let me sit back and watch your fellow whites eat you raw.

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You can easily find (and I can find many, many incidents in my life) that the complete opposite is the case (somebody gets a job or opportunity because they fulfill ethnic hiring criteria).

You should get with the modern age. Go to most public sector and large corporate environments (not to mention international organisations) and you will find plenty of people of colour who are earning good money and fulfilling a quota system.

Being white is hardly an advantage or not. Keep in mind that white people are just about the majority, and thus are a dime a dozen. Being white and educated is being plentiful and cheap. Employers are no more likely to give you a break if you are white. Why would they? Do you really believe white employers sit around thinking 'I will hire this really incompetent white guy because he is white'.? If I do a round of interviews, and all the candidates are white but for one person who isn't, and that person is the better candidate, then I would hire them rather than burden myself with a white person who can't do the job.

Wake up to the real world - it is poverty and poor education that blight people's lives, not necessarily race.

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Racism and corporations and class are largely responsible in the USA for who gets what job and for what pay and for what benefits along with a diminished role for unions. And the military gets to decide who gets sent to Iraq to suffer mightily because they were born poor. This is called American justice and the Bushies like it quite fine so they need to be impeached as the first step toward becoming a real democracy.

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Being a white male is not so simple as the author suggests. The only way to achieve success in this "buddy system" with other white males is to become like them, think as they do and not make waves. For those white males who promote equality, question authority and do not worship competition the path is frequently a series of obstacles. Women in all positions of power in my experience are immediately suspicious of any male and have begun to form "girl's clubs" similar to the "boy's clubs" they for so long have complained about. It is uncommon for any ethnicity to see me as anyone else other than a white male. When they get to know me that changes but often I never get that chance or it is too late. The opportunities for women and minorities have always been greater than mine, since I began college in 1968. And I have worked since I was in second grade and paid my way throughout life and have two graduate degress. I am currently unemployed. My life has always been dedicated to helping others but as for now in this society that has little value. I do not see successful women helping those less fortunate women (except with rhetoric) and those minorities who achieve wealth and fame do not go back to the communities that are impoverished or neglected. This white man culture is to blame is becoming boring and empty.

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Remember the old saying about being born on third base thinking you've hit a triple?

This piece is set up well -- the first version is the easy one, the story we like to tell ourselves about ourselves, while the second version is the more difficult one, the more contentious one, the one that faces up to the truth and doesn't look away.

I'm a white guy, and not just any white guy but a middle-class WASP from the Midwest, and my life has been full of instances where I've been given opportunities/second chances/the benefit of the doubt because of both who and what I am. And that hurts a little, because I'd like to believe it's been my hard work and dedication that have gotten me where I am today. Thanks for the reminder that that hasn't always been the case.

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Keep reading essays about the need for a national reconciliation of race by this writer at the following three links:

1) http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Erjensen /freelance/whiteprivilege.htm

2) http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Erjensen /freelance/justseeaperson.htm

3) http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Erjensen /freelance/notracist.htm

To link, delete the space before "/freelance". Now it is important to model reconciliaton between rival groups in the US to the rest of the world. The despair lived by Muslim fundamentalists who commit terrorist acts is a mirror image of the problems caused by the race and privilege equation here in this country. If we don't stop denying it exists, this country could become extremely violent if the economy worsens and the black underclass falls into deep and total despair.

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For whites, understanding the concept of White Privilege is quite a hurdle. It takes quite a bt of abstract thinking in order to position oneself outside this crushing and pervasive reality. It's like the first time as a student, I heard talk of women's work in an introductory Women's Studies class. So ingrained was the idea that gender division of labor was perfectly natural, that I had to think quite a bit before understanding the role that gender specific, unpaid labor plays in modern economies. You have to pull back the world from over your eyes.

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Race is always part of the story. As a previous post has explained, I think, quotas work in the same way, and as another post put it, white people are a dime a dozen. I'd rather reframe the issue to class. I am familiar with a family like yours... lower middle class who rose up and became middle class. Not all lower middle class people do that, though, for a number of reasons - lack of assimiliation or whatever. Perhaps you have learned to assimiliate or internalize middle class values, and so you had an orthodontist, you learned how to dress well, you learned how to speak well, you are fairly attractive, etc. At a certain point, race is no longer the issue, but rather how well you can imitate those economically more advantaged than you is what is at stake. Rewrite the article with class in mind... I think it could be more convincing... though I do agree with your overall idea.

