One is that the people describing privilege often ignore, sometimes to a ridiculous degree, how difficult it can be for a person to understand the advantages they experience without taking into consideration that the people to whom they are speaking are bombarded with images of people who are more privileged than they, and that THAT privilege is highly visible and quite difficult to see around. The impatience many would-be educators have with this is reprehensible, if they really want to explain privilege–they need to be willing to sacrifice some of their self-indulgent superiority and be more compassionate to the suffering these people DO experience. Often you might be explaining privilege to someone who can’t afford health insurance, for instance, and is sitting around terrified because they know perfectly well that they are experiencing symptoms of cancer. I get that someone can have cancer and privilege at the same time, but which issue of privilege do you think is going to loom larger in their mind–the lack of privilege that subjects them to poorer health care than someone who will probably not die of the same cancer, or the possession of privilege that gives them access to better health care so they can die in less pain than someone who can’t even afford to find out if they have cancer?

Another issue is that some of the people describing it simultaneously point out that it’s often invisible, then act indignant when other people say they don’t see it. See the problem? You said it was hard for them to see, then sighed because they haven’t got special trained eyes like you have. You just made them not want to listen to you. I see a lack of patience and sometimes a genuinely ugly sense of self-righteousness in some of the people explaining the concept. And many times when this is pointed out they complain about how tired they are of having to explain it, but always attribute this to the density of the people to whom they’re explaining and never to their inability to effectively communicate what is, essentially, a very simple concept.

And, I repeat, the impatience displayed by those who would like for the privileged to better understand the concept is counter-productive. The supercilious, I’ll just say SNOTTY, tone often employed by so-called socially conscious people blows my mind. If you think that people in the world have a responsibility to try to understand each other, and to show compassion and engage a sense of justice, exhibit those tendencies yourself, or you’re not very convincing. Then you’re part of the problem. You don’t work. You fail, in spite of your amazing vision and understanding, to be relevant to addressing the problem. Being correct doesn’t make you righteous.

And yes, I absolutely do see that privileged people benefit passively and often unknowingly from the effects of discrimination. That’s why I think it’s important for the people who want to talk about it to get the hell off their high horses and be real activists, people who care more about communicating the issue than about communicating their own intelligence. I’m frustrated with people storming around on the internet raging over how stupid other people are, and patting themselves (and other people who speak in the same terminology) on their backs for “getting it.”

That doesn’t make me racist, but it means I benefit from racism.

Let’s imagine a world in which there was no racism. In that world, you get go with a glance and a warning, and so do black people and darker skinned Latino/as

In what way is it a benefit to you, not to live in that world?

I don’t think it’s divisive or alienating to point that out, I think it’s essential.

So this talk about how Asian immigrants or Polish immigrants shows that racism doesn’t benefit many white people is just untrue. African and Caribbean blacks experience the same exact racism that American blacks do (maybe more sometimes because of their accents). However, the difference lies in the fact that, as someone mentioned earlier, the people who immigrate into the US are usually extremely hard-working, smart, plucky people. They are the top tier (in terms of abilities, not necessarily money). My own parents immigrated from Jamaica. They were extremely poor; however, they were smart and they worked hard. Now, I’m at the University of Pennsylvania. So to compare them to the African American community or any other immigrant as a whole in terms of success is just not fair to African Americans.

An extremely interesting fact is that though the children of black immigrants usually do better than the average African Amrican, the grandchildren of black immigrants do just the same. Why is that? Because the racism that they encounter in everyday life eventually combats any boost that they may have had from their family’s immigrant experience.

I think that what’s more accurate for a lot of white people in this country is they came here because some other country kicked them out (Irish, Poles, Jews), they experienced discrimination when they came to the States, and after a while they became “White”. When that happened, all the right doors suddenly opened and life was much better.

What hasn’t happened yet, that has stuck blacks in the “still discriminated against” category, is they have yet to become “White”. The Vietnamese who came here in the 70’s and had their fishing boats burned or sunk are now a lot whiter than the working class blacks who managed to get houses in working class neighborhoods in the 70’s and were never lynched, shot with fire hoses or had police dogs turned on them. The difference is that the Irish, Poles, Jews and now Vietnamese, Indians and others are “White”. Not pink-skinned-people, but suitably acceptable for neighbors, co-workers, marrying your daughter, and so on.

