatory image of the Obamas a few months ago. One of the most upsetting things about it was the portrayal of Michelle Obama with an assualt weapon in her hand.

In contrast, Sarah Palin has been featured in many magazines actually shooting a rifle.

Why is it that Michelle with a gun is a terrorist (let along the fact that she doesn't own or shoot guns in the first place), but Sarah Palin with a gun is all-American?

I will go ahead and answer my own rhetorical question: It is because Michelle is black and Sarah is white.
 

dkinley

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Personally I'd change the thread title to something like "Here's some things I think are wrong with the Republicans". To call this a discussion on racism is somewhat disingenuous.

lolol agreed. Hmm, I wonder where all this racism started? Let's see, I wonder if it was the Democrats?! :eek:

In the 1870s, white Democrats gradually returned to power in southern states, sometimes as a result of elections in which paramilitary groups intimidated opponents, attacking blacks or preventing them from voting. Gubernatorial elections were close and disputed in Louisiana for years, with extreme violence unleashed during the campaign. In 1877 a national compromise to gain southern support in the presidential election resulted in the last of the federal troops being withdrawn from the South. White Democrats had taken back power in every state followed, in each Southern state, by a white, Democratic Party Redeemer government that legislated Jim Crow laws segregating black people from the state's population.

Blacks were still elected to local offices in the 1880s, but the white Democrats were passing laws to make voter registration and elections more restrictive, with the result that participation by most blacks and many poor whites began to decrease. Starting with Mississippi in 1890, through 1910 the former Confederate states passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements. Grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate whites to vote. Voter turnout dropped drastically through the South as a result of such measures.

Denied the ability to vote, blacks and poor whites could not serve on juries or in local office. They could not influence the state legislatures, and, predictably, their interests were overlooked. While public schools had been established by Reconstruction legislatures, those for black children were consistently underfunded, even within the strained finances of the South. The decreasing price of cotton kept the agricultural economy at a low.

In some cases Progressive measures to reduce election fraud acted against black and poor white voters who were illiterate. While the separation of African Americans from the general population was becoming legalized and formalized in the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), it was also becoming customary. Even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people to participate, for instance, sports or recreation or church services, the laws shaped a segregated culture.

In the Jim Crow context, the presendential election of 1812 was steeply slanted against the interests of Black Americans. Most blacks were still in the South, where they had been effectively disfranchised, so they could not vote at all. Poll taxes and literacy requirements banned many Americans from voting, yet, said requirements had loopholes exempting White Americans from these paying the poll tax or knowing how to read. For example, in Oklahoma, anyone qualified to vote before 1866, or who is related to someone qualified to vote before 1866, was exempted from the literacy requirement; the only Americans who could vote before 1866 were, of course, White Americans, so White Americans were exempted from the literacy requirement, while all Black Americans were segregated by law.

Woodrow Wilson, a southern Democrat and the first southern-born president of the postwar period, appointed southerners to his cabinet. Some quickly began to press for segregated work places, although Washington, DC and federal offices had been integrated since after the Civil War. In 1913, for instance, the acting Secretary of the Treasury; was heard to express his consternation at black and white women working together in one government office: "I feel sure that this must go against the grain of the white women. Is there any reason why the white women should not have only white women working across from them on the machines?"

President Woodrow Wilston, a Southern Democrat, introduced segregation in Federal offices, despite much protest. Mr. Wilson appointed Southern politicians who were segregationists, because of his sincere belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of Black Americans and White Americans alike. At Gettysburg on July 4, 1913, the semi-centennial of Abraham Lincoln's declaration that "all me are created equal", Wilson addressed the crowd: "How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as state after state has been added to this, our great family of free men!"

A Washington Bee editorial wondered if the "reunion" of 1913 was a reunion of those who fought for "the extinction of slavery" or a reunion of those who fought to "perpetuate slavery and who are now employing every artifice and argument known to deceit" to present emancipation as a failed venture.

One historian notes that the "Peace Jubilee" at which Wilson presided at Gettysburg in 1913 "was a Jim Crow reunion, and white supremacy might be said to have been the silent, invisible master of ceremonies.
 

