I want to thank you all for coming out i
want to start off by telling you that I
think it is probably a good idea and I
try to give this advice it most of my
talk is probably a very good idea when
somebody stands in front of you and is
proclaimed by virtue of their bio and by
virtue of their curriculum vita their
resume that part of which is read to you
by way of the nice comments made about
them by others proclaim to be an expert
it's probably a very good idea to ask
yourself why it is that you're listening
to that person and not somebody else in
this culture we are led to believe that
if someone stands before you a
proclaimed expert that it must be
because they are indeed the brightest
bulb in the box that they know something
that the other people don't know I'm not
standing in front of you and you are not
listening to me because I am the most
informed person in the country on racism
or white privilege not because I'm the
best speaker on those subjects i'm
fairly good and I intend to demonstrate
that to you amply in the next hour it is
not because I'm the best rider on the
subject though I'm okay with that as
well it is instead because I and I know
this fit the aesthetic that is needed on
too many campuses and too many
communities around the country in order
to come in and to give this tall nothing
that i am going to say tonight or at
least very little originated in my head
nothing or at least very little of what
i say tonight is in fact new almost
every single thing that I'm going to say
this evening is wisdom that has been
shared with me either patiently or
sometimes not so patiently by people of
color who have in almost every instance
forgotten more about the subjects of
racism and white privilege since
breakfast yesterday that i will likely
never know and yet they will not be
asked to give 85 engagements around the
country this year or next on this
subject
not because they have not the wisdom to
do it but because privilege the subject
but i'll deal with tonight bestows upon
me that advantage and so as a matter of
responsibility and accountability I have
to own that upfront so that when you go
away from this this evening thinking to
yourself
my goodness that was good
and I'm sure that's my subliminal way to
tell you you're gonna think it's just
great
and when you go away from here thinking
that I filled your head with all this
great knowledge and wisdom please know
that it is not mine and the next time
you hear it from a person of color the
next time is shared with you for those
in the audience particular white the
next time it is shared with you by a
person of color as it will be and as it
has been in one form or another
please listen to it and please know that
it is from that source that I get
virtually all of my material we will
know that we have made progress only on
that day when a person of color can get
up and give the talk that i'm about to
give and be taken half as seriously as I
expect to be taken
it's interesting to see so many people
come out to these events because to hear
some people tell it you would think that
this conversation was almost wholly
unnecessary to pay attention to the
American political process and what the
candidates for this nation's highest
office have to say and not say about the
issues that are of importance to them
and thus we are to presume importance to
the nation you would get the impression
that the issue of race that the issue of
racism that the issue of discrimination
and certainly that the issue of white
racial privilege were non-existent
issues that they were really no
importance of very little importance
because you will not hear and have not
heard any of the candidates for
presidency of the United States and
either party of whatever political
ideology make this an issue
yes they talk about poverty and
occasionally they talk about schooling
and education they talk about health
care they talk about all of those things
but not once have any of those
candidates tried to directly connect the
role that racism the role that racial
discrimination the role that
institutional racial oppression and
white privilege play in regard to health
care in regard to housing in regard to
schooling in regard to poverty
it is as if those issues exist in a
vacuum and have no relationship to color
have no relationship to race have no
relationship to a history of racial
subordination what does it say
about our nation's political process and
about our nation's political and social
culture that none of these candidates
for office has seen fit to tell the
American public the following things all
of which you would think would be
campaign issues of some importance at
least to some people and yet they won't
say them why is it that none of the
mention that it was last year 2006 not
1996 not 1986 not 1976 or 66 but 2006
which witnessed the highest number of
race-based housing discrimination
complaints and recorded history the fair
housing act was passed in nineteen
sixty-eight the year of my birth and yet
it was not 1968 that witness the highest
level of discrimination complaints based
on race it was 38 years later in 2006
what does it say about our culture and
the politicians the choices we have been
given for leader of the so-called free
world that none of these candidates sees
fit to mention as they talk about
healthcare which subject they do talk
about with some regularity what does it
say that none of them have seen fit to
mention the research that was published
in the american journal of public health
in 2004 which had looked at ten years of
excess mortality data for
african-americans from 1991 to 2,000
working at the number of black folks who
had died above and beyond the number
that would have died but for their
blackness in effect and the social and
economic conditions that described and
essentially adhere to blackness in this
country and what they found in that
study would receive almost no media
attention again published an academic
journal not read by the average American
not read by political candidates read by
doctors and people who research the
healthcare industry but that's about it
this study found that between 1991 in
two thousand there were almost 1 million
black people in this country who died
who would not have died had nearly been
white and had
average health care quality and access
of the typical white person in this
country had they been living in
neighborhoods like white neighborhoods
in which the levels of exposure to
toxicity had been as low as it is in the
typical white neighborhood as opposed to
