What White Privilege in America Looks Like

Written by: AnonScarlett

As the ongoing events America shows us, racial tensions haven’t disappeared like Houdini and Dr. Martin Luther King wasn’t a wizard. White America is smacked with that ugly reality every so often: the Rodney King beatings, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin’s death. White America recoils in horror not at the atrocious crimes. It’s not the teenagers gunned down, the police abuse, or the corrupt trials. No, at these sudden, raw moments, in these riots and demonstrations and perversions of justice, White America is forced to gaze upon the emotional turmoil of oppression. The anger, the fear and deep grief endemic to the black American experience in this country. Black America holds up a mirror and white America is terrified to look upon it’s reflection. The reflection of white privilege.

To acknowledge that white privilege exists is to admit a stake, however minuscule,  in the ongoing injustice. It’s to see admit the existence of a struggle ouside of your own little bubble of understanding. Ot means acknowledging that you and everyone in you racial class enjoys the social, economical, and emotional  benefits of systematic racism. It leads to hard questions of the conscience many white Americans aren’t prepared to consider.

Many white Americans just avoid the issue like the metaphorical “elephant in the room”, while others just deny it’s existence all together and dismiss it as a “myth”. They say white privilege is just a false liberal theory. An ideology designed to ignore the “real reasons” for failings in the black community. They blame it on government dependency, welfare, and food stamps. Some like congressman Paul Ryan just call it blacks being lazy with no desire to work or better themselves. These are just excuses used to mask the reality of that privilege. It’s easier to point the finger at the oppressed than to look at yourself as the oppressor, like when a rapist says, “She was just asking for it with that slutty dress on”. That’s called victim blaming.

The reality of it is that white privilege is very much alive in America and it’s existence cannot be denied anymore than it could be when W.E.B Du Bois wrote Black Reconstruction  in America in 1935. Studies show that white Americans are less likely to be arrested and jailed. People of colour only make up approximately 30% of the total U.S population, they make up roughly 60% of the U.S. prison population. This is mostly due to severe inequality in sentancing when it comes to nonviolent drug offenses, where people of color are jailed at higher rates, despite drug use in the white community is higher than in the black community. In a report published by the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have much higher rates of arrests.

White privilage is even prevalent in schools where black children face harsher disciplinary action and arrests at school.This just feeds the school-to-prison pipeline  which targets children of color, funnelling them into the criminal justice system early where according to a study published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation black children account for two fifths of comfined youth.”In Chicago, twenty-five young people were involved in [a] food fight in the cafeteria and instead of being punished by having to clean up the cafeteria, they were suspended from school and arrested,” says Judith Brown Dianis of The Advancement Project during her video Push Out: Let’s Return To Common Sense Discipline.

The black children that make it out of High School to go on to college still face the daunting reality of white privilege. As noted during a study done by Georgetown University : Since 1995, 82% of new white enrollments have gone to the 468 most selective colleges, while 72% of new Hispanic enrollment and 68% of new African-American enrollment have gone to the two-year open-access schools. More than 30% of African-Americans and Hispanics with a GPA higher than 3.5 go to community colleges as compared with 22% of whites with the same GPA. “The postsecondary system mimics and magnifies the racial and ethnic inequality in educational preparation it inherits from the K-12 system and then projects this inequality into the labor market,” the report says.

The unemployment rate among blacks is about double that among whites, as it has been for most of the past six decades. In 1954, the earliest year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has consistent unemployment data by race, the white rate averaged 5% and the black rate averaged 9.9%. In July 2013 the jobless rate among whites was 6.6%; among blacks, 12.6%. Over that time, the unemployment rate for blacks has averaged about 2.2 times that for whites. Getting a degree like most say doesn’t even help! An African-American male with an associate degree has the same chances of getting a job as a white male with a high school diploma according to a study conducted by Young Invinsibles . The discrimination is evident even amongst released felons. Following release from prison, wages grow at a 21%  slower rate for black former inmates compared to white ex-convicts. Back in 2012, an unemployed black woman made headlines for reporting that her resume on Monster.com began to receive interest from employers AFTER she changed her name and race. Only after Yolanda Spivey changed her name to the fictitious Bianca White, she received calls with job offers immediately. And not only that, they were for better jobs. “More shocking was that some employers, mostly Caucasian-sounding women, were calling Bianca more than once, desperate to get an interview with her,” Spivey wrote. “All along, my real Monster.com account was open and active; but, despite having the same background as Bianca, I received no phone calls. Two jobs actually did email me and Bianca at the same time. But they were commission only sales positions. Potential positions offering a competitive salary and benefits all went to Bianca.”

White privilege even means you’re less susceptible to homelessness. Although Congress made housing discrimination illegal decades ago, the insidious problem persists. The National Fair Housing Alliance reports that as many as 4 MILLION African-Americans experience housing discrimination each year. This is likely due in part to the fact that blacks are more likely to be perceived as “angry” or criminal than whites.

The privileges that come with white skin are abundant regardless of if you are aware of them or not. Be thankful that clerks do not follow your children around the store, presuming they might steal something. That normal kid stuff — tantrums, running, shouting – these are chalked up to being children and not emotionally or intellectually challenged. Be thankful that if you have more than one child people do not assume that you dream to be a welfare queen through scheming to cheat the welfare system.

Relish in the fact that when you wrap you child up on your back, no one thinks you’re going native , or that you must be from somewhere else. That when your sons are teenagers you will not need to worry about them leaving the house to become the next Martin or Brown. That if their car breaks down, there is no need to be afraid the people they ask for help will call the police, who will shoot them. People won’t mistake a toy pistol for a real one and gun you down in the local Wal-Mart. In fact, if you so desire, you will are able to carry firearms openly. Perhaps in Chipotle or Target.

People will assume you are intelligent. No one will say you’re “well-spoken” when you break out SAT words. Women will not cross the street when they see you, nor will they clutch their purses tighter or lock their car doors as you pass.You’ll never be mistaken for stealing your own cars, or entering your own houses.

No one will stop and frisk you because you look suspicious.

You may not have asked for the privilege that comes with a lack of melanin, but you can’t deny it’s existence just like you can’t deny your reflection when you look in the mirror each day. Be greatful, but not ignorant. With great privilege comes great responsibility. White privilege means that if you don’t school yourself, your children about it, if you don’t insist on its reality and call out oppression, your children may become something terrifying.

Your sons and daughters may become the shooters, the profilers, the sterotypers.

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Sources:

http://politicalblindspot.com/heres-what-white-privilege-in-america-looks-like-images/