Understanding White Privelage from a white woman's perspective

Before we can understand White Privelage, we have to first understand what we mean by privelage. By privelage, in the context of racial justice, we mean the automatic benefits we receive based on the color of our skin. (Consequently, "racism" would be its opposite, both on a personal and institutional level). Therefore one causes the other. Privelage also inherently means that you don't have to think about it. And really, truth be told, do white people have to talk about racism or white privelage? No, only if we want to. That, in and of itself, is a privelage.

Let's also talk about what white privelage is NOT. I financially struggle. I am in the lower middle class. Did I have a privealged upbringing? In the economic sense, no, not at all. Did I benefit from white privelage? Yes. When we are talking racial justice and racism, we are going to talk about race. We are NOT going to get into discussions of classism. Do they intertwine? In some ways, of course. In the sense of there are a disproportionate number of people of color experiencing poverty and financial strain. That's how they intertwine.

All of us have mixed bags of privelage. One could not experience white privelage (because s/he is a person of color) but still experience the privelage of being male (ask Delma!). One could experience white privelage but not economic privelage (like me). If one can acknowledge the privelage a straight person has (this one should be really obvious) than why as a society can we not acknowlege white privelage?
And frankly, why not acknowledge it? Why is it that so many white people are resistant to this concept? I think for many, there is a sense of guilt or responsibility that comes along acknowledgment so some resist this.

However, it is not necessary to feel personally responsible for white privelage. The very fact that it is a privelage means that you didn't do anything in the first place to get it. That doesn't excuse us, though, from taking collective responsibility now that we know we have it.

So think about white privelage as...

do you ever walk into a restaurant and say "wow look at all the white people here!" (doesn't count if you have been to a racial justice training and are now aware of that fact!)

did you ever consider why Santa Claus isn't black?

Why we celebrate a holiday (Thanksgiving) with folklore that didn't even happen let alone in a happy "thankful" way? How come Native Americans don't celebrate thanksgiving if it was such a good thing that happened between everyone?

Did you ever walk down a toy aisle and look at the race of the majority (note i said the majority, not the token few)of the toy dolls?

How about why almost every Jesus statue has "American", western features (he's white, light brown hair, blue or brown eyes) even though we ALL KNOW AND AGREE FOR A FACT that Jesus lived in the Middle East and would not have looked like this.

My guess is that most white people, without study of racial justice, has not ever considered any of these questions and would answer no or start right now trying to find a way to say, "but..." There is no buts. White privelage means that the standard by which everyone and everything in our culture is measured is based on a white standard. That's considered the norm. Stop contesting that fact.

We cannot grow as a society, as humanity, until we recognize not only the wrongs that have happened but how we benefitted from those wrongs.

And then let's take collective responsibility to do something about it.

Inland GOP mailing depicts Obama's face on food stamp...

I thought this might be worth discussing....Tasha




By MICHELLE DeARMONDThe Press-Enterprise

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_buck16.3d67d4a.html
The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."


The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

The group's president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club's meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."


"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

An Inland Republican women's group sent out a newsletter showing this fake $10 "food stamp" with Barack Obama's face on it. She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.
"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."


She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"

Club Member Cries

Sheila Raines, an African-American member of the club, was the first person to complain to Fedele about the newsletter. Raines, of San Bernardino, said she has worked hard to try to convince other minorities to join the Republican Party and now she feels betrayed.

"This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."


The Obama campaign declined to comment. It's the campaign's policy to not address such attacks, said Gabriel Sanchez, a California spokesman for the campaign.

The newsletter prompted a rebuke from another African-American member of the organization, which is well recognized in the community for its philanthropy and efforts to register and turn out voters in the Rancho Cucamonga and Upland areas.

Acquanetta Warren, a Fontana councilwoman and member of the women's group, said the item is rude and requires a public apology.

"When I opened that up and saw it, I said, 'Why did they do this? It doesn't even reflect our principles and values,' " said Warren, who served as a Republican delegate to the national convention in September and is a regional vice chairwoman for the California Republican Party. "I know a lot of the ladies in that club and they're fantastic. They're volunteers. They really care -- some of them go to my church."


Warren forwarded an electronic version of the newsletter to the California Republican Party headquarters, where officials also were outraged Wednesday and denounced the illustration.
Hector Barajas, the party's press secretary, said the party chairman likely will have a conversation with Fedele, and Barajas will attend the statewide California Federation of Republican Women conference this weekend in Los Angeles to handle any news media there to cover the controversy.