So it isn’t the case that “Bob’s Grandfather” never experienced discrimination, but for a large number of values of “Bob”, his grandfather definitely did. Bob Sr. was any number of ethnic slurs until the day he wasn’t, and then Bob Jr. got the job Bob Sr. never had a chance to get after going to the school Bob Sr. was never admitted to and married the daughter of Joe Sr. who probably thinks Bob’s entire family are a bunch of filthy micks[*], but it’s too politically incorrect to say that anymore, so he’s making the best of it and getting him a membership in the local country club with all the benefits of hanging out with other “white” people that come with it. And as a result, their first born male, Bob III, will have all the benefits of being “White” that neither Bob Sr. nor Bob Jr. ever had. The End.

It isn’t, I don’t think, that Bob III got where he did because Bob Jr and Bob Sr never experienced discrimination. It’s that today, in the current social environment, Bob III is “White” and LeRoy is still “Black”.

What I think creates this backlash isn’t denial-denial, like “Oh, those stupid white people, they got it so good”, it’s that the States have so many immigrants and children thereof, and so many immigrants, and children thereof, did experience discrimination up until the day it stopped. And when it stopped, it stopped, like someone turned off a switch. So the memories of Grandma and Grandpa talking about leaving the old country, only to come here and be treated like dirt, are still fresh in the collective memories of the 2 generations removed from the old country off-spring.

Whiteness is not necessarily, as Amp seems to be implying in his strip, about Bob Sr. and Bob Jr. getting the goodies. It’s about the general state that whoever is white this year gets the goodies. And that’s why I think white people freak over accusations of denial.
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[*] For reference, some of my ancestors were filthy micks.

William Stuntz, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has a great blog post today on the intersection of race, crime and punishment in the United States, specifically using comparison data regarding crime and punishment rate differentials between Whi…

You know, the last time I was at the mall someone started singing about needing a napkin. And a bunch of passers-by joined in. Including the mall security guy. Who was black.

So think about that.

O.O If you were actually there for that, you have my undying envy.

Case in point: back when I worked [at the mall] I routinely saw security guards breaking up groups of teens of colour “loitering” near the movie theater. They weren’t loitering, they were waiting for friends, but they were asked to scoot about - which usually sent them into our store, since it was right next door. Just last week I saw a bunch of primarily white teens (some Asian kids, and maybe one or two Chicanos) standing in a circle in the parking garage, enacting some kind of Fight Club moment, and the (white) security guard standing near the elevators didn’t say a thing to them.

You know, the last time I was at the mall someone started singing about needing a napkin. And a bunch of passers-by joined in. Including the mall security guy. Who was black.

So think about that.

Those who ignore history are doomed, etc., and if we only focus on what happened to Bob in the last panels, we miss the story of how he got many advantages due to past racism.

But addressing these things doesn’t preclude having a sense of historical continuity, and I’d posit that it’s vital to making these changes. Otherwise, people draw the conclusion that things are bad because disadvantaged people just suck at life and aren’t as industrious as the rest of us, because things are equal now (which they’re not, but that’s a book). And people aren’t at all excited about helping people who they think are like that.

This is a question of tactics — does emphasizing past racial injustices help us formulate policies, or rally support to policies, to help today’s disadvantaged? I would say that it does not. There’s a great deal of injustice in the world, much of it not based on race. If you want to fix injustice, you should concentrate on those — of whatever race and background — are treated the most unjustly. And there’s only a loose correlation between disadvantage and race.

As I see it, the real problem is how to fix broken schools and law enforcement in depressed urban areas. I don’t think a racial lens is helpful here — on the contrary, I think it’s divisive and alienating. Being poor and black in East Oakland is a grim experience for most — but being poor and white in East Oakland is little better.

You think it is a majority, based on your anecdotal experience. And I can see that happening (what you describe). I think I’ve heard it in the pullover context as “dwb”. Though I wonder, was that mall in an area with a mostly white population and where those giving the benefit of the doubt also white? Or were you seeing security guards of color thinking toc were gang members? Not saying what that means one way or the other, just curious.

I should probably add that it’s not just my anecdotal experience. It’s mine, my mother’s, my brother’s, my friends’, my family’s, and the voices of tens of hundreds of thousands of people of colour across the country. (The internet is a great way to find them all - but anthologies containing similar stories are becoming quite popular also.) I know that “the plural of anecdote isn’t data” but I still think it says something that so many of us experience similar misfortunes.

As to the mall - the one in particular that I am thinking of used to be more white, but it’s since become the “bad” mall compared to another mall just five minutes away that has Bloomingdales, Sacks Fifth Ave, etc. as anchor stores. “Bad” meaning that there are increasing numbers of people of colour shopping there, and their presence seems to upset some white people, who now go to the other mall. Security, as I mentioned, but also store managers, most of whom are also white. The security guards of colour I have seen (few and far between, they are) seem to disregard teenagers regardless of colour as teenagers.