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THE PUBLICATION OF THIS ARTICLE AGAIN ACKNOWLEDGES THAT WHAT WE CALL "RACISM" IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL...ALTHOUGH I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT RACE AS A DEFINING FACTOR TO KNOWLEDGE, TRUTH, AND FUTURE PERFORMANCE OF INDIVIDUALS, IT IS AN ANTIQUATED CONCEPT AS DELINEATED BELOW :

"An invalid, 18th century concept in my opinion.
It is an evolved worldview, a body of prejudgments that
distorted our ideas about human differences and group
behavior. And, "race'” was modeled after an ancient
theorem of the "Great Chain of Being , " which posited
natural categories on a hierarchy established by God or
nature. Race is an idea that is clearly not true in any
scientific manner or form. "
S. Jim Rodriguez Eclecticist Seeker

MOREOVER, THE SAME OR SIMILAR EXPERINCES WILL BE FELT BY THE EVOLVING "CHICANO / LATINO" WHERE THEY WILL BE THE MAJORITY , PLENTIFUL, EDUCATED, AND AVAILABLE TO FILL JOB POSITIONS THEREBY IMPACTING THE "QUOTA SYSTEM"... REMEMBER, THE SO-CALLED HISPANIC IS A MISNOMER BECAUSE THE LATINO CAN BE CLASSIFIED AS EITHER WHITE, AFRO-, JEWISH-, ETC...DEPENDING ON THEIR FAMILY AFFILIATION...THE ABOVE STATED SCENARIOS IMPLIES THAT THESE SELECTED CHARACTERS ARE FALLING INTO THE SIMILAR PATTERNS AS DEDICATED "WELFARE RECIPIENTS" RELYING ON HANDOUTS...THERE ARE NO MAGIC CARPET RIDES FOR ANY OF US THAT ARE NOT PART OF THE FOUR PERCENT, WEALTHY AMERICANS...THE MANTRA FOR THE LESS THAN WEALTHY IS PICK THAT COTTON, LIFT THAT BALE, AND WORK, WORK AND MORE WORK...ANYTHING LESS THAN WORK, GET ON THE BUS TO JAIL AND/OR THE DESTINATION TO NOWHERE...THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES IN LIFE, UNLESS YOU ARE AN ITEM PURCHASED AT SEARS, WAL-MART, ETC... REMEMBER :
" ...We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us. Charles Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)Philosopher and jurist

S+JIM+RODRIGUEZ+++ECLECTICIST SEEKER+++

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While I understand where the writer is coming from I would like to add a few points.

First, all of us especially "white" people need to start thinking of each other as human beings first. At its most fundamental level, having differnet color skin is not much different than having different color eyes. The only real differences are A.) the cultural ones which to me is a positive point because it simply makes life more interesting and enjoyable living amoungst different cultures and B.) the ones that we have created causing racism and a whole lot of other negative social constructs.

Second, the writer is trying to apply his social situation to the whole of society, but that is a dangerous mistake. (I will use the writer's use of color for the sake of an example) I grew up in an almost entirely "black" neighborhood and I am "white" not only did I not have some special privilege, but the exact opposite was the case. It is not color so much as perceived difference that causes this discrimination. For example, we all naturally treat people in our family (however you define that) much different than we treat a stranger but aren't all humans family at the most fundamental level? What would happen if we treated each other as such? I am sure I could be accused of being idealist at the moment but think about it. I try my best to live this idea everyday.

Third, (sorry for making this a long post :) the writer towards the end of his article states the common sociologist's theory that while we have some control over our circumstances they are largely determined by our environment. Honestly, I have to say that this idea, while it may have merit usually produces the effect of resignation and dispair. The honest truth is that human beings have the power to change any human environment at any moment. I mean think about it, we have the power to undo any problem or scial construct caused by us because WE created it. That's why the people who DO NOT except this overwelming "product of your environment" idea and instead make the impossible possible are the ones who inspire us all...Gandhi and MLK come to mind here.
I guess the ultimate point I am trying to make is let's not resign ourselves to these decaying social constructs but instead create new ones based on the fact that we are all family. We CAN change reality and I personally believe that many of the people on this site are the ones who have the power to do so.

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Liberals break me up. On one hand you have the author of this piece with liberal white guilt. On the foot below are the white liberals (the comment folks) who basically want to deny racism or at least believe in their white hearts that racism is no big deal. Racism is everything. There would be no USA if it weren’t for racism.