excess exposure to toxic six pollutants
etc in black and brown spaces almost 1
million excess dead people in this case
black folks who wouldn't have died had
the system of healthcare access and
exposure to toxic spin equal between
white folks and black folks how is a
million dead black people not news
you see if James bird gets dragged to
death behind a truck in jasper texas you
will hear about that and well you should
if one individual is the victim of a
vicious a cron you will hear about that
and well you should
but if nearly 1 million people died
not because of bigotry not because of
hatred not because of some white
supremacist organization but because of
systemic and institutionalized injustice
you will not hear anything
how is it not news and why are no
candidates mentioning that according to
the Department of Justice in a study
released in 2004 black and latino males
are three times more likely than white
males to have their cars stopped and
searched for drugs even though white
males are four and a half times more
likely to actually have drugs on us on
the occasion when we are stopped now
think about that because that suggests
that racial profiling is not just racist
we know that is redundant but it's also
pretty stupid ass law enforcement or is
it because I guess it's only stupid if
you think the purpose of the war on
drugs is actually to get drugs off the
street because if that were the purpose
putting aside whether or not we want to
deal with a medical in a health problem
known as drug addiction with war
metaphors in the first place different
lecture for a different night even if we
assume that that is a good policy
let us be clear that that is not what
we're fighting we're not fighting a war
on drugs because the first rule of any
wars to go where the enemy is and if the
white folks are the ones with the drugs
in the car and the black and brown folks
are the ones getting stopped the people
fighting this war are either supremely
stupid or just having a really bad
short-term memory but they keep
forgetting oh damn I pulled over another
guy named Martinez haha i keep
forgetting its white people it's white
people damn i guess i gotta write a note
and put it on the dashboard I don't know
what's wrong with me
maybe that's it you know or maybe it's
something else i do trainings with law
enforcement not a hell of a lot of four
reasons you can probably guess and I ask
law enforcement officers what's the
first thing you think when you see a
young black or Latino male driving a
nice car in your neighborhood and they
all without fail and without exception
will say drug dealer
I didn't ask them what's the first thing
you think when you see a young white
male same age driving the same kind of
car in that same community and they will
say without exception without hesitation
without fail spoiled little rich kid
daddy probably bought in the car
keep in mind we've been together for
about 90 seconds of the workshop at this
point we have two hours left and they
have just outed themselves as racist
because what they have said is that they
are making snap judgments on the basis
of only color that worked the detriment
of people of color the benefit of white
people we still got two hours to go so
you know it's going to be fun from that
point forward
these are people sworn to protect and to
serve it's right there on the car right
there on the side of the car and in the
first 90 seconds they are acknowledging
these racial biases how is that not an
issue i was it not an issue that
according to that Justice Department
report while black and brown folk are
having their wheel wells ripped apart on
the side of the road their trunks
splayed open their dashboards ripped
apart in the search for drugs which
aren't even there
white people like me notice i said like
me because I'm not trying to tell you
anything about me that you don't need to
know and for which the statute of
limitations has not yet expired are
driving by the roadblock with a trunk
full of weed
and we're just waving because we're not
suspected therefore were not detected
therefore not punished
how is that not an issue how is it not
an issue that the typical white family
in America thanks to this history this
legacy of institutionalized depression
for some an advantage and privilege for
others how was it not news that the
average white family in America not the
average rich white family the average
white family has 12 times the
accumulated net worth of the average
african-american family eight times the
accumulated net worth of the average
Latino Family in large measure because
those white average families have had
parents or grandparents who even if they
didn't have much even if they were not
rich nonetheless were able to procure a
little house a little property maybe
with an FHA or VA loan in the middle of
the 20th century loans that were all but
off-limits to people of color as they
gave hundreds of billions of dollars
worth of assets and equity to those who
were white so that even white
working-class families on average even
white families with less than 15,000 a
year in annual income which depending on
family size that is technically legally
the poverty limit and yet the average
white family with low income less than
15,000 has the same average net worth as
a typical black family with 60,000 or
more in annual income so that even those
african-american families that are
professional good jobs occupational
status good education etc and pretty
good incomes are still in worse shape in
terms of wealth and assets material
goods which are really what matter in
the long run your income if you're
dependent on that you're one paycheck
away from nothing if you don't have
assets if you don't have wealth and even
have something accumulated your income
means very little in the case of an
economic downturn in these working-class
white families who are struggling make
no mistake about it nonetheless are on
average going to be better off than
those black families with four times as
much annual pay
how can that not be an issue i'm
suggesting to you that the failure to
talk about race the failure to talk
about racism and inequality on the basis
of color feeds the denial that is
already far too prevalent among the
white community
and having been white all of my life
I've been surrounded by that denial for
a very long time a few years back white
Americans were asked whether or not we
believe that racial discrimination was
still a significant national problem for
people of color or whether it was just a
