Explaining it better than I possibly could. The video in the Tweet is live:
#WhitePrivilege doesn’t mean you’ve never faced hardship or challenges. It just means that the hardship or challenges you faced were not related to your skin colour. @JohnAmaechi says it better than I ever could.pic.twitter.com/AClWAioNBe
— Matthew Hodson (@Matthew_Hodson) June 22, 2021
How many Tory MPs understand this?
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I was a teacher for 37 years and I came from a very underprivileged home.
I have taught a lot of kids from poor homes and many have done well both in exams and as human beings. Some had attitudes which frankly, stopped them from doing well in terms of school. Some of them tend to be those who claim that the presence of ethnic monotities held them back.
But the high debts incurred in higher education does deter a number of young people, not just those from poor homes.
The govt claim the continuig high numbers of applications is proof this is not so, but I do know a number who opted out for fear of debt.
I attended a school which had very few minorities in the area. More than 98% of the population is white. And there still was a culture of under performing boys. Exact words of my headmaster in the 1990s. He attributed it to a lack of confidence in language ability. Evidence being that boys stopped reading and were over taken in literacy by girls. This would then manifest in other areas of learning because language ability is fundamental.
Let me put it this way.
I agree with the symptoms of ‘privilege’ , it’s description. Absolutely.
But calling it ‘privilege’ does not sit well with me. I think that it is clumsy and potentially divisive.
Sometimes language fails us – and in this case it does so horrendously.
It is wealth that is the biggest problem at the moment – alongside racism. Wealth and inequality of wealth will I guarantee level down society for black and white alike to the point where the notion of white privilege will either be redundant or/and further promote divisiveness amongst the poor when we need them to work cohesively together to achieve a better and fairer life.
I don’t like the term but I have all the time in the world for the problem itself.
There you go.
PSR –
I don’t agree. I mean, I sorta DO agree – wealth is a problem, but the failure to recognise White Privilege for what it is is a bigger and more immediate problem.
Put it this way – say there’s equal division of wealth between me and my black neighbour. Say we both have nice cars (Mercedes or somesuch). We both pay the same in tax and drive our nice cars down the same roads. Thing is, I make it to my destination before my black neighbour because he’s been stopped 3 times on the way by the police, who are wondering where he got such a nice motor from…
THAT’s what White Privilege is. And I’m afraid I’m not OK with the term being denied or changed to fit in with what white culture wants to believe it should be. It’s never going to change unless we accept that we (white people) all need to be more aware of how big our comfort zone is. And it goes way beyond division of wealth and assets.
I’m a white, middle aged, heterosexual man in a senior management position. I can hardly SEE the rest of the world from my ivory tower and it shocked me to my core when I started to realise all of the things that I took for granted. I don’t get followed by supermarket security. I can eat in any restaurant. I’m not afraid of the police or politicians. I can trust the NHS. I accept and expect that the machinery of society should be working FOR me, not to control or suppress me. I have full and unfettered access to all of society. I am white and I am massively privileged simply because of that accident of birth. We need to look at the entire system because currently it’s geared to support the interests of only one culture. The game is so rigged against anyone who isn’t like ME and that’s just so wrong. The game needs to change. Recognise that the gamepieces like wealth distribution (which desperately needs reviewing) are a separate question. Because until we do, we’re missing out on everything that people who aren’t like me can bring to the table and which would enrich everyone.
The argument about who gets access to how much wealth is a good one and definitely needs to be had – but most black people aren’t sat at the table where that argument is being made. Hell, most of them aren’t even allowed in the room where the table is.
Black Lives Matter.
Well said
I’m sorry but you are not reading what I wrote.
You are justifying the mechanics of ‘white privilege’ when I was just questioning the name or label that this awful phenomenon has been given.
I look at this from another angle and how it relates to the language. I’m white working class, and I’ve seen policing in this country and how it differs between well heeled areas and the communities where I’ve lived. I’ve noticed which areas get better services – street cleaning and police protection – for example – and much of it is I think wealth based behaviour by these services, also not helped by a lack of representation – although looking at the amount of BME councillors in cities I’m still aghast at the poor levels of service low income, multi ethnic areas get.
The label ‘white privilege’ is I think an intellectual dead end. You seem to be advocating something that can be quite easily denied.
Why? Well, look at wealth accumulation and race. Look at the plethora of BME millionaires around the world in India and China and well heeled BME members of the Tory Government. So what of ‘white privilege’ then? If white privilege exists how come members of the BME community seem to be able to ‘make it’? The phenomenon of BME wealth makes white privilege deniable and look weak by sectors of society.
How many BME or just Afro-Caribbean people get confronted by the police in say Peckham Rye in London as opposed to say Richmond in London – a much more affluent area? Police harrassment of BME is much more complicated than just being explained by white ‘privilege’. Racism is also a phenomenon of ‘place’. Or even being out of place.
‘White privilege’ as a label you say is bona fide because the victims are calling it out. It is the victims choice of use. Ok – but can victims be wrong? Not in their exposition of it, but in their labelling of it?