Racism was created in the USA, actually before it was the USA. It was still a bunch of colonies back then. Read The Road not Taken by Lerone Benett Jr. The article is in the august 1970 issue of Ebony Magazine. It tells the story of how the founding fathers – may be actually the founding fathers’ fathers -- created racism to keep black slaves and white indentured servants from uniting with Native Americans and killing all those powdered wig wearing pieces of crap who came over here and stole the land, committed genocide on the people who lived here, enslaved millions of Africans and forced poor whites to work for free. But once they realized they needed poor whites has a buffer against the Natives and the Africans, they began to pass laws that changed the terms of indentured servitude so the poor whites had a chance to escape form virtual slavery into wage slavery. They also used religion and other forms of ideological control to build “White Supremacy.”

Racism is about class. The ruling class created it to divide the working class and that’s what it is still used for today. It allows for the super exploitation of people with a certain skin shades from all over the world. The capital that the powdered wig wearers used to build the US economy came from the toil and genocide of Africans slaves on land that was stolen from Native Americans. Then genocide was committed upon them.

So yeah Jensen “white people” do have a sort of privilege, but the privilege is what keeps us all oppressed. Not all of us are professors who come from the working class, but who are afraid to use the term, and are willing to write propaganda that denies the supremacy of class in the formation and continuation of racism. For most white working people the knife is 5 inches in our backs, for blacks it’s 7 inches, but we’re all still dying. People like you are no help

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I appreciate your heart felt confession, but non whites of conscious really need to leave this country. You can keep the negros and the criminals that white supremacy made. (and I'd like for you to keep the xtians who worship the white god jesus too, but that would seriously deplete the exodus).

Instead of starting the war in Iraq, the Republicans and all those who even remotely question what you have written should allow for reparations so we can leave this white man's land. For non whites their only hope of survival here is to be white!!!!

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Jonathan McWhorter--who may be anathema to Alternet's posters, I don't know--pointed out in Losing The Race that there are three things holding back black citizens in America: a black culture that embraces victimization, a definition of "blackness" that is inflexible, arbitrary, and political (i.e., if you don't fully support every black person against "the man," you're an Oreo or an Uncle Tom, not really black, a traitor to your people, got no soul), and a pervasive anti-intellectualism that equates book learning with "trying to be white."

A black graduate student in a lab I worked in said it worked against her all her life--that she either had to defend her intellectual life or be "black like us."

Now it would seem that the rest of America has Gumped itself by electing Bush, a triumph of anti-intellectualism if there ever was one.

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Those who feel no sympathy for the neighborhoods they managed to leave might feel that they got zero support from those communities--and even families, like a grandmother who warns them against "being too uppity."

If a black student trying to get into college is harassed every step of the way by other blacks accusing her of "trying to be white," I would guess that student might feel that she owed her neighborhood nothing. And I would tend to sympathize with her. Or him.

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Okay, my lefty multiethnic brothers and sisters....

As a Black man, I've worked hard to get where I am. I've endured taunts from both sides. Spit on by ignorant whites and accused of being "white" by ignorant Blacks. Here's what I see....

I see the rich elite leading the masses by the nose on this issue. Although I will admit that I do see racism in quite a few things, I am inclined to believe that this is merely the fruit of the real problem.

The real problem is classism. The rich folks hate Blacks, Mexicans, and poor white folks. I've seen classism against the poor whites quite a bit down here in Fredericksburg.

The sad part is, we're always told it's a race problem. No, they tell us it's a race problem to keep us divided. Unfortunately, the author has bought into the lie. Jim Webb (the former Reagan-era Sec'y of the Navy who switched to the Democratic Party and is running against the Californian Redneck George Allen) said that if there is a change to affirmative action to include more ethnicities, then the changes should also include underprivileged whites as well.

I totally agree. I've heard of white people being turned down for jobs because their accent is too Southern or because they don't have the best clothes. They suffer from low expectations just as much as any other group. As a matter of fact, I believe that they are more despised than Blacks (because of the reasons the author of this article wrote about). They have the genetic advantage, but not the educational or economic advantage.

My point is this. We need to quit being sidetracked by the rich (mostly Republican) elite insinuating that the problem is solely based on race. The real problem is economic. Those who have attained power will do anything to protect it, including using fear and hatred to divide those who can overthrow them.

Let's not fall for the crap. Let's stop the cries of racism and the race-baiting. We're in this together. We've got corporations running our government and making money off of the blood of our husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. We've got corrupt politicians getting their palms greased by selfish CEOs who will not think twice about taking a job away from an American of any race to make a profit through the use of cheap, slave labor in a third world country sweat shop.

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Both are simplifications. Both are shadows drawn from the real complexity. From what I have seen of your writing in a few articles on this site, you lack both face and force. Leonard Pitts seems to me twenty times the journalist you are.

Am I a bigot? There is no one answer to that. There are no two or three answers. How do I feel about college professors? Several are among the outstanding men and women I have known. Many others have been a mix of arrogance, incompetence, and credentials. Most are merely ok. But as regards any given professor, the next person might disagree entirely with me.

