White privilege, McCain/Palin -- and the Kenyan witchhunter

[Shana A]

White privilege, McCain/Palin -- and the Kenyan witchhunter
by: Pam Spaulding
Wed Sep 17, 2008 at 05:00:00 AM EDT

http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=C5A8EAC79C4A76A7F6B5E34136C9D0C0?diaryId=7042

Tim Wise's bio lets you know he's in a unique position to lay this out on the line. He is the director of the Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE) in Nashville, Tennessee.

    He lectures across the country about the need to combat institutional racism, gender bias, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the U.S. Wise has been called a "leftist extremist" by David Duke, "deceptively Aryan-looking" by a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and "the Uncle Tom of the white race," by right-wing author, Dinesh D'Souza.

Well, Wise discusses the third rail of race in a way many progressives usually avoid because it's pretty damn uncomfortable. Here's Wise's assessment of white privilege and its lingering, nagging impact on race relations in this country and this election. Snippets from "This is Your Nation on White Privilege" are below the fold, as well as a prime example of what Wise is talking about when it comes to Sarah Palin and her praise of a witchhunter - she believes his laying on of hands helped her win the gubernatorial election in Alaska.

[NicholeW.]

People, particularly caucasian people do not like to discuss "privilege." There are various varieties of it: none of which anyone who has it wants to discuss. It makes folks, apparantly feel like they have gained an "undue advantage" and profited from something other than their scintillating ability and purity to succeed in what they do.

Fact is, many of us do not suceed because we are "better than." We succeed through accidents of birth and a ready-made privilege granted us because of that. We are not questioned because we "look right" or "have the right background" and our BS goes on and on about how we have toughed it out and made good.

It's a pose and many of us who have "made good" because of whom we were born to and where we were born, how we were born, etc have no intention of ever owning the basic head-start we received by accident.

Nichole