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 judg e 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 thems elves
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 w hose 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 re sult 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 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.