We struggle on, all of use in our diverse ways.

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Race Is Always Part of the Story

And if not - you'll certainly make it.

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Many black people's failures are made possible, in part, simply because they are black...

Probably wouldn't fly, would it? So why the eagerness to define whites via a racist filter? Poverty impacts us all, and limits choices for all. All cultures should be working to end poverty, create opportunities, and embrace what makes us all unique. Medical science, for example, now has different treatment protocols for African Americans becase they have recognized that we are, in fact, different from one another. We all need to move beyond the black/white box because it distracts from the reality of the modern world.

"...Many white people's accomplishments are made possible, in part, simply because they are white..."

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Hold on there buddy - you conveniently forgot that the reason "blacks" are called minorities is because they only make up about 12 - 15% of the USA population.

Just because you lived in a predominantly white town and got hired by mostly white people (who were probably all men, but that's an article damning all men to hell just because they were born male and have an inherent advantage over women) doesn't automatically make all them white folk racist or give you a so-called advantage. It's called the Law of Averages. Yeah racism, classism, genderism (is that even a word?) exists, but by pure numbers, nothing will ever be "equal."

By the way, I guess those people in that North Dakota town never heard of Buffalo, NY, where the wicked cold winter lasts about 7 months and there are more non-whites than whites. However, I don't know about the riff-raff population.

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Could someone please tell me how to find a person with white skin? I have looked and looked and looked, and all I see are people with various hues of pinkish, tan, orangish, yellowish and brownish skin. As an anthropologist, I would love to be the first to discover a human with white skin. I would also love to be the first to discover a new human race, since so far we only know of one in existence (and no, it's not the one Lance won 7 times in a row). Please, anyone that can provide me this information, I need tenure fast!

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It would be difficult to argue with those who have suggested that problems in this country stem more class than race. Especially when one considers the gross and continual increases in wealth concentration, the assault on progressive public policy for the poor, the steady rise of oligopolies (all issues that can be read about here) -- it's clear that classism is an ugly force in America. However, to say that class should be the issue of focus does not take race off the hotseat. As a few have indicated above, race and class are tightly bound up together in this country and I think that the author of the original article is onto this by claiming that, by and large, white people are (willfully) ignorant of their white privilege and that, as such, the mechanisms that make it easier for white people to be upwardly class mobile and those that make it more difficult for people of color to be so mobile continue to be ignored and reinscribed. Since the very day Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed, while the Black middle class has increased, the Black poverty rate is almost exactly the same. That tells us clearly that even while the Civil Rights Era opened important doors of opportunity to people of color, it's still a real bitch to live at the intersection of Black and Poor in America. Sure, it's a bitch to be white and poor in America, too. But the fact that no one is going to fail to consider you for a job because of your race, no one is going to deny you an apartment because you're Black (oftentimes detected over the phone by landlords), and you'll be less likely to be criminalized in school than your poor Black schoolmates, (and so we could go on), means that, while having to fight the elitism and classism in American society, poor whites have the advantage of significantly fewer hurdles in their way than non-whites. When the number of CEOs and political power players who are Black is representative of the Black population, when the day comes that you're not twice or three times as likely to be born into poverty if you're born Black in America, then I'll say that the problems are all about class and classism. Until that day, it seems obvious to me that race and class are inextricably tied together.

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I identify with this story a lot. I've had a lot of second chances in my life. If my parents had not been upstanding, well-off, well-known, well-connected white folks, I would not have been so lucky. People who say "enough already with the white guilt" really stump me. I have no idea how to respond to that, except that I don't feel guilty. I just see what's obviously true.

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My husband was the first in his family to go to college. He was having trouble at college and heard there were programs to help first generation sutdents. he went to the Dean of his college, a black man, who told him he could not get assistance. The implication was "You're white, how can you possibly be the first."

And while we're at it, how come no one is complaining about the negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans? It's permitted and anyone who complains is told they're being too sensitive and they should lighten up.

And I got a good dose of the white guilt at my husband's college graduation in 1986. The speaker was a black woman with a very cultivated speaking style who apparently majored in Third World studies. Rather than telling the graduating class that they've finished, good job, we were told shame on you see how these Third World people suffer so you can live well. Granted there was a grain of truth to her statements, but consider the venue. This was Michigan State University's College of Communications, not social work.