problem you know like junk mail wrong
phone number two in the morning you
can't get back to sleep it's raining and
you want to go outside for a jog
you know a problem but one you'll get
over you know whether it wasn't much of
a problem wasn't a problem at all we
just weren't sure they also asked black
and brown folk this question folks of
color was surprised you said yes it is a
significant problem actually and not
just because i read about it in
sociology textbook i actually have lived
it would be more than happy to tell you
what kind of problem it's been but these
were pollsters many care about that they
just wanted to yes or no they were on to
the next house and they asked white
folks is it or is it not a significant
national problem racial discrimination
for people of color and against people
of color and only six percent six out of
100 said yes that it was a significant
national problem just to give you an
idea of how bad that is
I would have you compare it to a survey
taken a few years earlier where
approximately twelve percent of white
americans said we believe there was a
fairly decent chance that Elvis Presley
might still be alive
I don't know how good you are at math
I'm not very good myself but that's a
ratio that i can calculate what that
means is that white Americans are twice
as likely to believe that Elvis might
still be alive then we are to believe
what people of color tell us they
experience on a fairly regular basis
that is denial so profound as to boggle
the mind but there it is
and the people who are saying it or not
mean-spirited they're not hard harder
than bad people
I firmly believe that most people are
good people i could be wrong about this
but I have two little girls ages 6 and 4
and I choose a parent to believe that
most people are good if you have
evidence to the contrary keep it to
yourself i do not want to know it or
here at this evening
what I do know is that those individuals
who said that as well meaning as they
may have been that they really didn't
see it as a significant problem are new
in their denial see it's one thing for
young people to think that the problem
is solved by almost get that I almost
understand it because if you're under
the age of 25 maybe even under the age
of 35 what you know what we tend to know
younger people about this history and
about this legacy is what we see in that
grainy black-and-white footage every MLK
day or maybe during Black History Month
if I were to ask you do you believe that
folks of color had equal opportunity and
we're treated equally in this country in
1963 or whether or not black children
were treated equally in schools and had
equal educational opportunity in 1962 i
know right now that no one in here would
say well of course you know naturally
they did 1963 that was a damn good year
to be black or brown in America are you
talking about everyone regardless of
your position about 2007 would quickly
acknowledge how bad it was back in the
day because it's no sweat off your back
44 45 years later it's easy to talk
about how bad it was but now see here's
the trick
what do you think white folks said when
those very questions were put to them in
1963 and in 1962 at a time when the
apartheid system in this country
very much in full effect it was before
the civil rights act before the voting
rights act for the fair housing act in
retrospect we can all look back and say
how profoundly unequal it was how
profoundly unequal it wasn't yet when
white folks were asked some of them our
parents our grandparents great-uncle's
great dance these ancestors of ours
right whereas the very same question in
1963 do you think that people of color
and use that term instead racial
minorities do you think that racial
minorities are treated equally in your
community and eighty percent of white
folks said yes in 1962 when gala past do
you think that black children receive
equal educational opportunity in your
community
ninety percent approximately of white
folks said yes
nothing to see here what is all this
complaining what is this march on
Washington
I don't get it I don't understand it
fact the very month of that March which
now it seems like every white liberal
wants you to believe they were at
the very month of that March white folks
were asked by newsweek what they thought
about it they said two-thirds of whites
said that dr. King in the movement were
pushing too far too fast asking for too
much and too soon the idea that this
country was ready to hear this
even at the time we know ambitious it
was is a lie
what does it say that white folks were
in denial in 62 and 63 what does it say
that if you go on back to the thirties
and ask the question like white folks
were clear then the eighteen nineties
when white folks say those southern
editors of newspapers where I'm from
they would say we get a long time
without Negroes down here if Yankees
would just leave us alone and stop
messing in our business go back to 1850
and read what dr. Samuel Cartwright a
well-respected member in good standing
of the medical profession in this
country said not only was racism not a
problem with even a word for that yet
slavery wasn't a problem so much so that
he decided that any slave who would run
away obviously had a mental illness
because you have to be crazy to run away
from bondage so he came up with the term
he called it drape tomania don't even
know what the root of that is don't want
to know don't understand where the word
came from but that's what he called it
Drake tomania you must be crazy
you must be mentally ill to run away
from your loving master denial in every
generation 2007 1963 the thirties the
eighteen nineties the 1850s my point
being that in every generation members
of the dominant group have said there is
no problem and in every generation
without fail we have been wrong and in
every generation people of color those
who are the targets of that oppression
and subordination have said there is a
problem and in every generation without
fail they have been right so the
question for us today is what are the
odds
honestly that people of color who have
never gotten it wrong have suddenly lost
their freaking minds and have suddenly
become unable to see truth and to
seperated from fiction and counter to
that what are the odds that white folks
who have never gotten it right yet
have suddenly become highly highly
perceptive the odds are pretty long and
again it's not because white folks are
insensitive or hard-hearted let alone
stupid but it is that those of us who
