Michael Amity delves into privilege–a mammoth, undermentioned topic that he feels is an institutional inequity supporter.
In this video, two participants perform mirrored chicanery, but receive unequal reactions.
Why is that? The one-word answer is race.
In my opinion, these YouTube web-celebs are baiting for reaction (comment-fishing). Still, they bring up something profound that has to do with privilege.
This topic has been debated about six ways from Sunday, so I hope to come at a different angle. But to start by covering basics, there is a difference between slavery being reinforced over millennia and across the four quadrants vs. race-slavery, its mercantilist mutation favoring whites that has gone on centuries, demonstratively impacting modern society.
Our prison system is an example of that impact, this video from by Beyond Bars clearly shows:
The incarceration numbers are proof our system unfairly targets black people at no less than 6 times the rate of whites.
Further, it regularly targets non-violent deviants more than violent offenders. Take for example the case of Ethan Couch, a 16 year old white kid who killed four people in an accident while drunk driving. Not that I’m a lawyer, but I think a vehicular manslaughter conviction or something to put his delinquent self in juvenile lock-up was in order. Instead, he got off.
Sadly, this could happen again, as nothing is in the works to change a punitive system that operates with a ridiculous set of priorities. Couch was ordered just to attend rehab, while over a half million people caught with drugs are not afforded the same treatment.
Tying this back to the race aspect of inequity, I think the point is, generally, it isn’t possible to be equal with such ingrained beliefs related to stereotypes. If we let generalizations go unnoticed, we fall into stigmatization that serves no improvements.
Racism is institutionalized (perpetual) discrimination. Ethan Couch, if he has any conscience, knows he did wrong and serve in a mental prison, but will not be put in a physical one. He’ll hear about the public outrage over the judge’s infamous citing “affluenza” as the reason for letting the boy off with just a slap on the wrist.
Consider that as long as privilege is allowed to operate blatantly and without consequence, we will all suffer at the hands of it. Not just the victims of disparity, but also the perpetrators will suffer, albeit only subconsciously. Couch knows he got away with killing four people as a result of privilege, and it being publicly stated now, that it was in fact–not theory–due to class, means privilege should be on people’s minds.
I have seen a video similar to this but the kids were “stealing” a bike that was chained up in a park. The white guy got suspicious looks but wasn’t confronted. When the black guy tried stealing it people came up to him and questioned his intentions, whether it was his bike or not etc. When they had a girl come “steal” the bike though, not only did people not look at her with suspicion or question her, THE MEN HELPED HER STEAL THE BIKE. (She even told some of these men that the bike wasn’t hers and they still… Read more »
Indeed, Lynn. What a world!
I was thinking about how great it would be to see the same two guys dress up to do this thing twice more. First, in nice business suits. I think the resulting treatment would be more equal then. But in the finale, they both dress as homeless men. I think that would be the most equal because poor people are widely mistrusted.