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and sitting at home typing how white people keep you down and make black men not stay as fathers and make black kids listen to rap and breathe in a culture that objectifies women and demeans education and make black teens walk and talk like gangsters and ho's even at job applications and eat at mcdonalds every day of the week and not vote and not take individual responsibility for educating yourself and not got to public libraries and not pay attention at school and on and on and on -your "black" peers that are from Haiti and Nigeria etc. are working hard, going to school, having 2 parent families, and saving their money for homes and succeeding and putting the lie to your notions of oppression and white guilt. why do you think all successful black people become conservatives (Rice, Thomas, Powell, Cosby, Barkley) etc.? Because they know that it was hard work that got them where they are and not a hand up! they know that they had to drop the "poor me im black" attitude real quick if they were going to succeed. its a lesson well learned.

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* sigh * -- it's hard to refute the argument that the circumstances one is born into, all of them, have an influence on one's prospects. As a white man, I can't say that I consider the recognition of this by another as exactly profound. Since you apparently just recently woke up, I have this : As an activist against institutionalized racism, know that your enemies are well-entrenched and come in all shapes and sizes, worldwide. I think that choosing to combat the status-quo from the inside amounts to trying to expose such persons, ultimately to extract a financial toll, without destroying yourself in the process. However, balancing this with the job itself, family, etc. becomes more complicated in time. More effective is to seek employment with only those who have a proven record of providing only merit-based advancement, and to accept only such advancement yourself. However, upon witnessing a violation of this policy you are faced with demanding a correction, resigning, or again working to expose the persons involved. Or, try doing a stint outside the US to get some perspective. Obviously, other countries have had comparable issues for centuries, and while some have made no apparent progress, many have simply adapted in a way that I can't imagine many US corporations doing.

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Of course race makes a difference, but not as much difference as income level. Racial disadvantage is only among people of the same or higher income lrvrl. Does anyone honestly believe that the descendents of a rich black person will be at a disadvantage against a poor white person? Is there a person so naive as to believe that Condi Rice's relatives are at a disadvantage if she pulls for them?

I'm not minimizing racial inequality it exists. There is a natural tendency to help our own kind it is instinct. A powerful black person is just as likely to favor a black person as a white is a white.

The sooner whites and blacks recognize that wealth discrimination is the more powerful discrimination the sooner we'll unite to combat it.

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I watched Tom Brokaws "Seperate but Equal" the 23rd. Granted rasicm is part of the story, sometimes racism inside a culture, African American against darker colored, Native American against other tribal members, now we see legal immagrents against illegals but the root of it all is classiscm.
Social Darwinism is everywhere....we are little more than animals choosing a pecking order, heirarchy when we decide to disenfranchise another so we can step on them. Women the elderly, and now children are at the bottom.

I resent the implication that Blacks don't help eachother in his report, that Black men are less than. His use of under class has shades of Nazi use of "untermensch". lower human. As if.

The rich and powerful find it easier to write a check and write it off than look at the base they stand on or the pyramid they climbed up and think...did I force someone down to get here.

Brokaw could have done his story in any rural white area, any urban hispanic area, any Native area and gotten the same story where they would be characterized as unable, period. Read the other alternet story, It Costs to be Poor and put whatever race you want in the blanks. Same story and the rich powerful pundits want us all to blame ourselves and the other disenfranchised rather than demand change in a feudal economic system.

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Nothing is more telling of the state of mind around privilege than to read the bleating comments challenging Jensen’s post. It’s a pretty simple premise: some people get significant breaks in life, then attribute their good fortune to “hard work.” Notice how many times Jensen uses that phrase? Count ‘em – he’s using the words that all privileged people use to tell themselves that they are different from those who have to go without. The fact remains that skin color, gender, and socioeconomic class are, in large part, determinative of where you end up in the hierarchy of human beings. Jensen is merely reminding us: in the U.S., one’s race can be a significant advantage or disadvantage.

Notably, he doesn’t say “in all circumstances” – he gives us an honest portrait to contemplate and a useful mirror for each of us to ponder whether our “hard work” would have gotten us where we are if we were a different gender, color, or class. What results from such contemplation is not guilt (guilt comes from choice; I didn’t choose my race, socioeconomic class at birth, or gender). Thinking about how I and other people got where we are in life (including whether we really did “work hard”) gives us greater understanding of the human condition and perhaps some well-deserved humility and gratefulness.

Or you can be like GW Bush and his ilk, the very model of the arrogant privileged American, swaggering about with no humility and no clue.