were white have the luxury of not
knowing black and brown truth we don't
know because we don't have to know we
are not tested on it if I don't know
what people of color experience what
happens to me in this country virtually
nothing but if people of color don't
know my reality if people of color don't
know white reality better than white
folks have to know it if they cannot
regurgitate it to us better than we
would ever be able to regurgitate it to
ourselves all hell breaks loose so
people of color are going to have to
know why history white literature White
Hart white theater white poetry white
drama i know we don't call it that
that's sort of the point when your stuff
is the stuff against which everybody
else's stuff is compared and found
lacking you don't have to name it it's
just the norm
that's why for those still confused we
don't have white history month because
we have several they go by the tricky
names of May and June July August
September pretty much any month that we
have not designated as someone else's
month my history month but we take it
for granted because we don't have to
know other folks reality that's a
privilege
that's an advantage that's a head start
and it's one we must think about see
that's the other piece of this right
it's one thing for white folks to
acknowledge racism because you know
white liberals will god bless
white liberals will acknowledge that
racism is real
oh my goodness we should do something
about that yes yes we should
it's terrible that racial profiling that
housing discrimination my goodness awful
yes yes it is but just because we
acknowledge racism and discrimination
doesn't mean that will necessarily
acknowledge the flip side of that
doesn't mean that we will acknowledge
that for everyone who is targeted by
that discrimination which were willing
to admit exists there's somebody else
not being targeted guess whom and that
those individuals are elevated by
definition and receive an advantage
receive a subsidy receive a privilege in
the process you see we like to talk
about those who were down as if there is
no up right we like to use language that
obscures the interrelationship of down
and up now down has no meaning without
it up it is a relative term but we talk
about those at the bottom of the
hierarchy not paying attention to the
fact that for anyone who's down someone
is above them and they're above them
because they're down we use this
language that makes it impossible and
when i say we i don't mean like right
wing folk even talking about that I'm
talking about nice liberal caring
service providers people who just want
to help
alright I just want to help the
underprivileged that's the word we use
I've used it before i don't use any more
acceptance speech like this right we
just want to help the underprivileged
but what's wrong with that word folks at
least two things about to be pretty
obvious to you right number one is it's
a passively constructed term right it's
the passive voice as my English teacher
would say underprivileged doesn't imply
that anybody did anything to anyone it's
just there's privilege and I will be
damned there you are under it
we could just figure out how you got
down there
we could solve all the problems of the
Western world but we don't want to know
how you got down there no that's why we
came up with that bumper sticker stuff
happens that's the g rated version
that's a bumper sticker that only only a
straight white upper-middle class mail
could have made because anyone who isn't
straight anyone who isn't male anyone
who isn't white anyone who is an
upper-middle-class knows that stuff
doesn't just happen stuff gets done by
people-to-people nothing is a
coincidence nothing is random
it is an awesome OSIS and so we act as
if it's some passive thing but yet
that's not the case and the second
problem with the term underprivileged
even bigger than the first one is it's a
relative term again this is grammar that
you don't like this you can disagree
with anything else I say tonight if you
have a problem with this piece right
here you must take it up with your third
grade grammar teacher because it is not
on me if we use the word
under-privileged then by definition
there must be an over privilege but we
don't use that word and polite
conversation indeed it doesn't exist in
any dictionary to be found on the planet
you don't believe me go back to your res
Hall go back to your apartment go back
to your home go back to your place of
employment and tomorrow I want you to
punch in two little words the first one
under privileged make no mistake your
spell check is going to recognize that
word it's in their dictionary they can
give you the definition they can give
you the synonym they can give you the
answer them they can show you the
phonetic way in which you should spell
it now come down one line type in the
word over privileged and watch how fast
that little red line pops up that line
which says nope you're an idiot
making up words that don't exist
try again and get back to us but if
there's an underprivileged there must be
an overprivileged why don't we talk
about it because that would require that
we acknowledge that if there are 23
million people being targeted for
race-based housing discrimination
because they are people of color every
year that is 23 million more places i
can live if people of color are being
targeted in profile and I'm not that is
an advantage it may or may not have
material consequences lot of privilege
isn't about material acquisition so
please know this when I talk about white
privilege I don't even mean money
necessarily for some it definitely
translates to that for someone has
certainly meant that but even for those
white folks who don't have that money
white privilege is real at the
psychological level
I grew up for the first 18 years of my
life in an 850 square foot apartment
where the plumbing was always leaking
the air conditioning was constantly
busted
we had no savings we ran cars into the
ground until they just stopped running
took no vacations had no assets had no
credit that wasn't bad credit so i was
one of those white folks who certainly
didn't have class privilege and I had
the knowledge that I was perceived in
school as highly capable not because of
my class background which was no great
shakes but because i was seen as a
bright capable white child and students
of color who are every bit as capable as
I retract low while I was trapped hi i
could make bad grades and I never seem
to fall out of favor in those types of
