“White Privilege Is a Myth”
By: Heather M. Edwards
Tags: Politics, White Privilege, Racism, Race, Culture

All rights @ Diego PH; Toluca, Mexico

What happens when you write about white privilege? You will instantly find yourself trudging knee-deep through every human emotion and gradient of political philosophy.

“Ridiculous racist article. You should probably move to Africa and fully commit to shedding your privilege. Maybe take up farming there ….”

“Can you imagine going through life as the moronic fuck blister who wrote this drivel? Has to be a horrible existence,”

“Is this possibly just another anti-white racist progressive Democrat spewing more anti-white drivel to get woke points from his racist Democrat followers?”

These are just a few of the responses I received after listing some privileges I hadn’t realized I was enjoying. Privileges I attributed to being white. I was assured in no time that these were not white privileges but rather class privileges and urban privileges.

I am not a sociologist or cultural anthropologist. I’m just a suburban white woman who attended public and private schools in a predominantly white community. My observations are amateur and anecdotal. They are not the scientific findings of an expert. Nor are they the self-flagellations of a libtard snowflake riddled with white guilt either. I believe white privilege exists. I believe it disproportionately benefits people who inherit advantages while simultaneously disenfranchising minority groups who are already marginalized in multiple ways.

I don’t think it makes me “racist against white people”. I don’t think it makes me a bad person. And it doesn’t make me hate being white.

When I actually stop and think about my white skin I think about being made fun of my whole life by other white people for being too pale. My best friend used to beg me to go to tanning beds but my grandpa had skin cancer. I’ve worn sunblock ever since I was little and sort of started to understand the sun could actually kill me. But I like looking like my grandparents. I miss them.

I can speak against social injustice without self-loathing. And I will continue to do so.

Beneath the seething denial of the name-callers lies a steady thread stated most succinctly by this comment: “White privilege is a myth and it doesn’t exist.”

Being offended by the term itself kind of makes you the snowflake, doesn’t it? Those who feel threatened by it comfort themselves with the idea that it is fabricated by inexplicably angry Black people and/or invented by inexplicably self-loathing white people. Both theories lack motive and payout.

How many people truly believe that POC are lying, creating accounts of “personal” experience to manufacture a narrative? And to what end? Let’s say they are. Let’s say Jussie Smollett is the rule, not the exception. What ulterior motive lurks beneath every person of color who ‘exaggerates’ their own stories of marginalization, victimization and oppression? What’s the endgame? Fame? Fortune? Whom has that worked for?

Consider this for a moment — what if millions of people aren’t lying? What if they’re telling the truth?

Like Scott Westerfeld’s viral tweet to climate change deniers: “Plot idea: 97% of the world’s scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies”, it’s important to ask why anyone would think white privilege (or climate change) is a conspiracy. Who gains what?

Despite the conviction of the enraged conspiracy theorists, from my amateur observation, the gains from understanding each other’s experiences also come with the risk of reverberating in our own echo chambers and simultaneously pissing off the people we’re actually trying to reach. No one is tap dancing on an ant’s nest for the fun of it.

But what I’ve observed in the last year of actively having conversations with friends, family and internet strangers is more positive than negative. This reminder from A. Hopesmith is a call to action:

“Thank you for your words and for sharing parts of your journey with privilege. Please keep finding ways to show up for through your words-They are impactful and necessary change agents. :)”

This is hope-giving in the swirling shitstorm of negativity that soils so many comment sections.

White people who are open to being corrected by POC, (the POC who are willing to take on the additional burden of teaching and sharing), to STFU and listen with compassion create the necessary space to change their own perspectives, to realize their experiences aren’t universal. (I realize I am “talking” and taking up space when I write. But these pieces are largely directed at white people who deny white privilege, not lecturing POC with my novice realizations.) The resulting behavior changes hopefully have a contagious and cumulative effect in their social circles. Shouldn’t we want to come together to desegregate systems and customs that continue to marginalize people?

Show up through your words, my fellow white people. The defensive will keep denying. But smile and keep trying.