To me it is simple. Racism – red and raw – is STILL the problem – predicated not on privilege (a right to do it) but a feeling in white people of superiority because they are denied the real history of why BME communities came to be in our country (white people brought them here mostly as slaves, chattels, on the basis that slaves were not seen as human beings – they were seen as beasts of burden weren’t they – no better than cattle? Disgusting.).
If we are truly to confront racism, we cannot have easily repudiated labels like ‘white privilege’ in this society, the way it is going. It is an example of how silly identity politics can get and how easily it can get picked off by those who do not like to acknowledge racism in the first place. And it also risks alienating white people who empathise with these valid victim perspectives.
The real threat to us all at the moment is from wealth and its behaviour. Being wealthy in actual fact makes people – especially wealthy people – colour blind because wealth is a social equaliser amongst the wealthy – you can be any colour or ethnicity you like as long as your wad is big enough. Wealth – whether BAME, white, Russian, criminal – its the privilege of wealth that needs to be hobbled. And wealth has been and still is accumulated through exploitation of racist behaviour.
And markets behave much the same. They couldn’t give a damn who you are as long as you’ve got the cash to play. BME or criminals – it’s just money to them.
The other issue I have with the term ‘white privilege’ is that I see privilege as something that is conferred upon me with my consent or go along with. And this is not the case for me, and I know other whites who have empathy for the lives of BAME will not be not comfortable with it. So, victims of racism are telling me I’m privileged. Well, I understand their position but being conferred as such says nothing to me about my personal hatred and rejection of racism throughout my life. I have not directed or given any consent to any policeman or politician to harass a member of my community based on their colour. I’m not going to have my personal rejection of racism and the need to confront it negated by some rather tenuous blanket description.
So, this blanket description of ‘white privilege’ is one I reject, yet I’m expected to accept it. The answer is ‘No’. I have simply not consented to it. Although I recognise the mechanics of it (which to me is just classic racism) , ‘white privilege’ is not a label I recognise or approve of.
Plain and simple racism is the problem and it is the increasing gap in inequality that it the biggest threat to increasing racism in our society. That is not driven by a woolly label like ‘white privilege’s that to me creates diversion away from racism itself.
Racism is driven by the the privilege of ‘wealth’ first and foremost. In the future, if wealth has its way, whether you are black or white, what will matter is your wealth and assets. White people in particular need to know that they will increasingly know what it is like to be BAME as their wealth is taken from them as their professions and income are taken and their needs are not met. That is the chance to unitetehat is where we are going and that is where we can be united. Wealth disparity will be the new racism in the future. Black and white alike need to realise because money is about power. If you are not wealthy in the future, black and white will be treated the same – as slaves, expendable and also as a burden that will be shrugged off when wealth has no future use for us.
There you go. It is wealth – whether BAME or white that we need to watch out for – not the inappropriate and divisive use of the language of identity politics.
So, we agree to disagree on this one.
PSR,
I’m finding it a little odd how much of the response to ‘white privilege’ seems to so fixate on the word ‘privilege’. I understand you were also engaging with the subject and meaning of the term, but there is a whole argument going on online about the semantics of the term and how the word ‘privilege’ is “offensive” or “divisive” or “confusing” – and that discussion is happening in place of one focused on the actual issue. I find myself very often agreeing with your posts on this blog (strongly agreeing in fact!), so it is little odd to me that you also have this issue with the term.
Looking up ‘privilege’ in the dictionary, it means: “having special rights, advantages, or immunities,” which seems perfectly correct to me.
I experience the privilege of my whiteness every day. It is combined with my privilege as a man and as decently-educated (state school), middle class (my dad’s family are working class), not poor (but far from wealthy). None of which is say my life has been easy or without hardship. But I have never had to receive the stares that non-white friends receive in more white areas of the country or when a (male) waiter in a bar talks only to me as if to suggest I was ‘in charge’ of a group because I was the only member who was white and male. I get to walk around the city at any time I want: that is male privilege. I get to apply for jobs without worrying whether or not I should include my name: that is white privilege.
These are advantages and immunities, so they are privilege.
C N Horton
Thank you for engaging.
My view is that language is a powerful thing. And it needs to be used with caution.
Please forgive my directness here as I am trying to keep the writing succinct.
I am white, from a working class background. But I have NEVER felt privileged. Ever. As I’ve entered the world of the middle class professional – I still feel the same. It’s been a struggle – and our class system still lives on believe you me.
I do not feel privileged now even because for some time I have had my working life and private life affected by all sorts of assaults by Neo-liberal Governments – on my pension, my wages, income, my country, the way my kids are educated and cared for by a faulty health system, the way I’m cared for by it, the cost of living, the results of privatisations, my rights as citizen and a consumer etc., my ability to give my kids a good start. People who went to public schools and from affluent families are doing better than me. I see it everyday.
I accept that I am in a better position than many and there but for the grace of God go I. So yeah, if I feel ‘not privileged’ – well, what must those less fortunate than me feel about their lives? Those white people living hand to mouth, on zero hours contracts, Universal Credit, chaotic lives, failed services, destroyed communities? Those who have been lied to and still lied to about Europe, immigration, national debt – rendered hopeless and hating their neighbours by modern politics?