classes because i was seen as simply
underperforming not quite living up to
my standards you know so i received the
psychological edge of knowing that in
those classrooms if I didn't do well and
i often didn't I was a bad student but
if I didn't do well I never had to worry
that that would be ascribed to my race
I never had to worry that someone would
say well of course he's not good at that
because you know he's white because
unless i was going to be trying out for
a job involve jumping or dancing what
stereotype exactly is working against me
as a white person there aren't many but
for people of color it's a whole
different ball game knowing that if they
underperform in an academic environment
knowing that if they in the sentence
with a preposition when they answer that
question in class or if they
mispronounced award if they simply
answer the question wrong they have to
wonder whether they dropped the ball not
just for themselves but for all those
coming after them who look like them
whose presence on that campus or in that
job complex in that office is constantly
under scrutiny constantly being
questioned constantly being double guest
second and third and fourth guests they
really belong here
that's what it means to be white is
never having to worry that you're going
to trigger a series of negative
stereotypes about your group and if
you're not able to overcome them your
opportunities will be limited yes white
women will face that on a gender level
but on a racial level those who are
white will never have to worry that
their missteps that our missteps will be
attributed to our racial defect
some sort and the research is very clear
that that privilege having one less
thing to worry about having one less
thing to sweat in the classroom trying
to get the loan at the bank at the job
or whatever the case might be that that
has significant dividends because they
have one last thing to sweat in a
competitive society is the thing that
separates oftentimes success from
failure or big success for medium
success from smaller success and the
research is very clear that an academic
environment in particular those persons
who are constantly having to worry about
whether or not their performance is
going to trigger that negative group
stereotype that the mere anxiety caused
by worrying about that is enough to
drive down academic performance on
standardized tests in classroom
performance even when they are equally
are better qualified than their
counterparts who don't have to think
about that so it's a huge advantage to
have that one less thing to concern
oneself with to not have the burden of
representation to not have to in the
parlance of the modern era
hold it down for white people because we
have white folks know we don't have to
do that we also know that what other
white people do won't stick to us we
have 19 men who happened to be Arab and
Muslim fly planes into buildings and we
have otherwise rational human beings run
around insisting that we should stop and
search everyone liked them at the
airport's we did not do this or anything
even remotely like it when Tim McVeigh
and terry nichols brought down the
Murrah Building in Oklahoma City nor
would we have we didn't do it when the
Unabomber crazy-ass white man in the
woods of Montana
blowing people up for 20 years before
they caught in it didn't stick to the
rest of us who are white men the olympic
park bomber eric rudolph that's a bomb
and olympic village in Atlanta 96 blows
up a gay bar blows up a family planning
clinic he too then runs off to the woods
as a side note i have no idea what it is
about white people and the woods
ok
but whatever it is probably explains why
black folks don't do a lot of camping
so it doesn't stick to us there have
been over a hundred and twenty-five
family planning sensors some of which
provide abortion services many of which
do not have been bombed or burned in the
last 20 years and every single one of
them according to the FBI have been
white they've mostly been men they claim
to be christian different lecture for a
different night
a hundred and twenty-five or more 125 +
McVeigh and Nichols is 127 Unabomber is
128 eric rudolph is 120 929 confirmed
terrorist who are whiteness country in
the last 20 years
it sticks to nobody who's white 19 arab
muslims and it sticks to everyone who is
either 700 millionaire poke on the
planet of billion point five Muslims on
the planet to assume that we know
something about them based on the acts
of 19 is to commit what any statistician
will tell you with sampling error it is
mathematical illiteracy and yet we do it
because we can privilege not having to
worry about it but let me suggest you
something because the title of this talk
after all is the pathology of privilege
and I want to be very clear that that
privilege of not thinking about it that
privilege of not having to know someone
else's reality that privilege of being
able to ignore and the privilege of
benefiting from the inequality having a
certain leg up actually is very
dangerous and not just for those who
don't have it that there is actually a
downside for those who do and this is
important right because in a country
like ours which encourages us to take
advantage of our advantages if I tell
you that you have privileged your first
inclination is not to try to get rid of
that right that's not the culture in
which we live but i want to suggest you
there are reasons why even those of us
who benefit in relative terms from
racism and institutional white supremacy
should care about this knot out of some
altruistic I want to help other people
impulse but because it is actually
dangerous for us as well
because if you know the history of the
whole concept of whiteness if you know
the history of the whole concept of the
white race where it came from and for
what reason
you know that it was a trick and it's
worked brilliantly see prior to the
mid-to-late 1600 and the colonies of
what would become the United States
there was no such thing as the white
race those of us of european descent not
refer to ourselves by that term really
ever before then
in fact in the old countries of Europe
we had spent most of our time killing
each other we didn't love each other we
weren't one big happy family side of my
family that comes from Scotland hell
they didn't even worry about fighting
people outside of Scotland Highlanders
and lowlanders just bought the hell out
of each other so there was no white race
but in the colonies of what would become
the United States what we see in the 16
