I don’t think much about my white privilege, but given my white president’s recent criticism of affirmative action, I must pause to appreciate some of my advantages. One thing that is nice about being white is that I’m not confronted by racism all the time. I hang out with my white friends, go to white classes, I work in a white office and watch my white TV newscast, and I don’t see racism anywhere.
The whole issue of second-class citizenship in this country doesn’t seem to come up. I never get pulled over because of the color of my skin. I mean, why would I? I’m white. I don’t even know what a “skin tax” is. Being white has never been a reason that I’ve been denied anything.
Let’s face it: If African Americans really wanted to make things fair, then aren’t we long overdue for a hundred years of black privilege in America? White folks would be the servant workforce for a while, sitting in the backs of the buses, giving up their executive, administrative duties until the year 2102, and then get back to that fictitious “level playing field” we whites are so proud of.
But we all know that a hundred years of black privilege is not going to happen, let alone one year. So, let’s stop talking about what would be fair in this country. I’m not giving up my green-light privileges, not for civil rights, not for equality or affirmative action.
The University of Michigan’s attempt to give advantages to non-white students threatens the status quo. This small symbolic gesture to level the playing field against white privilege status — and give some black students their only chance to have advantages over whites — becomes an easy legislative target. With the president’s help, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to do away with affirmative action at universities, just as it was taken off the books at California schools a few years ago.
To be white is to remain exempt from concerns outside of my own race and to say that affirmative action is not my fight. I don’t have to ask any of the non-white students here on campus if they’ve gotten less opportunities than I have. I don’t have to question why it is that some work twice as hard for things that have come easier for me. I can take my white privilege and cash it in for all that it is worth, and never wonder how I have been so fortunate. In fact, I don’t have to feel fortunate at all.
And when my children and grandchildren ask why non-whites get less than we do, I can say that is just the way it’s always been here in America. I just don’t have to feel guilty for it. To be white is to remain exempt from concerns outside my own race and to say that affirmative action is not my fight.
All I have to do to insure the future of white privilege status is to do nothing; the rest will take care of itself. Thus affirmative action will be no more, and that is the power of your white privilege.