Why The Eradication of Both White Privilege and Racism Have To Be a Part of the Progressive/Liberal Agenda, Part I

And there's the rub.

In America, at least, in terms of political strategy, we have left wing politics and we have right wing politics. That, of course, is overly simplistic. It however, is not so overly simplistic as to significantly obscure the fundamental reality of current American political structure. There are what are observed by many as extremes on each of those poles, naturally. Yet even these extremes are not so dissimilar from the less extreme nor moderate expressions from which they are a part, to necessitate a completely different rubric being used or proposed.

Race is a completely made up construct, of course. There is no proven biologically based feasibility to the construct whatsoever. Many have attempted to discover such feasibility. Each, to date, has failed miserably. So why is there such cachet, so much gnashing of teeth, such vitriol and so much power attached to this construct if it is completely made up? The answer: The two principal artifacts of the invention of the construct of race are white privilege (or white supremacy to be more accurate) and racism. In stark and revealing contrast to the construct of race itself, these two artifacts are very real indeed. There is not one single person on the entire planet earth who has not been dramatically impacted and affected by both of these artifacts in some way, I don't believe. And every single one of the people with the greatest wealth and power on the planet has benefited enormously from them both. This is true even if they sincerely did not want to benefit from them and even if they are a person of color; which the vast majority clearly are not (see this). These people have simply achieved their accomplishments in spite of white privilege and racism, in such cases. You cannot ever convince me that there are not many blacks who have worked just as hard as Oprah Winfrey has. You just can't (if you take the time to meticulously peruse that list of the 400 richest people in America, you will notice Oprah is the only African American on the list. There are exactly zero African American men on it. That is not a coincidence. That is not an accident. It is by design!)

One thing that also needs to be kept in mind here is that there is no such thing as a truly self made man or woman on the face of the planet either. Every single person who has accomplished whatever has been accomplished in his or her life regardless of discipline or scope or arena has been achieved with the assistance of a virtual army of other largely unseen and unknown people.

The right wing in America, for the most part, makes little pretense about their engagement in cashing in on and exploiting the construct of race. The reigning poster child for this cashing in on and exploitation has to be none other than Herman Cain, Republican candidate for president in these United States of America. I see no irony in the fact that he is African American and has undoubtedly been on the receiving end of racism and that his "successes" have most certainly been curtailed by white privilege as well. Naturally, he seems to be very averse to admitting this, publicly at least. The only thing that is potentially tragic about Herman Cain would be some revelation that he sincerely believes he will get the Republican nomination. It would be very sad indeed if he ever believed such a thing. It would however provide quite a bit of fodder to those in America who deeply believe in the concept of karma. Lest there be any uncertainty, let me clear it up once and for all, Herman Cain is not going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2012 in these United (divided) States of America.

On the left, particularly in the so called progressive left, we have what appears at first glance to be a more complex and complicated situation. Don't be fooled. It is a ruse. True, many who are a part of the ruse may not really consciously know they are part of a ruse. Still, they are part of a ruse nonetheless. There are also people on the left who are actively not a part of the ruse. They are primarily certain breeds of anarchists and revolutionaries. The easiest way to expose those who participate in the ruse, consciously or otherwise, and who are white, is to gather a bunch of white progressive liberals in a room and present a proposition to them. It begins with a question: "How many of you are willing to completely dismantle your white privilege by surrendering and liquidating all of your financial assets, giving up your American way of life and going and living the rest of your lives in Liberia, West Africa?" Followed by the dissemination of the following additional information: "One way tickets have already been purchased for you. All you need to do is go to the back of the room where you will find lawyers and financial consultants who will assist you in the liquidation of all of your assets. When that process is completed, then you just need to come to front of the room and collect your one way plane tickets. Planes will be leaving in exactly two weeks. At that time you will need to do whatever is necessary in your personal lives to allow you to leave at the appointed time. Spouses, significant others and family members are of course welcome to join you. We have made provisions for that. Everything is being underwritten by a personal contribution by George Soros. In Liberia, of course, only people of Black African descent can become citizens and therefore own land. We have arranged with Liberian officials for you to live there indefinitely but without the benefit of citizenship." 

There would be people of African Descent and other people of color in the room whose role would be to simply sit back and see how many people make their way to the back of the room and then to the front. This ladies and gentlemen is an experiment that would likely end up significantly deconstructing the supposed deep differences between the American left wing and the American right wing when it comes to the artifacts of white privilege and racism and the role they play in each groups real lives.

Most white people are not willing to give up their white privilege even if they are very well educated about race theory, white privilege, the tyranny of left wing color blindness and such. I understand that. I get it. At the same time however, it is this reality which all non whites spend our entire lives intimately dealing with every single day. The hypothetical I presented above, is pointing that and a number of other things out. And it all still reflects a real problem for white progressive liberals in America because it is literally the big white elephant in the room for such progressive liberals in this country. Most have not discovered ways to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to being, in a very deep way, allies to people of color while simultaneously confronting their own white privilege and in some cases the addition of what we know as class privilege. I know many white progressive liberals who are smart, active, dedicated to change and with all kinds of other positive attributes who ultimately still get caught up in the white privilege web. All white people benefit from both white privilege and racism including white progressive liberals. At some point this has to be more than simply acknowledged though sincere acknowledgement is a very good starting point.

While doing research for this essay I inadvertently came across a blog by a Russian American young woman who is a self identified progressive liberal living in the USA. She is smart, highly educated, dedicated to social change, compassionate and a social justice activist. I landed on a post where she was discussing a piece by renowned anti-racist writer and lecturer, Tim Wise. The quote I will provide below illustrates very clearly to me and hopefully to you, the problem of the white progressive liberal in America today with regard to white privilege and race.

"I recently read an article by Tim Wise, who according to himself is “among the nation’s most prominent anti-racist educators.” 

The article starts with an assumption: “Whites generally have…white privilege” and that this privilege is “unearned.” 

He speaks of white people as if we all share the same culture, ignoring the differences of experience among immigrants and others who are white skinned but do not belong to the “dominant culture”. To make an example of myself: I felt alienated a lot in my young years as a result of having parents who did not partake in the american (especially materialistic) lifestyle. No, I wasn’t discriminated against for being from Russia per say, but (for years) my clothes did not fit in and the things the other kids did (go to the movies, mc’donalds, eating chinese food) I could not do and so those “dominant culture” kids kept away from me (resulting in perhaps depressed self esteem and poorer performance in school) It wasn’t an issue of poverty because we weren’t that poor. Doing these things was simply not a part of my parents culture. But Wise disregards such experiences or demotes them and I take issue with that. In any society where people of diverse backgrounds integrate, there will be a tug-of-war between this need to fit in and maintaining your own culture. This is normal and inevitable. It’s not a bad idea to mitigate the rifts somehow – but how?

So white children and wealthy children should be punished because of attributes they were born into/with? It reminds me of this moral dilemma story about the doctor with 5 sick patients who need different organs to survive, and one healthy man who comes to his office. Is killing this man and taking his organs to save the other patients justifiable? In the white/non-white student situation the consequences are even more muddy. Sacrificing one child for the sake of another doesn’t result in a 4x benefit...

...The reason that the presence of a non-white person in certain schools may be questioned is because affirmative action DOES rig the system! Very often standards WERE lowered to foster diversity." (emphasis is the original writers, not mine).

We have a lot of work to do. Please leave me a comment if you are unable to see the many problems with that quote. I will not take a condescending tone with you. On the contrary, I will compassionately and pain stakingly point out in very clear detail all its very problematic elements.