Obama in Turban


The newsletter is not the first such episode Barajas has had to respond to this week. The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday posted an image it said was captured from the Sacramento County GOP Web site that showed Obama in a turban next to Osama bin Laden.
It said: "The difference between Osama and Obama is just a little B.S." The site also encouraged members to "Waterboard Barack Obama," a reference to a torture technique. The Sacramento County party took down the material Tuesday after being criticized.

Mark Kirk, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County GOP chairman, said he expects Chairman Gary Ovitt to also have a talk with Fedele and to attend the group's local meeting next week to discuss the issue with members, although the county GOP has no formal oversight role over the club. Kirk said these kinds of depictions hurt the party's ongoing efforts to reach out to minorities.

"It's very damaging and we're going to take steps to correct this," Kirk said. "Unfortunately, I don't know what you do to correct ignorance like this, but we will do what we can."
Assemblyman Bill Emmerson, R-Redlands, and state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, both criticized the illustration as inappropriate and irresponsible.

Dutton pointed out that his wife, a member of the club, is of Mexican heritage and has battled criticism that the Republican Party is not the party for minorities. The club's newsletter undercuts efforts to rise above racism, he said.

"Bias and racial comments and even suggestions are frankly what weakens us as a people. I think we as Americans need to rise above that," he said. Emmerson said he was extremely offended and sickened by the newsletter.


Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at Cal State Sacramento, said it's imperative that people speak out about these kinds of depictions no matter how small the organization. She praised Raines for doing so.

"It's a statement about what is civil discourse and can you get away with doing something under an organizational banner," she said. "You have to cut it out at the root and the root is often small organizations that are local and they then become larger."


Reach Michelle DeArmond at 951-368-9441

More from Tim Wise, Racial Justice Ally

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election
Created 09/13/2008 - 3:44pm
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Tim Wise
For those who still canʼt 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 "fuckinʼ redneck," like Bristol Palinʼs 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 donʼt all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means youʼre "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, itʼs 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 wasnʼt 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 sheʼs 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 youʼre 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--youʼre somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who donʼt 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 didnʼt 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 Godʼs punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think youʼre just a good church-going Christian, but if youʼre 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, youʼre 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 OʼReilly means youʼre 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 arenʼt sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, itʼs 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.

This is How Fascism Comes - By Tim Wise

I thought this was worth sharing with Delma. He in turn, that it was worth sharing with the blog readers. So here it is...

Tasha

This is How Fascism Comes:Reflections on the Cost of Silence

By Tim Wise
October 12, 2008

For those who have seen the ugliness and heard the vitriol emanating from the mouths of persons attending McCain/Palin rallies this past week--what with their demands to kill Barack Obama, slurs that he is a terrorist and a traitor, and paranoid delusions about his crypto-Muslim designs on America--please know this: This is how fascism comes to an ostensible democracy.

If it comes--and if those whose poisonous, unhinged verbiage has been so ubiquitous this week have any say over it, it surely will--this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants.

If fascism comes, it will spring from the soil of middle America, from people known as values voters but whose values are toxic, from simple folk whose simplicity, far from being admirable, is better labeled ignorance, from "all-American" types whose patriotism is a dagger pointed at the very heart of the national interest, for it so forsakes all the best principles upon which the republic was founded, choosing instead to elevate and ratify the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, and the intolerance that also marked our country's origins.

If fascism comes, it will be ushered in by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack, who, upon finishing his sixth beer and belching forth the stench of a mediocre life lived, will gladly announce its arrival, so long as it comes with a steady supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon and hot dogs on the grill, and giant foam hands with a "We're Number 1" finger, some Mardi Gras beads and a good titty bar.

If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said "grow good people," and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones.

If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.

If fascism comes it will be welcomed, lock stock and barrel by persons who pray at every meal to a God they visualize as white, whose son they also think was white, and who they believe is going to rapture them all into the sky upon the blowing of some heavenly trumpet, after which point all those who don't think as they think will be burned in an eternal lake of fire. Their vision and version of God is itself fascistic--to love a God who would do such a thing is to love an abusive, sadistic and evil deity after all--so it should come as little surprise that their conception of the state would be equally authoritarian or worse.

If fascism comes it will be at the behest of those who hold a contempt for what they call "book learnin," who prefer Presidents who mispronounce basic words because they make them feel smarter, and who are looking for nothing so much as a commander-in-chief with whom they would enjoy having a beer, or two, or twelve at some backyard barbecue.

