All you have to do is turn on the news and you’ll see evidence of white privilege. But why is the conversation still the same?
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MTV has a new show called: “White People” which is all about white people, white guilt and white privilege. The trailer is horrendous and reeks of white people gone wrong. In other words some person (guy) at MTV has rubber stamped this bad idea into a series. As if facing self-conscious white people is the same as addressing the entire picture and issue of white privilege? Aren’t the affects of white privilege much different than some white 16 year old saying: “I feel like I’m being judged for being white.”
And yes, I do think it’s time we all got more honest about how White Privilege is still a huge problem in this country and elsewhere. It was a problem when I was a kid in the 70’s/80’s, and sadly, it’s more of a problem now. A few months ago, comedian Louis CK closed out the Saturday Night Live season with a bit on the sad truths of what he called the ‘mild racism’ of the 1970s. When people: “said racist things all the time, and nobody got offended.” And that was life in white America of yesteryear.
And now here we are, thinking that allowing whiny white teens to rant about themselves on that staged and pre-planned world of reality TV is progress? I think not.
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Well, now it’s the 2010s, almost the 2020s, and it’s time we as a people all got collectively angry and did something about it. I don’t want to know, but I am aware that as a white person both the police and society as a whole are going to treat me differently because of my skin color. And if only they’d ignore my tattoos, piercings, or scars and know that I have a masters degree and I’m getting a second masters degree. And I know, as far as prejudice goes, being a tattooed freak of sorts, is nothing compared being a black person in America and or what any person of color goes through in the past and in the now in this country, and elsewhere for that matter.
And yes, I’ll admit when I was much younger, I didn’t know much about this except for how morality plays on some bad sitcoms. Shows like The Fresh Prince of Belair, when Will Smith got pulled over for being black. Or something as obvious the film Higher Learning, when an angry white kid turned skinhead and became violent towards his politically active and black classmates. And now here we are, thinking that allowing whiny white teens to rant about themselves on that staged and pre-planned world of reality TV is progress? I think not.
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My first ‘adult’ lesson on White Privilege went something like this:
This was me a few years after that lesson while living in Boston.
(It was the 90s.)
In the early 90s, while still a senior in high-school, I took off one Friday to go to NYC with a friend. We both hopped a bus and we made it to NYC from Connecticut in a matter of hours. To give you an idea about that particular era, Spike Lee’s much under-awarded Malcolm X had just come out. I was a huge fan of his and of Malcolm X as well because the year before my English teacher gave me a copy of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” It was one of the first books in high-school that actually stayed with me. There was something so powerful about his life story, ideas, writing and style.
X iconography was everywhere, since Spike Lee’s X was out not too long before, so that Malcolm X resurgence was all over every city and lots of white people seemed mad about it.
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Before I read and then saw that film a few years later, I had first heard Malcolm X’s slogans from some Rap and Hip Hop lyrics. From the finely crafted words of KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions, to those perfectly crafted lyrics of Chuck D of Public Enemy, I was hooked. Alongside that there was this (never ending) trend of the police beating on Black people, i.e the Rodney King thing had just happened. It was no longer a wild theory that all of those serious incidents of brutality that rap groups like Main Source talked about in “A Friendly Game of Baseball,” We all knew that it never really stopped-not since Rodney King was first caught on his knees crying into the dirt while being filmed. That being said, I was a teenage Malcolm X fan from the whitest of suburbs, but I couldn’t stay in such shrubbery forever, right?
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Shortly after I left the suburbs, Aaron and I were in NYC, via bus, via train and a cab or two. And so we hit the sidewalks and streets of New York. I mean, being stupid 18 year olds and with very little money, we mostly just hung out in parks, smoked cigarettes, listened to street musicians, and window shopped while listening to our Sony Sports walkman’s. It was the early Spring, not especially warm-yet it wasn’t that cold. Too cold for a naked head, yet not quite skullcap/beanie weather, so i thought I’d just wear my Malcolm X hat. It was a white baseball cap with a big stylized ‘X’ on it. X iconography was everywhere, since Spike Lee’s X was out not too long before, so that Malcolm X resurgence was all over every city and lots of white people seemed mad about it.
White people often told me: “Didn’t you know that Malcolm X hated white people?” or “Didn’t you know he was a violent terrorist?”
I’d just say: “Well why don’t you try reading something else besides those bullshit history books you were forced to read in high school?” or “Go read his Autobiography” and then try to say the same thing. Okay?
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And then there were the times you had to shut the fuck up:
My cop pal then told me, “If you don’t take that hat off your head right now, I’ll do it for you.”
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In Upper Manhattan, we made fun of rich old people to each other, trying to look cool while still looking 18 and kind of silly. On that trek we ran into two rather Irish looking cops. These two “Danny Boy, The Pipes the Pipes are calling” types that walked right up to us told us to:
“Stop right there.”
We did and we got a rather long, lecture about how, “Malcolm X hated all white people, and he especially hated white cops.” We also heard, ”He hated white cops, just because we’re white-I’m glad they shot him.”
The two kept belittling us and mentioned Aaron’s obvious Irish red hair, telling him, “He should be ashamed of himself” for hanging out with such a traitor as me. My cop pal then told me, “If you don’t take that hat off your head right now, I’ll do it for you.”
So after a few belligerent seconds, and Aaron telling me to just do it, I took my X hat off and put in my knapsack. Finally, of course, those cops walked away while telling us to have a nice day.
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Right after that we found a nice park bench to have a smoke and catch our breaths. We then had a chat about those racist cops.
“Imagine if we were actually doing something wrong?” or better yet: “Imagine if we were black kids wearing that hat of yours?”
So, maybe the collective subconscious of all those white people is still thinking to itself: ‘Which race is better/right?’ ‘Me or Them?’
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We imagined that we would’ve probably been arrested, beaten down, or killed. That was my first adult lesson in white privilege, but you only need one lesson like that, to wake you up and help you become conscious of such things, and to know it will never go away, and one day soon it will become so popular again that it will have it’s own TV show. (Again I’ll mention: MTV’s “White Privilege” aka that new show: “White People.” )
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Fuck MTV’s “White People” show and fuck it again a second time. Try to think about the consequences of allowing white people to actually question if white privilege still exists as a privilege? The idea of being white and to have white advantage is now to be debated. If that’s the case, then that indicates there’s an actual right and/or wrong to prove. So, maybe the collective subconscious of all those white people is still thinking to itself: ‘Which race is better/right?’ ‘Me or Them?’
If you have to ask which is right, then you might want to walk on over and join either Duck Dynasty or Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team.
Many Thanks & Have a Great Day (in a Irish Cop Accent)!
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Photo: Getty Images