"White privilege" is a spurious construct invented by progressive academics who love to divide and categorize people into groups

"White Privilege" a Myth

I was pondering the other day, how I came to be the lottery winner of “white privilege.” God made me in the image of a good Christian, compassionate and loving to my fellow human beings, and gave me certain tools for success that he gave everybody else, regardless of skin color. I felt privileged that my parents worked hard and put a roof over our heads and food on the table. It was not the best in the world, but we survived. Nobody gave us welfare and, had we demanded something we did not earn and were not entitled to, we would have been told swiftly, “no work, no food.” “White privilege” is a spurious construct invented by progressive academics who love to divide and categorize people into groups just so they can keep animosity and hatred between them in order to better control them.

My parents always told me that, if I applied myself and worked very hard, I would be successful. Nobody made promises to me that life would be easy and success would just fall in my lap just because I was classified as “white” by university scholars and government bureaucrats. The Constitution does not mention free college tuition, free health care, and other entitlements that Democrats classify as rights. I have the right to exist and the opportunity to pursue my happiness, health, and education, and nobody owes me anything based on my skin color. If I work, I have money to eat, a roof over my head, I may have a car, and other amenities that can be bought, if I can afford them. If I want luxuries, I must work extra, get a better job, or forget about it. Happiness and satisfaction do not come from buying material things. Now angry and violent lefties are trying to diminish my hard work by telling me that I did not “build” that, it was given to me because I have the esoteric construct called “white privilege.” As double talkers, progressives are really good at inventing euphemisms. If there is such a thing as “white privilege,” why isn’t there a “black privilege?” What about “Hispanic privilege,” “Native American privilege,” “Asian privilege?” What exactly is “white privilege?” According to a website, “white privilege” is a “set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others. White privilege can exist without white people’s conscious knowledge of its presence and it helps to maintain the racial hierarchy in this country.” By this definition, “white privilege” does not exist in other countries where white people live. Apparently we have “white privilege” as a “direct result of the disadvantages of other people.” According to this half-baked theory, even white people who are not overtly racist benefit from “white supremacy.” So “white privilege” is equal with “white supremacy?”

So “white privilege” is equal with “white supremacy?” Students cite the fact that “white privilege is not having to worry about being followed in a department store while shopping.” Perhaps if you shopped rather than shop-lifted, you would not be followed. Violent and angry mobs riot, burn, rob people on trains, and hit people of a different skin color over the head in a sick “knockout game.” It is sheer hatred generated by their lack of a moral compass and success, taking out their anger on innocents. Riots are a convenient excuse to loot stores in their own neighborhoods. At the lowest point in our lives, white friends and I never looted or robbed stores under the pretense of “social justice.” We did not demand other people’s money, free college tuition, free health care, and other government forms of welfare. We took a second job, worked every day and part of the night because we had pride and honor, not bogus “white privilege.” I worked for minimum wage even though I had a college degree, cheap labor was not beneath me. “White privilege” is “about thinking that your clothes, manner of speech, and behavior in general, are racially neutral, when in fact, they are white.” Behaving like a civilized person, speaking proper English, and behaving like a human instead of a savage street thug is not “white privilege,” it is proper breeding and having a mom at home in the first six years of your life, teaching you how to behave. Black students bullying other black kids because they make good grades is wrong. They are not “acting white,” they are concerned for their future and have a plan for success. Wearing pants down your bottoms like jail inmates do is not proper dressing. Nobody wants to see your underwear in public. Using incomprehensible ghetto jargon is not a formula for success either. Communication in a common language that everyone understands is important.

“White privilege exists on an individual, cultural, and institutional level.” “White privilege exists on an individual, cultural, and institutional level.” I cannot remember how many times I lost jobs to lesser qualified and lesser educated black applicants who were hired because of affirmative action quotas. How many better prepared Caucasian students could not attend a university of their choice because there are quotas set up for black people, Hispanic people, and people born in a “poor” state? One Seattle liberal writer wrote in 2015 why “white privilege” exists. “I Have the Privilege of (Generally) Having a Positive Relationship with the Police” Could that be because you were taught to respect authority, especially the police, and how to behave in a polite manner outside of home? Yes, you have the privilege to behave in an orderly and respectful manner when questioned by police. How you choose to behave dictates the outcome of any encounter with the police or any other people for that matter, regardless of your race. If you are violent, recalcitrant, and armed, you will be treated with blunt force. “I Have the Privilege of Being Favored by School Authorities” School authorities treat everyone by the same set of rules; if you choose not to follow those rule and become violent, then the treatment of you will escalate to another level; violent students at home or in the streets are violent and recalcitrant in school as well, defiant of authority, and must be treated accordingly. Schools hire security to help school personnel deal with such offenders. “I Have the Privilege of Learning about My Race in School” Ethnic studies are on the rise at all colleges and universities even though they do not assure a student employment upon graduation. Nobody is stopping you from learning about your specific ethnic group or race’s history and culture. The problem for liberals is, most of the contributions to science and mathematics, even literature, have been made by the much reviled “evil white men.” That is a fact. There are some contributions made by other races but, generally, modern technology and science discoveries were made by white men. Students are forced to learn about the Five Pillars of Islam, in an effort to convert as many students as possible to that faith. Whatever happened to the atheists suing over “separation of church and state?” Does it only apply to Christianity, not to Islam? There is black history month; since the U.S. black population is about 12 percent, then, to be mathematically accurate, there should be about a month and a half of learning nothing else but about black history and the contributions made by black people to civilization.