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I grew up in foster homes and institutions living and developing my personality within cultures not races. I found many good people and a few bad ones.
In my many different neighborhoods in Chicago- southside, westside, and nw-side I went to school with many gangs, Blackstones, Disciples, Latin Kings, etc. I had to fight every day as a white boy- but my foster parents of all nationalities showed me love and concern. Don't get me wrong I had my share of abuse (sexual, mental, and physical) but I never really saw RACISM until I went into the military in 1967.
You see in my travels through-out this world I saw that its not about racism it is about class, wealth, and power. If these elite forces can continue to keep us focused on our differences, we do not have a chance to focus on them- surrounded by their secrecy.
If you really think about it- is not war really about all of us fighting the RICH mans war for his/her wealth. I have not meet anyone who fought incountry in the rice patty, mud and guts who really enjoyed it, unless they were trained and conditioned by the governments.
We the people of this country and the world are at war, these elite declared war against us in 1913 with the passage of the income tax and federal reserve acts.

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You lost me at: "in a white-supremacist society."

White supremacy is a racist ideology which holds that the white race is superior to other races. This is a far cry from white privledge, in which people of certain attributes get further than others because they aren't judged as harshly by the people who do hold bigoted beliefs within our society, and due to the degree of comfort that many feel amongst others of their own race, sex and orientation.

In order for our society to be white supremacist, one would have to prove that a majority of whites in positions of power held those racist beliefs. Whereas it only takes a minority of the privledged to exert an undue influence on the majority of the underprivledged.

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This is hypothetical, it does not represent my life at all but here goes...

I (white male)was raised by educated parents. In high school I excelled in math and chemistry, and I got a job in a local refinery testing samples in the lab. The boss was a PhD chemist. I made a lot more then my white friends who were working at burger joints.
I went to college and earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering. My forst job, I was hired by a PhD Chemical Engineer. My first promotion had me a manager of staff, all engineers, my boss was pHD chemist.
After 25 years of promotions, I was the president of the company. I now hire engineers and chemists.
Being an engineer is really why I succeeded, not because of hard work.

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Jensen is one white person several eons ahead of most who truly want to believe that we live in a "meritocracy."
The absurdity of it is incredulous!
Compare the amount of benefits, breaks, opportunities one gets when they are "white" to the opportunities one gets when they are "black" is like the guy on the block with the tank, now worried that the guy whose lunch he's took for 400 years, has now got a slingshot.
Think about the numbers, not antedotal bullcrap
The number of black men in prison (12% of the population-50% of the prison population)
70 or more % of black men don't graduate from highschool compared to about 25% of white men.
Blacks, particularly blackmen lead in all the negative health statistical categories like heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, and AIDS-and the leading cause of death for young black men-death by violence.
So, now in 2006 because a few doors opened, I've got to listen to some whiney white guy talk about how good black people have it? The numbers don't say so.
I worked from the housing projects to an advanced degree, and people like McWhorter can go to ....because I happened to see the white frat guys that passed on the tests and pre-written papers to go on to get unquestioned A's, while the blacks at the white schools had to deal more with racism and social issues than academics.
Its time for white folks to grow up-or do you really think you are that much smarter? I mean really prior to the new wave of immigrants, who did all the gutter work in this country-and got no benefits from it? If it merely comes to hard work, ask the Mexican day laborers how much they've moved up compared to the white guy paying them below competitive wages to come in under budget on his construction project?
He's a millionaire, and the Mexican, well he's up a 6am, one step behind the black guy, looking for the next "day" job.
One day, whites will get a chance to experience true racism because that is karma and its coming soon--then instead of the other race groups telling them we know how you feel, we'll do just like they do and say, c'mon it ain't that bad-you guys got it better than me---haaaaaa!

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one thing leads to another...if you start in public school being socialized into eurocentric academia and continue thru college, those who cut short their educational pursuits will more than likely think that the college bound blacks are acting or embracing "white." And the truth be told, they must put their European education to work and adhere to the "norms"...

Eurocentric academia teaches a eurocentric worldview and demands that this world view be embraced, if a non euro is to succeed in society. Those non college bound folks who have problems with accepting it, (but here's the rub..they don't allow themselves enough education to critical think an alternative solution) rebel in a myriad of ways..hip hop culture being one..drug sales another..

I'm sure I'll get disagreement because whites are too arrogant to accept that their blacks could want another world view or even that one exist. Blacks, after being educated in the eurocentric area, most don't believe a non eurocentric world view exist in them either and when they have tinges of its existence, they don't know what to do or are afraid to explore those tinges. So they internalize and learn to scream, "racism."

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maybe you'll understand the SYSTEMS of white supremacy and take something positive away from the post..

THE CULTURE OF WHITE SUPREMACY

I. WHAT IS CULTURE?

A. A Definition

Culture is a way of life. (Definition by People’s Institute of Survival and Beyond in New Orleans.) Culture
is passed on from generation to generation through institutions, groups, interpersonal and individual
behavior.

B. FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE

For institutions: Culture provides the matrix out of which institutions grow, and the “glue” which binds
institutions together in systems. Culture also provides the legitimacy and justification for the
perpetuation of institutions from one generation to the next. (Material provided by Diana Dunn of People’s
Institute.)

For example, a local public school can survive as an individual institution because some parents choose to
send their children to the school. The school exists within the system of public schools in a particular
city because tax payers are willing to continue paying taxes to support that school. And the entire public
school system in a country can exist from generation to generation only so long as sufficient adults in the
population believe that sending their children to public school will be beneficial.

For groups and individuals: Culture provides a sense of identity — who you are—— and a sense of belonging
——who you are with. It provides a sense of purpose —— your reason for being in the world—— and an
orientation ——your sense of where you are going in your life (broadly speaking).

C. CULTURE AS A PROCESS

Culture is a set of rules for behavior. You cannot ‘see’ culture because you cannot see the rules; you can
only see.. .the behaviors the rules produce. ..Cultural rules influence people to behave similarly, in ways
which help them to understand each other... For example, cultural rules shape food preferences. ..The
essence of culture is not these behaviors themselves, but the rules that produce the behaviors.

Culture is characteristic of groups. The rules of a culture are shared by the group, not invented by the
individual; the rules of the group which are passed on from one generation to the form the core of the
culture...

Culture is learned... What each person learns depends upon the cultural rules of the people who raise
them.. .Because culture is learned, it is a mistake to assume a person’s culture by the way s/he
looks...Culture can be well learned by some people in the group and less well learned by others...

“Cultures borrow and share rules.. .Cultural rules change over time, and sometimes when two groups have
extensive contact with one another, they influence each other in some areas... (Excerpts taken from CULTURE
AS A PROCESS by Carol Brunson Phillips; February 27, 1991. Thanks to lntisar Shareef for calling my
attention to this material.)

II. WHAT IS WHITE CULTURE?

A. AN HISTORICAL DEFINITION OF “WHITE”

The term white as applied to people was first used by slave—owning colonialists in 17th century Maryland
and Virginia to describe poor indentured servants who came from Europe. Originally, these servants had been
called “Englishmen,” “Irishmen” or “Christians,” but the colonial ruling class began to use the term
“white” to distinguish European servants from African ones, who were often called “Negro,” which means
“black” in Spanish.

Read the rest here..interesting and informative...
http://prisonactivist.org/cws/cws-culture.html

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According to Wikipedia, Cultural capital (le capital culturel) is a sociological concept that has gained widespread popularity since it was first articulated by Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron first used the term in Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction (1973). In this work he attempted to explain differences in educational outcomes in France during the 1960s. It has since been elaborated and developed in terms of other types of capital in The Forms of Capital (1986); and in terms of higher education, for instance, in The State Nobility (1996).
For Bourdieu, capital acts as a social relation within a system of exchange, and the term is extended ‘to all the goods material and symbolic, without distinction, that present themselves as rare and worthy of being sought after in a particular social formation (cited in Harker et al, 1990:13). Cultural capital is specifically those resources which are culturally authorised, or in other words, derived from culture.

In The Forms of Capital (1986), Bourdieu distinguishes between three types of capital:
Economic capital: command over economic resources (cash, assets).
Social capital: resources based on group membership, relationships, networks of influence and support. Bourdieu defines social capital as "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition."
Cultural capital: forms of knowledge; skill; education; any advantages a person has which give them a higher status in society, including high expectations. Parents provide children with cultural capital, the attitudes and knowledge that makes the educational system a comfortable familiar place in which they can succeed easily.
Later he adds symbolic capital to this list.


Types of Cultural Capital

Cultural capital is comprised of three subtypes: embodied, objectified and institutionalised (Bourdieu, 1986:47). Bourdieu distinguishes between these three types of capital:
an embodied state. This is where cultural capital is embodied in the individual. It is both the inherited and acquired proprieties one’s self. Inherited not in the genetic sense, but more in the sense of time, cultural, and traditions bestow elements of the embodied state to another usually by the family through socialisation. It is not transmittable instantaneously like a gift. It is strongly linked to one's habitus - a person's character and way of thinking.
an objectified state. Things which are owned, such as scientific instruments or works of art. These cultural goods can be transmitted physically (sold) as an exercise of economic capital, and “symbolically” as cultural capital. However, while one can possess objectified cultural capital by owning a painting, they can only "consume" the painting (understand its cultural meaning) if they have the correct type of embodied cultural capital (which may or may not be transmitted during the selling of the painting).
an institutionalised state. This is institutional recognition of the cultural capital held by an individual, most often understood as academic credentials or qualificaitons. This is mainly understood in relation to the labour market.It allows easier conversion of cultural capital to economic capital by guaranteeing a certain monetary value for a certain institutional level of achievement.
Linguistic capital, defined as the mastery of and relation to language (Bourdieu, 1990:114), in the sense that it represents ways of speaking, can be understood as a form of embodied cultural capital.