6016 seventies we began to see that
Africans of indentured servant status
many of them not enslaved yet they were
not necessarily permanently enslave some
were others were indentured like many
poor Europeans for periods of seven to
11 years they can work off their
indenture and then they would be free
labor technically realize as did the
white indentured servants the Europeans
who hadn't even been called white yet
that they had a lot of things in common
like the fact that they were all getting
their clock clean by the elite and so
they would get together more than our
history books taught us to foment
rebellion against the Elite to try to
get a better deal for themselves on the
basis of economic necessity and economic
justice and one of the elite do when you
see that you're outnumbered by black and
white folks who are penniless landless
peasants you have to do one of two
things either have to kill them all but
you can't do that because he was going
to work rich folks weren't going to pay
to get poor people to work whole point
was to be a person of leisure back in
those days that was the goal was not to
work so you couldn't kill them all you
didn't want to kill them all get to do
the work yourself not to build your own
levy build your own house
no pick your own tobacco harvest your
own cotton no we're not going to do any
of that so you can't kill them but you
can co-opt them and so the elite in
Virginia for example in the colony
begins to give certain
carrots to people of European descent
saying things like you know we're gonna
let you own a little land not much but
just a little and we're going to get rid
of indentured servitude now you're free
labor and by the way once your free
labor you get 50 acres of land just
because you're free labor see so we're
gonna cut you in on this deal we're
going to let you enter into contracts
we're gonna let you testify in court and
here's the best of all we're going to
put you on the slave patrol to keep
those people in line right
the idea was you still going to get your
clock clean we still don't like you
we still aren't going to really empower
your change your economic subordination
but we're gonna make you honorary
members of this team and you're going to
help us keep those other people down and
so we've got a little taste of power and
it did effectively divide and conquer
those coalition's those rebellions began
to stop almost instantly
fast-forward to the civil war-era you
have rich white folks in the south where
I come from standing up and openly
admitting that the reason they're
prepared to secede from the union and
the only reason they ever articulated
publicly ever was to maintain and extend
slavery and white supremacy not only
we're already existed but into the newly
acquired that is to say stolen
territories from Mexico to the West that
was what they said now we lie about it
we say it wasn't about slavery that it
was about states rights yes the right of
the states to keep it maintained slaves
exactly but back then they had no shame
so they didn't try and cover it up
they openly said it but once again the
rich didn't want to go to the work are
you kidding
oh they're gonna get more people to go
fight for them and the poor folks didn't
even own slaves now think how do you get
for people who don't even own the shirt
on their back let alone slaves to go
fight to keep your slaves for you you've
got to convince them that their skin is
more important than their economic
interest because think about it if I am
a farmer who has to charge you a dollar
a day or two dollars a week to work on
your farm and harvest that tobacco or
pick that cotton but you can get a black
person to do it for free because you own
them
who's gonna get the job not me
in other words slavery actually
undermined the wages and the wage base
the economic floor of the typical white
working class of low-income
% but they were told if these people are
free they're going to take your job no
fool they got your job that's the point
and so at some level again working-class
white people being harmed by white
privilege relatively being advantage
right being given a leg up being given a
membership to the club but in absolute
terms being kept economically
subordinated by the very thing that gave
them a sense of superiority how's that
for irony
then in the present era this hasn't
stopped this is not ancient history now
we have people running around insisting
that we should close the border with
Mexico because if we don't the wages of
working-class people will continue to
fall the implication being that the only
reason workers are paid like crap in
this country is because the border is
open but if you believe that you would
actually have to believe that if that
border were closed and all these owners
of capital and industry would just say
oh well you figure this out here it's a
raise
do we really believe that the only thing
keeping bosses from paying people more
is the presence of low-wage medium
semi-skilled labor from south of this
artificial border is that really what we
believe we know that if that border is
closed isn't going to be close to
capital it isn't going to be close to
goods if you have a border that can be
crossed by capital looking for the
highest return on investment or good
looking for the highest price but labor
is changed to its country of origin
how is that going to work to the benefit
of working people by definition it
doesn't by definition it misery it's the
working class divide and conquer but the
best example of all perhaps in the
contemporary era in the Greater New
Orleans area after Katrina here you have
two communities that were the most
hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward mostly black
community ninety-four percent
african-american about forty percent
official poverty rate heavy
working-class community and right across
the canal st. Bernard Parish chalmette
ninety-five percent white also working
class high levels of poverty
economically very similar and at the end
of the day in those first few days of
sep tember 2005 more similar than they
probably would have realized because
when those levees
broke they all got their stuff jacked
they all got their stuff destroyed but
if you had asked white folks in
chalmette and I've done it
who was the cause of the problems in
that greater new orleans area prior to
that flooding they would have pointed
across that canal with those black folks
wouldn't call them black folks and what
it said there that's the problem seventy
percent of the white folks in st.
