Lets discuss "White privilege"

White privilege is a nice way of speaking to the profit that raping, pillaging, kidnapping, murdering, terrorizing, incarcerating, and enslaving African Americans (and the natives of this land) and institutionalized oppression has had on the success of america and white Americans.
America was built by the blood, sweat, tears and free forced labor of people of color, in particular enslaved Africans.  Yet no restitution was ever given for the centuries of free forced labor or systematic profiting from oppression or as it is called today “White privilege”
Let’s review the enslavement of Africans
Afrikans were kidnapped, held captive and forced to work the land, raise white children, build railroads, develop technology, manufacture products, provide the labor for europeans americans to solely profit and benefit from.  For centuries the labor, inventions, intelligences, products and medical advances of Africans (Blacks) in America have been forcefully taken and usurped by Europeans (White) in America.  
When Africans were freed from chattel slavery, they were terrorized, forced to work for unequally low wages, unjustly incarcerated and made to work on chain gangs and in mines essentially "legally" finding ways to keep them enslaved, raped, lynched and subjected to other atrocities. As Africans began to establish "free towns" Europeans would steal their products, ransack their stores and schools, kill the people and in many instances burn down entire towns. African Americans were forbidden (socially, politically and economically) to be a part of american society that prospered due to centuries of their labor. 

 “Though sadistic and macabre, the plain truth is that slavery was an unprecedented economic juggernaut whose impact is still lived by each of us daily. Consequently, here’s my top-10 list of things everyone should know about the economic roots of slavery:

1) Slavery laid the foundation for the modern international economic system.
2) Africans’ economic skills were a leading reason for their enslavement.
3) African know-how transformed slave economies into some of the wealthiest on the planet.
4) Until it was destroyed by the Civil War, slavery made the American South the richest and most powerful region in America.
5) Defense of slavery, more than taxes, was pivotal to America’s declaration of independence.
6) The brutalization and psychological torture of slaves was designed to ensure that plantations stayed in the black financially.
7) The economic success of former slaves during Reconstruction led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
8) The desire to maintain economic oppression is why the South was one of the most anti-tax regions of the nation.
9) Many firms on Wall Street made fortunes from funding the slave trade.
10) The wealth gap between whites and blacks, the result of slavery, has yet to be closed.”  http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/01/10_things_django_wont_tell_you_about_slavery.html
 

 

White priviledge is not just economic, it is also social, political, systematic and institutional. It is the woven in the very fiber of “The ameican dream” it is the “glass ceiling”.

“….I went on to attain what is, by anyone’s measure, an elite education: Hotchkiss, Harvard, Columbia Business School . I’ve worked for some of the blue-chippiest companies on the planet, beginning with the one that pretty much defined the concept of Wall Street. Started from the bottom, now we’re blah, blah, blah. Except it’s not true.

Despite my inscrutable educational accomplishments, obvious intellectual curiosity, well-documented affability, and noted charm (ask somebody and see if you ain’t heard), since my early career days I’ve felt the imposing presence of The Cage. DuBois called it The Veil, others refer to it as The Glass Ceiling. Pick a nominal metaphor. The point is, it sucks, and I use that word deliberately. As a black person in the U.S. , it’s all around you: a cage initially fortified by blatant racism, now maintained by the institutional variety and reinforced by the ignorance of its passive beneficiaries. You can feel it, even if your face isn’t actually smashing into it at that very moment, and the cold realization that you can only move but so far begins to suck the very life out of you….” http://recognizeandrealize.com/2013/10/11/king-kong-kanye-and-me/

White privilege is what depicts black men as “scary, thugs, violent, criminals, etc.” and causes black boys to be taught how to not be threatening.

“I am always careful to be polite to everyone. As a black man in America I have been groomed to be this way... even just walking down the street. BC I can be scary just being myself.”  http://seasonedcynicism.blogspot.com/?zx=cdf79977cb69f043

White privilege is what dictates that natural black hair is “unprofessional, ethnic, unkempt, faddish or unacceptable”. It is why acceptable standards of beauty don't include black features

http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/black-girl-whose-hair-was-deemed

White privilege is why social networks exploded with "Solidarity is for white women" because of the homogeneity of feminism.  It is why white feminist will fight against gender issues and ignore racial issues  http://twitchy.com/2013/08/12/twitter-fight-solidarityisforwhitewomen-calls-out-progressives-of-pallor/

White privilege is why the Forefathers of this country are praised as heros and given “national holidays” despite their brutality to natives and afrikans.  http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/10-10-11-columbus-day-us-capitalism-bu.html

White privilege is what allows for the ignoring of the suffering of blacks in american past, present and future and how it impacts the social, economic and political state of blacks in america http://www.bread.org/what-we-do/resources/fact-sheets/african-american-poverty.pdf

White privilege is not being a victim of the prison to pipeline system.
http://www.naacpldf.org/case/school-prison-pipeline

 

White privilege is having your culture considered the “norm” and not being having the burden of being THE representative for an entire people
“Being able to…

• assume that most of the people you or your children study in history classes and textbooks will be of the same race, gender, or sexual orientation as you are
• assume that your failures will not be attributed to your race, or your gender
• assume that if you work hard and follow the rules, you will get what you deserve
• success without other people being surprised; and without being held to a higher standard
• go out in public without fear of being harassed or constantly worried about physical safety
• not have to think about your race, or your gender, or your sexual orientation, or disabilities, on a daily basis...

http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/white_privilege.html

White privilege what causes white people to abandon their humanity and reason when faced with the truth of the atrocities against blacks and cling to their patriotism as a badge of honor instead of working to heal the state of things. It is why our young boys are shot dead in the streets by police and incarated at alarming rates.  It is why black inventors and scholars are not in text books.  It is what allows Tim Wise to profit for saying the same things Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Al Sharpton and other black leaders are demonized for. It is why restitution has not been made to the people of color who toiled this land and built this country.  It is the sick feeling in the pit of the belly of a white person when they read this and fly into rage and defensiveness.  It is what makes white people think that stealing this land and enslaving black people cause this land to be theirs.  It is why the responsibility to heal and end racism is solely placed on the shoulders of the ones who suffer from it daily. It is why many whites are more concerned about how THEY feel about what has been done to blacks in America than how blacks have suffered.

I encourage EVERYONE who reads this to ponder this deeply and consider how can we move forward from this collectively.  How can blacks heal from these atrocities and how can whites end the cycle and help in that healing. It is time to stop blaming and feeding on the "crabs in the barrel", break the barrel and help them back into the water. 

As always keep your head held high as we move forward to make this world a better place.