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Great article. I can see that this essay got under a lot of people's (mostly white) skin.

I did an assignment in college similar to this where I had to write about how my white skin has influenced my lot in life. This author mentioned some things I did not include, didn't ever think about, really, which should have been a part of my assessment.

The author of this essay is not trying to say that life is simply white vs. non-white, rather, he's trying to illuminate the invisibility of whiteness and it's influence on our society.

Until we fully recognize the connection betweeen racism AND white privilege, we will not be able to fully dismantle racism, as well as sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc.

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You were born white, which may have offered you some advantages & also disadvantages. That is not a crime. Don't be so pathetic feeling guilty over genetics. It was out of your control. For an academic you are very naive. Deal with it!
Maybe, move away from Texas for a while. The real world is out here!

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A story or a condition? Race, gender, religion, orientation; it matters not. If you defend capitalism and capitalists, you are no friend.

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I believe that the racial discrimination is only one of many symptoms of a bigger disease: GREED... It is RICH/ POOR do you get it? The gap between the rich and poor is widening... writing to our leaders and calling them just doesn't work anymore... we have to put aside our differences and all of us WRITE IN ONE AGREED UPON CANDIDATE in order to help get us average worker bees some representation!!! THEY (no matter what color) will never represent us properly so we need to ORGANIZE and we need to COMMUNICATE and VOTE for one person regardless of race -- and then hold that person accountable... Let's throw out the play stations people... ditch your unhealthy habits... stop wasting our time watching phony people on TV and start getting in touch with real people in our communities as well as other towns... let us HELP each other and be educated so we do not continue to be victimized by a ruling elite who claim the economy is so great, but who don't have to stress over money at the gas pump. Shame on the greedy corporate leaders whose workers have been taken advantage of...so they can make record profits. We should go for a UNITED political action in which all of our groups demand better pay for everybody who works hard and make those corporations who make huge profits help significantly.

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And here I am thinking it's all about how HOT you are...Damn. I guess I never really considered how hard Hale Berry had to fight against Kathy Bates for that role in Monster's Ball. Thanks for the eye opener.

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Dear Robert Jensen . . .

"Until we let go of the fiction that people have complete control over their fate -- that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose -- then we should expect to live with that fear."

This says it all for me.

May you live long, learn much, and feel fulfilled . . . Betsy
Betsy L. Angert Be-Think

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1. Saying folks do well because they're white is just as insulting as saying someone got where they did because of minority preferences.
2. I don't get where this whole racial guilt thing came from. If members of your family commit a crime, are you responsible? No. If a member of your race does (or rather, did) something wrong, are you responsible? Why should that result be any different? Cultures, races and societies have abused each other since the beginning of time - how far back do you want to go to right those historical wrongs? Maybe people of Celtic descent should seek reparation from those of Saxon descent for the wrongs done to them about a thousand years ago - imagine where their culture might be today if that had never happened! Then the Saxons could bring folks of Norman French descent into the action as third-party defendants, and someone should probably cross-claim against the Italians for what the Romans did two thousand years ago - and they actually ENSLAVED quite a few of the Celts. You can go on and on with such examples.
3. Exactly how did Americans of African descent get the vote? Hmmm. Oh, yeah. Same way women did. A bunch of white guys finally realized how idiotic it was to deny them the full rights of citizenship and voted to give it to them.

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There aren't enough black people posting around here.

Reading white people batting around this subject is kind of like drinking non-carbonated, caffiene-free, supermarket cola.

And I ain't saying I'm any better.

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For you closet racist who wish to relieve yourself of your ancestors evilness and your present privilege..let me say this:

Do the comparison with the second and third generation continental Africans after they have lived in your cultural presence..there will be no difference in the ratio of those, now African Americans that "make it" and those that "rebel against your system."

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I've read Jensen's material and initially thought it was valuable as a model for other so-called whites to engage the notion of racism. However, I had the misfortune to meet Jensen which completely eliminated any notions I had that this was a socially just human being. His attitude of superiority which he notes in one of his previous articles is alive and visible. I have no respect for his work- he is simply capitalizing on the pain and disenfranchisement of African Americans.

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