Bernard Parish voted for David Duke
white supremacist neo-nazi former head
of the largest Ku Klux Klan group in the
United States when he ran for governor
in 1991 seven out of ten gladly voted
for him because he was blaming black
folks for all of their problems and they
bought it
what's the irony oh the irony is that
while they were blaming black people for
their problems while they were blaming
black people for the conditions of the
greater new orleans area in which they
lived
nobody was paying attention least of all
the hay to the fact that these white
elite politicians either in baton rouge
or in Washington whose job it was to
secure those levees to make sure that
levy funds were spent in the proper way
that they were spent at all those mostly
white and mostly elite politicians did
nothing at the end of the day it wasn't
just the black folks in the Lower Ninth
Ward they didn't care about they really
couldn't give a rat's ass about those
poor and working-class white folks
either and yet when the people of
chalmette people of st. Bernard Parish
got back into session first time at a
city council meeting parish council
meeting after the flooding the lights
are even on yet
the water isn't even hooked up and the
first order of business was to pass an
ordinance saying that you couldn't rent
property in st. Bernard Parish to anyone
who wasn't a blood relative now i'll
leave it to your imagination as to why
you want to pass a law that Lord never
existed before but now that it's been
emptied out and you don't know who might
come back that's a damn good way to keep
black people out and then because if
you're ninety-five percent white to
begin with if you pass an ordinance that
says that that's a great when you can't
say no blacks need apply
you can't say no blacks allowed but that
was an ingenious way to get around the
water they got caught there was a
lawsuit threatening they got rid of the
ordinance but my point in bringing it up
is to say once again divide and conquer
is working these white folks in
chalmette need to march across that
canal and join hands with the black
folks have been sitting there more than
willing to work with them for an awful
long time and
marchon baton rouge in march on DC and
march on the Corps of Engineers and
recognize that commonality of interest
but the whiteness and the lure of
whiteness has tricked these have nothing
in their bank account white people into
believing that they got more in common
with the rich white folks on st. Charles
Avenue that didn't lose anything in that
flooding and they have in common with
the black working class folks who live
about five hundred yards away
that's what white privilege does to
white folks but that's not all
it also creates an intense anxiety like
a mental dysfunction and emotional
anxiety and distress if you're
privileged after all if you're the top
dog if you have all the advantages
constantly afraid of who is gaining on
you
you're constantly afraid of who's coming
to take what you have got to close the
border
they're coming to take our stuff we got
to worry about terrorists they're coming
to take our stuff we've got to get them
before they get us preventive war we've
got to stop them
that's what privilege will do for you
because those who have it a constantly
anxious a study in june of 2004 in the
Journal of the American Medical
Association which received very little
attention found in the United States the
rates of anxiety disorder depression and
substance abuse related mental disorders
are twice the global average five times
the rate in nigeria how is it that the
most powerful and privileged people on
earth can have so much more anxiety than
people who live in war-torn areas Civil
War political corruption amazing
problems often famine all kinds of
hardships that for the most part we
don't see at least in the same abundance
let's say in the United States and yet
it's here that the greatest level of
anxiety i would suggest that the reason
that happens is because it's the
privilege that generates the anxiety
it's that constant fear of keeping up
and staying ahead that generates the
anxiety the mentality of entitlement
mentality that says this is our world
and we get to make the rules in this
world and then we come to find out not
so much we don't deal with setback very
well those who are the dominant group
and then when the real world intrudes on
us
it's like a psychological come apart
like a meltdown
so when those people in littleton
colorado had their school shot up at
combine when the folks in santee
California Santana high school
springfield oregon Thurston high school
all of those nice white spaces which
from the mid-nineties to the early 2000
seemed like at least once or twice a
year there was another one of these mass
school shootings in almost every single
one of them committed by a white male of
upper middle-class background in a place
where everyone said this wasn't supposed
to happen here because privilege allowed
them to let down their guard to the
dysfunction and pathology that they
thought only existed over there so we
don't notice that Dylan Klebold and eric
harris are building 35 bombs in the
basement because privilege means I don't
have to know what my kids are doing is
seen in like a week i'm taking classes
at home depot no kids of color could
have gotten away with that 35 bombs in
what basement a be it folks of color
roll up to the Ace Hardware looking for
bomb supplies they are not going to be
sold them but these white middle-class
folks drive up in nice cars looking to
get some pipe bomb materials and
explosive some real short fuses and it's
oh it's for science fair experiment sure
here you know right privilege
usually it works out pretty well 364
days out of the year it goes ok but a
day 365 is april twentieth the 1999 and
your kid goes to Columbine High School
you really don't care much about the
other 364 because when you have that
privilege of living in that bubble and
you don't have to think about what you
don't have to think about remember there
may come a time when you have to think
about it when 911 happen
notice the different ways that white
folks and folks of color by and large
react that everybody was scared
everybody was angry
everybody was upset everybody's freaking
out but now there were only some folks