If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity.

If fascism comes it will come wrapped in red,white and blue, carrying a crucifix and a shotgun, projecting its own sexual confusion and insecurity onto others, substituting volume for veracity and rage for reason, and landing on the New York Times best-seller list as a result.If fascism comes it will have a pajama party at Ann Coulter's house, pop pills with Rush Limbaugh, and go gay-bashing with Michael Savage, all in the same weekend. And it will refuse to learn another language or get a passport, because doing either of those would make one cosmopolitan--which is just another word for "faggot."

If fascism comes it will come because a lot of people who aren't like the folks I'm talking about here, won't stand up to the ones who are. Because we're too busy, don't want to make waves, don't want to lose friends, or alienate family. It will come, in other words, because those who know better are cowards, more concerned with getting along, making nice, and being liked than with telling the truth, calling out evil and saving their country.

If fascism comes it will come because of the silence, and thus, collaboration of those who think themselves good, and certainly superior to the knuckle-draggers they can see on YouTube at the McCain rallies, but who in the end are no better and in some ways worse than they: after all, at least fascists stand up for what they believe in. They are telling us, in no uncertain terms what kind of United States they want and are willing to fight for, and maybe even to kill for. But many "progressives," many liberals, many of the so-called enlightened are doing nothing at all.

If fascism comes it will come because those liberals thought voting for Barack Obama was all they needed to do; it will come because they allowed themselves to believe that politics is what a person does every four years, but not at work, and not in the neighborhood, and not at the dinner table. Meanwhile, know-nothings filled with hate, nurtured on racial and religious bigotry and who have overdosed on the kind of hypernationalism that has always proved fatal to those places foolish or craven enough to allow it a foothold, talk of their visions for America at every opportunity. They raise their kids on that sickness, they build churches whose very foundation is rooted in that cancerous rot, and they will think nothing of steamrolling those who get in their way.

So when, exactly, do we fight back? When do we say enough? When do we stand up to our relative or friend who sends us the e-mail about Obama being a Manchurian Candidate or al-Qaeda sympathizer, or the one about the decency of Midwestern flood victims as opposed to those stranded after Katrina, or about how God was punishing New Orleans because of its tolerance of homosexuality, and tell them what we think: namely, that they are a bunch of racist, heterosexist loons, whose friendship or familial connection we neither want nor intend to pursue unless they get help.When do we decide that we love our country and humanity too much to allow these people one more day of decent sleep, one more day of self-assured confidence in their craziness and the willingness of the rest of us to just take it?

When do we decide that every irrational, Jeezoid, racist thing that comes from their mouths will be attacked, will be rebutted, until they can no longer take for granted the ability to say any of it in mixed company without being called out?Why, in the face of the fascism they would surely introduce if given the chance, are we intent on being so nice? Why are we not more offended? Offended not merely at what such persons say about others--like Obama, or Latino immigrants, or whatever--but even about we who look like them? After all, their open exhortations of racism presuppose that they are speaking for us, and that this kind of brain-dead ventilation is something to which all white folks should aspire as though it were virtually the essence of enlightenment.

If fascism comes it will come because we did not see in their actions a sufficient threat, or because we allowed ourselves to believe that it couldn't come, that our institutions were too strong, our people too good, for that to happen.

If it comes it will come because we allowed ourselves to believe the rosy and optimistic version of America spun by Obama, without tempering that optimism with a clear-headed appraisal of the way that (sadly) a still huge number of Americans actually think: because we allowed the vehicle of our hopes to outrun the headlights of truth; because we convinced ourselves that we actually lived in the country of our aspirations, rather than the nation we have at present.


And if fascism doesn't come--if, rather, democracy does--it will come because good people said no. It will come because we saw in this moment the opportunity to demand the full measure of our humanity and to pour it forth upon the national soil. It will be because we understood that democracy isn't what you have, it's what you do. But if we are to issue that demand, if we are to stand straight and fulfill the potential we possess to do justice, we had best exercise the option quickly, for the opponents of justice are on the move. They are preparing to enter on the winds of our silence and indifference, and complacency. Let them find no quarter here.source:http://www.timwise.org/

Can one be Patriotic and a white ally?

So Delma raises some very thoughtful and interesting points about patriotism and people of color. In some sense I have always envied people of color because they did have a reason to not be patriotic. But me? Well, i'm white and was raised in a suburb--the pinnacle of the (white) American Dream. I am supposed to be patriotic. Really patriotic in fact. But i'm not. I remember hearing about Rev. Wright's sermons and wanting to shout my own "Yes!" and then looking around the room while everyone stared at me in disbelief. So why I am not patriotic?