In case you’re wondering, I used to work at that mall, which is where I’m pulling my experiences from - actually talking to the guys with the walkie-talkies coming by our store to make sure everything was “all right,” which seemed to happen in proportion to the number of poc present.

Case in point: back when I worked there (couple years ago now) I routinely saw security guards breaking up groups of teens of colour “loitering” near the movie theater. They weren’t loitering, they were waiting for friends, but they were asked to scoot about - which usually sent them into our store, since it was right next door. Just last week I saw a bunch of primarily white teens (some Asian kids, and maybe one or two Chicanos) standing in a circle in the parking garage, enacting some kind of Fight Club moment, and the (white) security guard standing near the elevators didn’t say a thing to them.

Instead of Bob getting everything as you erroneously suggested and Tom (another WM) getting absoutely nothing, I think while Bob might get a pass on drugs, Tom may get a job, Jill may get a loan, Irina may get citizenship, Chris, Irina’s son may just get Irina’s hard earned American money… and perhaps, they get absolutely nothing else , but the one thing that they may have recieved may very well be life-changing, that one thing that they needed to get the opportunity to work hard, to show that they’re capable, and achieve great things through primarily their own doing. Therefore, Bob, Tom, Jill, Irina and Chris are understandably upset and insulted when anyone would suggest that they have privilege, because when most people hear “privilege” they think silver spoons, Rockefellers, and being coddled through every step in life and cushioned by a healthy trust fund… and what they know about their own lives doesn’t correspond with that at all, and seemed much more like having to prove themselves time and time again to a whole lot of other white people, some of whom may have treated them very unfairly because of religion, national origin, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, what have you. But no one’s trying to say that they were coddled and experienced no hardship (or even very little), or making an attempt to cheapen their struggle — I’m not, anyway. I personally gain encouragement from stories of others with their own loads to carry that succeed through hard work and dedication. But that doesn’t mean that that one opportunity doesn’t matter, or that minorities who have lacked these opportunities are categorically where they are because they just didn’t work hard enough like everyone else did.

And what empirical data do you base that conclusion on?

What empirical data do you have that racism only affects those on the margins?

Racism isn’t just about being hired for a job. It affects who gets more readily promoted among those who have jobs, and who gets treated with more suspicion among those who don’t, as well as the 99% of everyday life that isn’t spent looking for a new job.

The people who haven’t ever benefited or hurt by racism are those who have never had to compete with people of other races. In some areas of the country, this is a reasonable approximation.

I don’t deny racism exists and I really don’t expect an exact number, either, just a ballpark of what people think. Even majority / minority would be an interesting bit of data to know, at least in term’s of people’s thinking.

You think it is a majority, based on your anecdotal experience. And I can see that happening (what you describe). I think I’ve heard it in the pullover context as “dwb”. Though I wonder, was that mall in an area with a mostly white population and where those giving the benefit of the doubt also white? Or were you seeing security guards of color thinking toc were gang members? Not saying what that means one way or the other, just curious.

I don’t expect exact numbers. I don’t pretend to have any, though at the most, at the very maximum, I’d think that you could go, based on your numbers, 3/7th of the population of whites - and I think that is frankly too high.

I get that from the simple numbers - if 70% of the population is white, and if you assume (for the sake of argument) that it is a zero sum game for employment, etc (which it really isn’t, but let’s be really conservative here) then, for instance, at most, on a one for one basis, if every job was decided based on racist criteria, then there would only be as many whites who gaines jobs based on that as there are minority people who lost them - which would be 30% of the population out of the 70%. Still leaving those who benefit from racism in the minority. Of course, I don’t think the number is that high. But there you go, there’s the maximum number I’d think it would be. (And frankly I’d think it would be much less because it isn’t a zero sum game, number one, and number two, not everyone makes racist hiring decicions and so forth these days, and number three, there’s also affirmative action).

Your turn.

And for the record, I do think that most white people passively benefit from racism, even if it’s something little, like being afforded the benefit of the doubt where a person of colour probably would not be given the same. An easy example I can draw from my own life is from just people-watching - usually at the malls - security forces and shopkeepers are usually much more suspicious of groups of teens of colour than groups of white teens, and I’ve explicitly heard groups of toc referred to as “gangs” at least twice. A bunch of white kids out seeing a movie does not connote “gangs,” but a group of kids of colour do … think about that.

(*Take rogue waves for example. Mariners spoke of them for quite a long time before scientists finally managed to record one’s existence in 1995. What empirical data could not speak to, experience covered.)