So you’re going to tell me that a bunch of people who have felt even less privileged than me are going listen to someone coming along and telling them they’re ‘privileged’ because they’re white? Oh please?!! Really?!! Are you serious? I mean really? Open your eyes!!
John Amaechi must be out of his mind to suggest this. The world does not work like he thinks it works.
His exposition is based on a proposition that reminds me of those useless ‘conceptual papers’ that get thrown up by Emerald or Google Scholar I came across in my post grad study that academics write on a Friday afternoon when they’re a bit bored or have nothing better to do and are totally useless to your thesis.
I spent 6 years in London working in the West of the City and I can tell you that I had ethnicities falling out with each other over resources. It was a lack of things that people fell out over that very soon took on a racial aspect – and I’m talking about BME – Asians, African nationalities – all moaning to me that one sector was getting something the others weren’t. And it was framed as racial by THEM – not me.
I acknowledge the lack of resources – money, services – all to do with poor wealth re-distribution and State withdrawal , but the racial aspect totally flummoxed me – I had not expected it. But there it was. And these people were lovely to work with and help and get things done. But the seething resentment in the background was created by a competition for resources that were in short supply – or rather deliberately made short by Governments who do not want to accept their responsibilities or who pretend they are constrained.
Anthropologists I read tell me that race is not a biological fact but a cultural one. In our cultures in this country, they are DOMINATED by poverty or a lack of things that can soon turn nasty and racial.
I will put it across from a quote from the film ‘Mississippi Burning’. Reminiscing to his boss about his hard Southern upbringing during an investigation into the murder of some civil rights workers, Gene Hackman’s character muses on the cruelty of his own father towards Afro-American people in his community:
“My old man was so full of hate that he did not
realise that it was being poor that was killing him.”
Those ethnic minorities I worked with in London were behaving not dissimilarly to each other. Hence my instance that it is combatting poverty and wealth accrual are important drivers of racism.
My advice about ‘white privilege’ is not to go there. We do not need another (pardon me) fucking ‘Friday afternoon, nothing better to do with my time’ definition of racism – especially one that is going to piss off and alienate people who are suffering too. They just will not get it. It will be divisive. If ‘white privilege’ is the evolution of the definition of racism then it is an evolutionary dead end. The Alt Right are going to have so much fun with this if it goes mainstream.
I’ll tell you what privilege in the modern age is right (with apologies to Beveridge):
Privilege is having enough money.
Privilege is about living without fear of not having enough or losing something.
Privilege is about having enough status with well funded services so that they treat you with respect and meet your needs (the police, social services, NHS – whatever who should be there to serve you – not treat you as a problem).
Privilege is about having the united political power to take on those who seek to deny us those privileges.
Only the rich seem to have these privileges at the moment – whether they are white, BAME criminal or whatever. A lack of affluence in our market led society leads to a surfeit of prejudice for those of more meagre means.
BAME and whites whether they know it or not are all facing a world of less – less resources, less help, less caring, less support, less sharing, less money – we are BOUND together by what will be an increasingly shared experience. That is where the effort should go – into what unites us, our sufferings. Stuff like ‘white privilege’ will not get us there.
Less = more hate, more racism for those not in the top 5% of modern society. That is why instead of re-inventing racism, we need to concentrate on dealing with inequality. Dealing with that I’m sure will help us deal with racism as we know it.
Richard once put it rather plaintively but deeply in a post once that was so simple but so powerful: ‘Why can’t we have enough money that we need?’ (or something like that – it’s the gist of the question itself that resonates with me).
If we solve that problem, I believe racism itself can be solved without having to redefine it so clumsily, self-defeatingly and unnecessarily.
Thank you.
PSR
We disagree on this one
Richard
Great video. No doubt some MPs understand it and others do not. The Tories have been able to capitalize on social divisions with Brexit, but that one is done. They also know that Brexit is a disaster, so they are desperate to find leverage with more social division to bolster the parties fortunes. The point is to have us all arguing amongst ourselves, understanding is immaterial.
Like it.
White privilege is somewhat opposite to black prejudice, which so obviously exists all over.
But neither term uses race. Good! Because WE ARE ALL OF THE SAME RACE.
PSR,
Thank you for what seems like a well-thought and fully-felt response. There is plenty I was nodding along with, despite disagreeing with your conclusion. Your concerns about the term seem to be on the money, even if I think it is being wilfully misused by many who know better. Ideally, this misuse wouldn’t be so easy – as you say, language has power, IS power in many ways. But, although what you say about wealth and class is undeniably true, I don’t think it invalidates white privilege as concept or reality.
There is a good piece on the LRB blog that may be of interest to you (and others). A line that stood out: “The problem is therefore not that poor white children are being taught that they’re privileged along the axis of race, it’s that they and others are not being told they’re oppressed along the axis of class.” (It’s a fancy version, I suppose, of your Gene Hackman quote!)
The full link is here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2021/june/strong-britain-great-nation
All the best.