I grew up learning the same stories about Columbus, Thanksgiving, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc. My sons today are also learning them. We were taught (as pointed out in Lies My Teacher Told Me) that whites built this country and were always good. I never heard anything that Columbus did was wrong. After all, we have a national holiday about him. But it was at the exclusion of his humanness, that is, both positive and negative choices he made, that racism was built into our cultural story. To make him, and all the rest, hereos--godlike--only puts us in a pickle when we look at our history. For now, we can't look back on history and learn from it, we have to look back on history and justify it. Now we get defensive about comments like those of Rev. Wright's.
We as white people need to actually study and listen to the experience's of those around us.

Indeed, today when anyone points out the oppression and suffering of marginalized people (both past and present), which are disproportionately people of color (think Darfur, Palestine, Americans in poverty, the middle East, etc) it is met with either dismissiveness or indifference. Which puts people like me in another pickle. How can I defend, love, even sacrifice for--a country that does not even recognize its own atrocities? Without recognition we cannot change anything!

So can i be proud to be an American as a white ally? Only if destroying racism becomes our next priority. Imagine what our future will be when we learn from our past.
Peace
Joyce McCauley-Benner

Where did Democracy Go!?!? Better Question: When was it ever here (for people of color and the poor)?

Patriotism is a funny concept to me. I have both ancestors and friends who have / are fighting in the US military. I have a friend (who's blog is a very interesting read) who is doing his second tour in Iraq right now. I had a grandfather who fought in WWII. I was young when he died, but i remember his funeral having a military style to it. Patriotism is often connected to the concept of sacrifice. Patriotism requires us to be willing to lay down our very lives if needed, for land that will thus be passed on to future generations. Patriotism appeals to the idea that you give back to the land that has given so much to you. Patriotism also calls us to honor the sacrifices of those who have came before us, so that we may be here today.

All of that makes perfect sense to me. The only problem I have is that...Im Black...and...what the history of this country means to me, will look very different from what this country might look like to someone else. White America has often asked me to look the other way with regard to this nations history. Even in the face of widespread jim crow policy in contemporary America (look at voter fraud and its disproportionate impact on communities of color, jena 6, ). I watched a film last night called Uncounted (please watch it). The film talked about the voter fraud in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in '04. I knew it was bad, but i had no idea it was that bad.

The film did a wonderful job of explaining why communities of color are easy targets for voter fraud. These communities overwhelmingly vote democratic, and are easily identified (by color). They are the least able to retaliate based on economic resources. And, there is a lack of understanding around the process for contesting fraud. Its a no brainer. Remember, this is not a history report, this is a contemporary commentary on the USA. There was an appeal by the movie makers to encourage all Americans to fight for the right to a paper ballot system as opposed to the e-vote machines. The machines offer no paper trail and therefore cannot be audited. A banking institution would never allow this with an ATM, so why would the electoral process allow this with VOTING of all things (mind you, Diebolt makes both the e-voting machines and a vast number of America's ATM's)

What I found interesting about the film was recorded by me last night:

It's interesting to me that everyone involved with the film, can in one hand acknowledge the perils around the African American vote, and in the same breath, talk about defending democracy by returning the right to vote back to...what? Whites? If African Americans have been disenfranchised for over 2oo years, when did real democracy in this country EVER exist. Women, Asians, the poor, Latinos, and Blacks have ALL had their right to vote stripped, challenged, or modified by the power structure (which is not composed of any of these in the aforementioned groups).

After the film there was a discussion and the only other brotha there made the same point i did: My America doesnt look like your America. It cant. White America often does not understand this (but...they do. Why do you think whites are often more apt to question the patriotism of a person of color? Is it because they "know" deep down inside that people of color have been given various reasons NOT to be patriotic?). The idea of voter fraud being the greatest threat to democracy based on the loss of paper ballots, misses the bigger picture. The loss of democracy happened a long time ago. It started when the Native Americans were betrayed and massacred for the land THEY owned. It continued with the institution of slavery. Democracy was destroyed when the US government decided to inflict a takeover of Mexican territory. Democracy is not under attack in America. America IS democracy under attack. However, until enough white Americas feels the pinch of their own illusions, significant change will be seen as undesirable.

Welcome to the land ex clusion and delusion...land of the free whites and home of the brave slaves