The thing with African Americans who plead white privilege, is that they’re trying correlate their own short comings, with the history of Slavery In America.
The thing with that is, anyone present in 2018, has not, ever, in their life, been enslaved by the standards that were held some 400 years ago in THIS country. While there may still be some people alive who were around during Segregation, they don’t necessarily represent the masses.
Most black folks you see angry, are merely showing how efficiently their emotions work when they see people of the same skin color being treated cruelly. And it’s a valid reason to be upset, but they try to resurrect actions and protocols that are no longer around, and correlate the average everyday people to the people they’ve seen documented centuries ago, well, now you’re just allowing emotions to cloud your logic. It’s almost as if giant masses of black people think the people depicted in what’s been documented over history, are the same people they see walking around in today’s society.
Everyone mostly touts on this idea of “institutionalized racism”. But I need to see something, anything, that documents this occurring repeatedly, on a country wide scale. There are bound to be small instances of it happening, but I see nothing or have researched nothing that implies this happens on a grand scale.
I can’t support white privilege as something valid simply because In this country, you not only have opportunity, but you’ve got an influx Of people from different countries thriving off of opportunities and excelling. African Americans also like to throw their animosity towards the “wealthy, white 1%”. Obviously there’s bound to be a wealthy 1%, but they’re putting this into a perspective as if that 1% has anything to do with determining their success. It would make sense if the 1% allowed for all white families to excel at the expense of African American families, but then again, how can black people try to correlate the wealthy 1%, with their own shortcomings, when there are families from China, The Middle East, and Latin countries gathering wealth as well? Does it not also hold true that the wealthy 1% don’t necessarily give a shit about the mass of citizens in America that are also white, or European descent?
Then there’s the white privilege concerning society. Language, law enforcement, work etiquette, work dynamics, social dynamics. To extent, there’s a grey area with that too. Police brutality, getting out of a speeding ticket, who gets a job promotion, how people react in professional settings, advancement, how people treat each other in society, etc. I’ve gotten out of speeding tickets many times. As have others. I’ve been promoted. Why? Because I disciplined myself enough to excel. Individual anecdotes may not be as credible as written facts, but the fact that they even exist suggests that these instances of issues with police, people being rude/prejudice to each other at work, examples of professional issues being overlooked due to skin color, advancement, etc., are once again, rather individual. There’s plenty of situations where opposite and positive instances, completely similar, occur to African Americans, and any other ethnical group in this country.
That’s where I think this comes into play:
But what I think is crucial about this rather true statement, is that’s an individual thing. It’s something that has to resonate within the individual, and they then have to find that relevant, or something they dub important, or something bigger than themselves. And that’s where white priviledge starts to crumble when I think about it logically. Those who fail to experience struggle, or fail to empathize, or even realize this world does not operate around them, aren’t to blame for the short coming of African Americans in THIS country.
Violence, poverty, police brutality, etc. are real instances, but the states up North and anywhere else who are impoverished and ridden with crime, when will the actions of the residents of those states carried throughout the years come into play? States/Cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York, etc. the individuals in those states and the history of crime carried out by previous individuals in those same states shape the economical outcomes. Black on black crime is nearly triple vs. white on black crime. Lack of education, I’m sure correlated with poverty in those states, but my whole point, is this: at what point in time did the aid of the government become ineffective due to the actions of the individuals who reside in the area, this includes the actions of individuals over decades. How can African american communities want change when they’re killing each other over frivolous and idiotic things such as a pair of shoes? When will they stop falling victim to this facade portrayed by the media that you have to act a certain way, or that your essence as a person is determined by money, sex, drugs, and women? People shout that black folks are misrepresented in the media, but society is only mimicking what they see. The loud, boisterous, violent, un-educated dark skinned individual. And they aren’t wrong, because giant masses of African Americans have yet to change themselves in order to change how they think they’re being represented. I think people are trying to gain success by any means necessary, but would it not be logical to pursue a career, than to see how many kilos of coke you can move, or how many people you can kill in a gang, or how many men/women you can sleep with, or how well you play off of others insecurities to feel powerful?
The intelligent individuals in this country, be they whatever ethnicity understand stereotypes to only hold as much gravity as you allow them to. And that’s where experience comes into play. Getting to know the man or woman to your right. And thats where stereotypes die. As mentioned before, it’s up to the individual to swing the pendulum of change.
You cannot correlate individual shortcomings with something as grandiose as systemic/institutional racism on a national level, thats claimed to be caused by the ever so mysterious wealthy 1%, thats supposedly overseen and advocated by the United States government who is presumed to be the manifestation of the historical large governing body centuries ago that promoted the Slavery we read about in history books. I believe the wealthy 1% do influence political decisions, but I refuse to believe they do so because they have some personal vendetta against African americans. They’re after money. And they will do by any means what they wish regardless of who suffers. White, black, Hispanic, Asian, middle eastern, and whoever else is dubbed a citizen in the U.S. I know that sounds brow raising just reading what I said right now, but that’s pretty much the logic behind all of what African americans think concerning this subject.
And African Americans as well other people who feel wronged are wording this whole thing in a way, that’s making people feel guilty. How can people feel the need to apologize for something that isn’t even operating from their own personal doings and ways of thinking?
As an African american woman in this country, no one has to apologize for my shortcomings, and I do not have to apologize for anyone else’s. I understand what has happened in this country in the past, but at the age of 22, living in the state of Texas, there’s practically opportunity being thrown at me. DAILY. And I haven’t even contributed to society, practically at all. Besides paying some income tax, working on my credit, going to school, and working a decent job.
So for white people in this country: Quit apologizing for shit that has absolutely NOTHING to do with you.
Rant over.