“I Have the Privilege of Attending Segregated Schools of Affluence” Many white people do not have the privilege of attending the schools of their choice for many reasons—they cannot afford the expensive tuition, perhaps their grades are not good enough, or reside in areas that do not fall under that school’s jurisdiction. On the contrary, most “schools of influence” are segregated based on wealth and income and not race. Obama’s children attended a “school of influence” in D.C. even though they self-identify as black. If there is segregation, it is based on income, not skin color. I Have the Privilege of Finding Children’s Books that Overwhelmingly Represent My Race” Most publishers are liberal and tend to accept for publication books that represent their progressive stance. Books are written generally in a number representative of the black population in the U.S. You cannot possibly force white authors to write about something they are not familiar with since they did not grow up or experience the black culture. “I Have the Privilege of Soaking in Media Blatantly Biased Toward My Race” It is hard to even dignify such a statement particularly today when the MSM has become the laughingstock of fake news, defending manufactured news which is heavily biased towards the Democrat Party platform, a platform that has failed black people for decades, keeping them suppressed and poor (see Detroit). Yet these people of color keep electing their corrupt Democrat Party representatives and senators to power. I don’t know many white people who take the MSM media seriously because of their “social justice” and “collectivism” ideology, both communist inventions which some of us have been victims of for decades. If you are a criminal, the media reportage will generally cover up the criminal’s race or ethnicity, unless he/she is white. “I Have the Privilege of Escaping Violent Stereotypes Associated with My Race” The writer makes the bogus statement that “White supremacists (who tend to be White) have perpetuated more terrorism in the United States than any foreign threat.” I suppose 9/11 and the jihadi movement never happened. “I Have the Privilege of Playing the Colorblind Card, Wiping the Slate Clean of Centuries of Racism” He makes a good point that “race is a social construction based on physical differences.” However, he blames white people for using the invention of race. I have not met a black student yet who has not shamelessly benefited from his/her race when competing for scholarships, grants, college admission, jobs, adjustment to their entrance ACT or SAT scores, and other benefits not available to white students. The concept of “colorblindness” is not good enough for this writer, we have to atone for our “implicit biases,” another bogus euphemism, claiming that we associate lighter skin to intelligence, that we give black children less medication for severe pain, and that we “prefer white-sounding names when it comes to school discipline, job applications, and government inquiries,” a ridiculous assertion, which is not true; and it is against the law to discriminate in such a way.





Many of us get our “white privilege” by going to work every day, sometimes to very unpleasant jobs and when sick because we cannot afford to miss the paycheck. Others get “white privilege” by working long hours on a project, by studying hard on a test instead of partying with the boys, and because we take the hard road of personal responsibility without crying discrimination and racism. When we were told no, we never gave up and tried harder. Because we have this imaginary “white privilege,” race baiters and their fellow travelers want reparations for slavery which, in some progressive opinions, had an important role in giving us today’s imaginary “white privilege.” Slavery, gone but not forgotten, has been a justified stigma in the history of our country. Progressives are demanding financial reparations for slavery which is objected to by Americans whose ancestors were never involved in or benefitted from the slave trade. Progressive advocates fail to mention that there were also white slaves who built this country, they were indentured to industrial projects and railroads. The Atlantic slave trade took place from the 15th through the 19th centuries with slaves from central and western parts of Africa who had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders. The Portuguese brought in 1526 the first transatlantic slaves from Africa to the Americas. They were sold to work in coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and cotton plantations, silver mines, rice fields, construction industry, logging timber for ships, skilled labor, and as domestic servants. The British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empires followed the Portuguese’s example and shipped slaves in cargo ships to the New World and to the Caribbean area where slaves made goods to be sold in Europe. More than 12 million slaves were bought and sold; a substantial number died during the grueling passage at sea. By the 17th century slavery became a caste in which children born to slave mothers were slaves themselves and thus property. At the beginning of the 19th century, governments moved to ban the trade but smuggling still occurred. In the 21st century, some governments issued official apologies. According to historians, slavery was practiced for centuries in parts of Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, long before the Atlantic slave trade. African states exported slaves to other African countries. The African slave trade was a source of slaves to Europeans and many Muslim countries. From the 9th to the 19th centuries, slave trades from across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean benefitted Muslim countries. The volume in the Atlantic slave trade was larger than the African slave trade. The victims of the Atlantic slave trade came primarily from several areas: Senegal and Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Mozambique, and Madagascar. Slavery is wrong no matter who practiced it, how, for what reason, and during what time. But to create racial strife in 2017 by claiming a bogus “white privilege” in the United States, one of the most tolerant nations on the planet, is wrong and divisive, particularly in an environment that progressives have termed themselves as “colorblind.” We have many black people in positions of power in the United States, in business, education, in Hollywood, in sports; the federal government is dominated by black employees, and we’ve already elected the first black president who is now very busy overseas, bashing America and the current president.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh -- Bio and Archives Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, Ileana Writes is a freelance writer, author, radio commentator, and speaker. Her books, “Echoes of Communism”, “Liberty on Life Support” and “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” “Communism 2.0: 25 Years Later” are available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

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