"White Privilege"

Original Post I Responded to by Alyse Smith Coleman:

Many of my white friends and acquaintances get offended at the suggestion that they are *privileged* and start fighting back with weird explanations of how hard they’ve worked in life. Or they start making cringy justifications like “I have a black family member” or “I have black clients” or “I went to school with black people” or “I was a missionary abroad” or —worst of all— “I have *a* black friend” like they should get some sort of medal for not being a billionaire and not living in an all-white bunker. (Slow clap) . . That has nothing to do with white privilege. No matter how good or bad or racist or anti-racist or rich or poor you are, if you are a white American, you have white privilege. . . “...you can have white privilege without being a bad person. You can be a good person who happens to be benefitting from some systemic privilege that simultaneously disadvantages other people. That doesn’t make you ‘bad’— not lazy, stupid or spoiled. And it doesn’t make you racist.” . . But it does make you COMPLICIT in systemic racism if you aren’t trying to do something about it. . . Educate yourself on systemic racism, listen to those black friends of yours whom you like to brag about having, and speak up for what’s right! 🖤🖤🖤 . . Quotes from Heather M. Edwards, “7 White Privileges I Didn’t Realize I Was Enjoying,” Medium.

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My Response:

I am still trying to understand the concept of “white privilege.” I will readily acknowledge my bias as a white male professional, raised in a predominantly white suburban Orange County community. I was taught that the only way to get a privilege was to work hard and use your God-given talents. 

 

I was also taught and readily recognize that some people, whether because of their minority status, a physical, or mental or other disability, different people are born with different advantages and disadvantages. I don’t know that I was expressly taught but I readily recognize that African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and other minority groups have distinct disadvantages in education, the workplace, and in other areas of life.

 

I read your post expecting to see some evidence to support the proposition, which I assume abounds and maybe that is why it is not given, just assumed. I also understand that by questioning the premise, while assuming the premise stated, I am exhibiting my “white privilege.” However, I am hoping that having a respectful discussion might help each of us to become more enlightened. So, here are a few of my observations and questions.

 

If a baby is born in the United States with 2 white parents, that baby has a 5% chance of being born into poverty. A baby born in the United States with 2 black parents, has a 12% chance of being born into poverty. That certainly sounds like a privilege to me.

 

Similarly, a white baby born with no father at home as a 31% chance of being born into poverty. A black baby born with no father at home has a 45% chance of being born into poverty. Again, seems to be evidence of a privilege there.

 

However, the bigger privilege seems to be that babies born into a two-parent home have a much greater privilege than those born into a single mother (or father) home, regardless of race. There is a 7% difference based on race and a 30% difference based on whether the family is a 2 parent or one parent home.

https://www.aei.org/articles/the-power-of-the-two-parent-home-is-not-a-myth/

 

Then, when I looked at another evidence of “privilege,” or lack of privilege, I found that black women have a 2.8 per 100,000 suicide rate and white women have a 7.9 per 100,000 suicide rate. Black men have an 11.4 per 100,000 suicide rate where white man have a 28.2 per 100,000 suicide rate. Although I am not a sociologist, I would assume that “privilege” people would have a much lower suicide rate based on their privileges. I realize there may be theories about this but certainly causes one to wonder.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017.htm

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/09/science/why-are-blacks-less-suicide-prone-than.html

 

Although the average income of a white person in the United States is more than 60% that of a black person, even higher still is the average income of an Asian American, which is more than 80% higher.

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-race-calculator/

 

Is there also then an “Asian” privilege or is that subsumed into the “white” privilege? Just a few of my random questions as I try to understand this concept.