Is white privilege the ultimate double standard?
I don't have the answer, but it's worth giving serious thought to.
I caught a few minutes of the Talib Kweli on the Today show this morning, and he said something that I had been thinking about but had not articulated. He said something to the effect of people want to talk about a double standard now, but they don't want to talk about the double standard of white privilege in America.
The world is full of double standards. We see it in War, we see it in our homes, we see it everywhere. White Americans don't want to share their power. New democracies can elect their leaders, but nation heads will refuse to deal with them because the elected leader isn't someone that they want to deal with.
We all know that there are spoken and unspoken rules in the world. Some, many are being challenged and should be challenged. You can talk as loud as you want in your home, but you have to keep your volume to a minimum in the library. Double Standard? History tells us that there was a time when White people could learn to read in the United States, but black people were forbidden by law. White person was one person one vote and a black person was 3/5's of a person. You had to have two black people to get one vote. White man is on the dollar, but a black person hasn't seen the light of day on a dollar bill. Look at the condition of a predominantly white school in America and a predominantly black school in America... just look at the physical appearance of the building. There are so many examples of how things are lopsided, unequal with people of color usually on the bottom.
White men were slave masters in America. Black women were slaves in America. A white man calling a black woman or black women Nappy headed Ho...well you do the math. Things haven't changed so much that black people have completely healed from the cancer of racism when the cancer never went into remission. Just as cancer has stages...so does this situation of race and racism in America. There is no racism vaccine yet! It hasn't been eradicated like polio.
And, yes, we've all moved on with our lives as best we can. We don't talk about racism and to some that equals remission. But that's not the case because things are still lopsided and people want to be free. People want real equality. Not the illusion of it.
I caught a few minutes of the Talib Kweli on the Today show this morning, and he said something that I had been thinking about but had not articulated. He said something to the effect of people want to talk about a double standard now, but they don't want to talk about the double standard of white privilege in America.
The world is full of double standards. We see it in War, we see it in our homes, we see it everywhere. White Americans don't want to share their power. New democracies can elect their leaders, but nation heads will refuse to deal with them because the elected leader isn't someone that they want to deal with.
We all know that there are spoken and unspoken rules in the world. Some, many are being challenged and should be challenged. You can talk as loud as you want in your home, but you have to keep your volume to a minimum in the library. Double Standard? History tells us that there was a time when White people could learn to read in the United States, but black people were forbidden by law. White person was one person one vote and a black person was 3/5's of a person. You had to have two black people to get one vote. White man is on the dollar, but a black person hasn't seen the light of day on a dollar bill. Look at the condition of a predominantly white school in America and a predominantly black school in America... just look at the physical appearance of the building. There are so many examples of how things are lopsided, unequal with people of color usually on the bottom.
White men were slave masters in America. Black women were slaves in America. A white man calling a black woman or black women Nappy headed Ho...well you do the math. Things haven't changed so much that black people have completely healed from the cancer of racism when the cancer never went into remission. Just as cancer has stages...so does this situation of race and racism in America. There is no racism vaccine yet! It hasn't been eradicated like polio.
And, yes, we've all moved on with our lives as best we can. We don't talk about racism and to some that equals remission. But that's not the case because things are still lopsided and people want to be free. People want real equality. Not the illusion of it.
posted by Blackgold at 8:23 AM
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