QOTD
There are a number of things about Senator Jim Webb’s op-ed “The Myth of White Privilege” to dislike, starting with the fact that one of the awesome things about the existence of white privilege is that you can be part of a body like the U.S. Senate, which has a total number of zero elected black members, and write something titled “The Myth of White Privilege” without anyone batting an eyelash.
Webb’s a moron, and articles like this are exactly why constructive arguments on affirmative action and the role race plays in socio-economic outcomes never occur.
I hadn’t known of that Princeton study Serwer referenced until I read his article.
That is the hardest part of this issue for me: Getting my head around the degree that blacks, on aggregate, are discriminated against.
I have never been a dazzling urbanite, but I have lived in a variety of locations, none of them anywhere near the upper crust of society. The crowds I ran with and worked with had people of all sorts, and while I have never been anywhere that wasn’t pretty racially conscious, there was a general commonality in spite of race. When I was in school and now when I have the misfortune of associating with a more professional class of people, I do not see race playing major roles between people.
This experience makes it hard for me to even fathom racism. It is even harder to understand what it would be like to be effected directly by racism.
There are a great deal of people who are like me: they have never been a position to actually understand it, and as such they are very likely to discount it. Even if these people were to acknowledge it, they would be very hard pressed to come up with a legal solution or support it.
Then there are those like Webb who haven’t experienced it, are predisposed to believe it is not a big problem, and then try and throw out ad hoc rationalizations for the dismissal of racism.
The reason that you do not fathom racism is because, like most white people, it is invisible to you. Even when it is all around you, you fail to see it because it does not happen to you and may even engage in it without even being aware of the fact. This is not a personal attack, as this applies to most whites in America and this invisibility of racism is at the heart of white privilege.
We live in a highly racialized society and it is virtually impossible for us not to think in racial terms (despite the fact that humans do not actually have biological races). Race is one of the first things we notice when we meet someone and it conditions our expectations of that person (this is true for everyone, of all races, in the US).
We are also immersed in an ocean of racist imagery, stereotypes, memes, tropes, and ideas of which we are largely unconscious, but which which profoundly affect how we perceive the world and the people around us. This institutional racism is the hardest to root out, in part because it infects so many people who do not think that they are racist and have no intent of being so.
I agree with you completely, but it is something that just doesn’t make sense to me.
White privilege exists and race skews outcomes to a startling degree in our society.
On a side note, I would like to see a study like this that also controlled for the race of the employer as well.
I think another factor is that many of us operate in an environment where we don’t see open racism on a daily basis. I know I am always taken aback when I meet someone who openly expresses a racist attitude, or uses a racist term. But I work in academia, my wife and I attend a liberal (multi-racial) church, hang out with friends who are on the left, etc. So when I come across someone who casually tosses out a phrase like “Jew them down” (which I’ve heard) or “N***er-rig” (for jury-rig) it’s a shock to 1) hear it expressed openly and 2) realize that the person who used the offending phrase comes from an environment where such things are casually accepted….
While it is not a common experience for me today as my life circumstances are similar to yours, I am intimately familiar with overt racism as I grew up in Oklahoma in the 50s and 60s, during the heyday of Jim Crow and segregation (even attended segregated schools for a couple of years). Even in the late 80s when I left the state, the N-word was still common among working class and poor whites.
It’s not only overt racism but also the cumulative effect of what appear to be the hassles and inconveniences of everyday living. For example, when I dated an African-American woman, we regularly received poor or delinquent service at more expensive restaurants. The first few times, I thought it was just bad luck and my friend was getting angry for no reason but it kept continuing. After we broke up (for other reasons), I did not experience the regular occurrence of such service.
My analogy would be left-handedness, as right-handed people are completely clueless that everything is designed for their convenience, while left-handed people are forced to confront their incompatiblity with man-made objects several times a day !
Individual minority (racial and lefties) persons will express differing levels of frustration but minorities are constantly made aware that they don’t “fit in”.
My first wife was Native American and we experienced much the same. It was an eye opening experience for a nice middle class white boy.
It is even harder to understand what it would be like to be effected directly by racism.
Is white privilege supposed to be direct? Especially in 2010?
My family is working-class white. My father is a union carpenter. My grandfathers were both in unions, too: one made boxes and the other was an interior painter. Several of my aunts and uncles are teachers.
Do my grandfathers get into the unions if they’re black? Probably to some extent relies on time and place, bu most likely not. Does my father get into the union if his father doesn’t know people? Can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t hurt. Do my aunts and uncles, coming out of public schools in the early to mid sixties, get into college if they’re black? The odds wouldn’t have been in their favor.
That doesn’t even count iniquities in primary and secondary education, the law, the application of justice, etc., that black people faced continuously until only about 50 years ago–and that’s if we take an uncynical view that the Civil Rights Act fixed it all.
The privileges I have as a white person in 2010 aren’t granted to me because my employer doesn’t like black people. They’re a set of advantages built up over several generations of systematic discrimination that all white families benefited from whether they know it or not.
Everything you say is completely true and a major factor in the creation and maintenance of white privilege. Unfortunately, there is still very much an active element involved, even in 2010. This is clearly reflected in a wide variety of statistics (including incarceration rates and sentencing pattens, for instance) and the ongoing evidence for discrimination in housing and in hiring. There have also been a number of reports in the past year about loan originators deliberately steering minorities into more expensive subprime loans.
I don’t think this point is entirely fair to him. He does acknowledge the effects of racism and the long history and legacy of institutionalized racism.
Having said that, I agree with most of the rest of what you wrote.
He does acknowledge the effects of racism and the long history and legacy of institutionalized racism.
And then proceeds as though those effects and that legacy have no effect today.
True enough. As I said, I agree with the rest of Brad Potts’s comment.
I’m not one to normally defend Webb-I think he’s a fucked up fascist, to put it bluntly. John Cole’s blog post at BJ does a good job of providing a *slightly* alternative take
Here’s the link.
Jews are different from Scotsmen who are different from Poles. Do we really need more diversity than that?
Fuck, he’s still about 100 years more enlightened than George Macaca Allen. Fuck.
Webb is one of my Senators and his form letters in answer to my war protests are hopeless; still saying we need to fight the el quedras over there so they don’t come here. You’d never think he experienced an actual bogus war.
Wasn’t Webb supposed to be one of those “better Democrats” not so very long ago?
Funny how that happens…
Well, actually, I thought it was always “better than George Allen,” which is admittedly a low bar to clear. Webb is more of a “better” Republican, in the sense of not being completely batshit insane, and agreeing with his adopted party on a fair number of things (e.g., he wasn’t grandstanding and voting with Republicans to block unemployment insurance extensions). So no, I don’t think that he was automatically classified as a “better Democrat” just because the Kosians backed him.
Well, actually, I thought it was always “better than George Allen,” which is admittedly a low bar to clear.
I could be wrong, but I think it went a little further than that for a lot of left-leaning blogs at the time, mds. Webb had publicly suggested that the permanent occupation of Iraq might not be the most awesome thing ever, which automatically made him “better” (or so the thinking seemed to go), and his military background supposedly made him immune to Rovian ratfucking. A lot of folks were strangely enthusiastic about a guy who has turned out to be, as you say, basically an old-school Republican.
That’s my recollection, anyway.