Alisa

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dkinley, you bring this up in like every political discussion. While I appreciate the fact that you are interested in history, I am more concerned about eradicating racism in the present. Do you disagree that the current presidential election is exposing racism in America?
 

dkinley

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All of the above is left off the Democrat's website timeline.

It is amazing that the Democrats have tricked these descendants into thinking they are their party and they have their vote no matter what, even though it is still somewhat practiced today.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/3554.html

-dK
 

Alisa

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All of the above is left off the Democrat's website timeline.

It is amazing that the Democrats have tricked these descendants into thinking they are their party and they have their vote no matter what, even though it is still somewhat practiced today.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/3554.html

-dK

Because the republicans have the interests of minorities at heart???
Please:rolleyes:
 

dkinley

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dkinley, you bring this up in like every political discussion. While I appreciate the fact that you are interested in history, I am more concerned about eradicating racism in the present. Do you disagree that the current presidential election is exposing racism in America?

Even though Tim Wise is a learned individual and goes around speaking about racism, I disagree and state this particular article makes it political - to further divide the nation to slant the vote. You could have chose a different article that links to agreed up statistics via scientific method, but instead to raise this topic - you chose one that is anecdotal and a political commentary. That's what makes it political.

-dK
 

Alisa

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And yet another example:
Sarah Palin being blessed by "Witch Doctor" at her radical church:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4HIc-yfgM

Gets NO media play at all

vs. Obama who got called an anti-American extremist for months for belonging to a church with a preacher who is a well respected member of the intellectual community in Chicago.
 

Alisa

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Read the article .. http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/3554.html

You will see who has had who at heart.

-dK

The only "interests" the republicans have at heart are the interests of their wealthy donors. They could care less about the rest of us. But that is really not what I want to be discussing. I am more interested in the different perceptions of the candidates, which appear to be solely based on race. Interesting that you don't really have anything to say on that subject.
 

Alisa

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Even though Tim Wise is a learned individual and goes around speaking about racism, I disagree and state this particular article makes it political - to further divide the nation to slant the vote. You could have chose a different article that links to agreed up statistics via scientific method, but instead to raise this topic - you chose one that is anecdotal and a political commentary. That's what makes it political.

-dK

Of course it is political - it is the current election cycle that is bringing up this subject. Talking about racism is not what divides the nation - it is racism itself that does that.
 

dkinley

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dkinley, you bring this up in like every political discussion. While I appreciate the fact that you are interested in history, I am more concerned about eradicating racism in the present. Do you disagree that the current presidential election is exposing racism in America?

First, if it wasn't for maintaining history, we would still be in the stony ages relearning everything every day. We probably wouldn't have computers or electricity if history wasn't passed down. We refer to history to understand the present ... root-cause analysis and all of that good stuff. In a oversimplified statement, the root-cause seems pretty clear from a historical perspective and in a present statement I think one would need to trace this 'white priviledge'. Unfortunate as it may seem because it points to the Democrats, I would opinionate that it stems from the same source. If the young democrats in the past weren't taught at a young age for several generations over then it probably would not be there, be so widespread or be so bad.

Do I disagree that the current election exposes it? No, you can't act like it isn't always around, in fact I heard it pretty blatantly two gas pumps over this morning. Racism always becomes a bigger issue during an election. Thank the press and the candidates that make it a issue for the election.

-dK
 

Brianwarnock

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.... I disagree and state this particular article makes it political - .....
-dK

The fact that the article is produced for political reasons, doesn't, if the facts are correct, lesson the indication of the racial aspect of American life.

Brian

PS I know I know racism exists everywhere so don't go off on problems elsewhere stick to script.
 
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Because the republicans have the interests of minorities at heart???
Please:rolleyes:

I think you are under the mistaken impression that conservatives even care about race. You'll notice that the Republicans, including our current administration, have been much better about appointing blacks and other minorities to important posts. Just because the left doesn't like those people doesn't mean that they are not black. And I submit to you that it really isn't that important, liberals will spew hate at them because they are conservative, not because they are black.

In fact, I was reading an article yesterday that seemed to say that more Democrats (the party that sees beyond color...ha ha) will vote against Obama because of his perceived race (he was once half-white, not he's a black...his call) than Republicans will. Who are the racists?

I'm just voting against him because I think he's wrong for America at this time.
 

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