White Priviledge, in short, is the problem

[DixieBelle]

My liberal friend forwarded this to me. I haven't had time to look up the google videos and links on this guy yet. I apologize for basically posting email spam but this was too rich to pass up.

Anyway, this is why she's voting for Obama. Oh my God.

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Presidential Elections   
   
                                                                               By Tim Wise                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                         For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly 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 "****in’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you,      you'll "kick their ****in' 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 be 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 believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.                                                                             

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 was "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 policy20expertise beyond a class she took in college--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 all of a sudden 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 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 claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and       experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

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 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.                                       

                                                                                                                   

[DixieBelle]

Here's the fool in action - http://www.teambio.org/2008/05/13/tim-wise-on-white-privilege/

I'll have to view this in it's entirety later.

[Lord Undies]

Well then, thank God for White Privilege.  This read tries to make such a premise sound sinister.  I read "white privilege" as a hold on sanity while the nation swirls the toilet bowl.

Believe it or not, whomever wrote this piece is not as hysterical about "white" as he is about "privilege" in general.   

[Chris_]

Folks, the logical fallacies of False Dichotomy and Straw Man (and several others).

Let's give the author a hand for showing us how to bend, torture and mutilate logic and truth to make a predetermined point.

[DarkHalo]

I could make s similar laundry list of things that blacks consistently get away with because the left always make excuses for their actions. And if you dare to point out the hypocrisy of their actions you are shouted down as a racist.

[MrsSmith]

As most of the Palin family probably qualifies as Native American, this rant is probably somewhat off-base.   

[USA4ME]

The whole "white guilt" thing has never made sense to me.  What others have done in the past or even today based upon their like or dislike of a certain race is their problem, I certainly don't live my life worrying about things in which I never participated.

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