What is "white privilege"?

Was discussing Don Imus this morning and (I and a few others were) accused of being "so steeped in white privilege that it has distorted our vision and robbed us of any intellect." That person when on to apologize "on behalf of my (white) selfish, uneducated race". and hoped that the "Rutgers BB team shoves a basketball" etc. So white privilege means selfish and uneducated? I don't get it. I have a life I worked hard to make, and I work hard to keep it everyday. I don't abuse my fellow people. I am not ashamed of who or what I am, and never ever, for one second did I ever think that any of the hard work I have done, or the rewards I got for it were in any way connected to the color of my skin or that of my teachers/bosses/colleagues/friends/ or even enemies. Do you think that way, what does this "privilege" mean?

What is "white privilege"?
White privilege is the notion that Whites, by default, enjoy more privileges than others simply because they are White. It is like taking for granted certain treatment or freedoms based on skin color.





For instance, an example people who believe in this notion may use is getting pulled over by the police. Chances are, if you are White, and you are doing nothing wrong, police won't pull you over. However, they contend that if you are Black and driving, you may get pulled over just for being Black.





Or how about shopping? Those who believe in this notion will tell you that if a Black and a White were to both enter an upscale department store, and both have equivalent assets and prestige, the clerk, particularly if also White, will go straight for the White man and help him first. The Black man may feel invisible or have to wait much longer. Of course, it isn't limited to just Blacks. If you're White and not dressed all that nice, and you've just come into a windfall and are looking to get nicer clothes and/or fine jewelry, there is a good chance that you'd be snubbed as well.





I know a White woman in the above situation who was at a jewelry counter at a discount department store, and it took about a half hour to get someone over. The look on the clerk's face was like, "Why are you wasting my time, it's obvious that you don't have the money?" That was when the woman went into a tirade about having received a settlement and was wanting to spend money there and get herself looking a little better, and that with how she was treated, she'd go elsewhere. It is kind of like in the movie, Pretty Woman, where the woman went into an upscale department store to make a purchase because her john had given her a pile of money, and they asked her to leave.





The same White woman in the example above was in a grocery store and was followed the whole time she shopped. In that case, it was mistaken identity. A similar looking woman had passed some bad checks there and had shoplifted as well. But there are Blacks who claim to have to put up with this all the time. I remember years ago where Rite Aid came under fire for moving the ethnic hair section to the front of the store. Some Blacks said that was so they could be watched, since Whites did not trust them not to shoplift. Then when the ethnic hair goods were moved to the caucasian hair care aisle, some Blacks still complained, saying that this made it harder to find their products without accidentally buying the wrong kind for their hair type.





Related to White advantage is a practice known as red-lining. That is when certain neighborhoods get worse treatment from a company. Pizza delivery and cable service are examples. If you call the pizza place and are told that they don't deliver to your neighborhood, even though it is well within the delivery area, that may be red-lining. The concern is often, because the neighborhood is Black, they are afraid their drivers will get robbed. Or, if you cannot get cable access or high speed Internet on your street. The reason there may be because the people on that street are poor and have been know to skip out on paying. So that seems to target Blacks the most, though it will also affect the Whites who live there too. Or, how about in a grocery store? There was a stink raised about a particular Food Lion. The allegation was that because most of the people who shopped there were on public assistance, that was where all the almost out of date meat was delivered.
Reply:it is an advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of all others
Reply:This sounds pretty extreme to me! But I'm white too and like you, I scratched this existence of mine out of the world, society, etc. one blessing at a time, one dime at a time, and one minute at a time!





Sounds like someone running their mouth off and not thinking that in defending this position of what Imus said (which is wrong, wrong, wrong), they are setting themselves up to look racist. Just do what you do and forget about the political crap!
Reply:"White privilege" is basically reverse bigotry. There's a large contingent of so-called minority members who have chips on their shoulders and have decided that white people in the U.S., simply by virtue of the fact that they are white, are "privileged" because we're not a part of a minority group and therefore we don't get discriminated against (which simply is not true -- blacks and hispanics discriminate against whites every bit as much as they accuse whites of discriminating against them). To hear the mainstream liberal media and the minority group leaders tell it, you'd think that the white race holds the monopoly on racism. It's a crock. This person who made this accusation needs to have his/her attitude adjusted. Or, at the very least, someone needs to make the point that he/she is every bit as racist and every bit as bigoted as he/she accused you and your white counterparts of being.
Reply:It is a belief, not completeley true, but in a few people. Most of this is pread by those who wish to make America just a segregated as it was; but try to look the "Victim" although it can be said some "white" people are racist about "privilege"


it is also the same for almost any other pigment color that some people think they are just better than anyone different than them. Even of the SAME race.
Reply:"White Privlege" is fiction liberals use to symbolically berate themselves to assuage their guilt over the fact that their policies are all designed to keep minorities in a disadvanaged state so that the liberals can position themselves and their gov't solutions as the minorities' Great Benefactor, thus ensuring themselves of political support from their dependent underclass.
Reply:No such thing as `white privilege`.


How was Ted Bundy privileged above Tiger Woods?


Duh.


Or how was Adolph Hitler privileged above Albert Einsten?


The notion that there is such a thing as `white privilege`is not based on truth and justice, but on racism and hatred.


There is such a thing as no privilege because we all must die.


How is that for an equalizer?
Reply:You know I hear African Americans always say that white don't know what it is like to be black they don't understand our existence. Well African Americans don't know what it is like to be a white person never ever quite doing enough for the minorities, they don't know our existence. By the way I am an American and I need no other labels attached!