who went in front of microphones and
said the following and they were all
white that I saw why do they hate us
why
why why would anyone hate the united
states of america
I don't get it see people of color they
didn't say this and it's not because
folks of color hate this country but
folks of color have historically a
love-hate relationship with the society
loving certain things about it
hating other things about it but here's
the more important point to be a person
of color in this country is to always
have to know what the other guy thinks
it is to always have to know what other
people think about you because if you
don't if you for one minute forget what
other people might think about your life
is in danger but to be the dominant
group is to have that luxury or to think
you do you think you do
I'm not having to care what other people
think because you're the big dog
you're the top you're the king of the
hill you want to worry about what other
people think that's privileged you don't
have to know you can sort of laugh it
off at least we thought we could we
could have that attitude that says you
know what are you gonna do to us we're
big and bad we spend 400 billion dollars
a year on defense foo if you come for us
we will bomb you back to the Stone Age
and if you're already there will take
you back to whatever the hell came
before the stone age because we can and
then 19 guys with $37 with the box
cutters a thousand dollars with the
plane tickets in a pissy attitude pretty
much said okay I'll tell you what you
spend your 400 billion dollars a year on
defense and here's the deal
me and my boys are bringing these
buildings down anyway how do you like us
now so privileged didn't allow us to see
that the rest of the world then view us
the way we view us maybe we have been
better off knowing that maybe we would
have been better off for decades knowing
that the rest of the world doesn't view
us in the same Liberatore terms that we
sometimes view ourselves now people of
color in this country already knew
better because when they ask white folks
and black folks before the invasion of
Iraq good idea bad idea
the folks without privilege said mhm
black folks were just like overwhelming
new
new has white folks and two-thirds of
white America said hell yes we must do
this they're gonna greet us like
liberators see that's privileged
speaking privilege says they're surely
they know we're liberated surely they
know once felt said we're going to be
greeted like liberators dick cheney said
it they know so much about combat surely
this will work out well people of color
know the folks of color know that even
if you don't have very much folks
without much will kill you for the
little bit they have or you could invade
washington heights tonight but I don't
recommend it
you can invade the South Bronx tonight
but i do not recommend it because the
folks who were there may know full well
they don't have much but they will
indeed kill you to keep what little bit
they have and see victims have long
memories and so the people we claim to
be liberating don't forget that their
oppression came at the hands of a man
that we supported all of those years
they don't forget that but those who
create that victimization have short
memories we have the luxury of
forgetting so we go in because privilege
says it'll work privilege says it'll
work privilege says it will work and
then we come to find out maybe it
doesn't work as well as we thought maybe
we should listen to the folks without
privileged to know a little bit more
about how oppressed people respond to
invasion invasion doesn't bring
liberation in black and brown folk know
what they've been there they've done
that but the privilege had this luxury
and I remember three days into the war
getting an email from a guy who was
angry at me for having written some
anti-war essays and 72 hours and he's
writing me an email and he's saying see
72 hours into this is what what kind of
channel surfing culture we are three
days of war and we're wedding so it's
cool you know Cee and this is what he
said see you dirty stinky no bath taking
birkenstock wearing hippie anarchists
communists you were wrong I said really
how do you know that we were wrong
well because it's going look we're
winning it's good they love us
I said really how do you know that they
love us and he said well I open the
paper today and there was this great
ap photographed right there on the front
page of a little rocky kid giving the
thumbs up to the soldiers our soldiers
see so they love us they are greeting us
like liberators you all were wrong
I said okay and I'll tell you I'll ask
you what I asked him again a cultural
competence quiz
what do you think this means in Iraq
do you know what this means throughout
the so-called Middle East and much of
North Africa Egypt up
it does not mean keep up the good work i
love what you do this instead is the
functional equivalent of flipping you
off so this five-year-old child is
punking our entire nation
but we don't know it because we don't
have to know it but maybe we should have
known it is now you see that
five-year-old with the thumbs up and we
say see it's working we got to do more
of this and though I'm making light of
it I'm doing it only because sometimes
you have to laugh at the absurdity of
this system so as not to cry there are
thousands of parents in this country and
hundreds of thousands in Iraq and
Afghanistan who are going to be burying
have already buried their children and
are going to continue to bury their
children this week and next week and the
week after that and the month after that
and the month after that and to hear the
politicians in this country tell it for
years
they're going to keep burying their kids
because of this hubris because of this
privilege mentality of entitlement that
says the world is ours to shape in our
image that we have the right to make it
over and everyone else will bow before
our superior firepower and the rest of
the world as in case you have not
noticed pretty much called bullshit on
that so at some point we better worry
about privilege not just because of what
it does to the ones without it but what
it does to us what it turns us into what
it allows our policymakers to do in our
name which is not actually in our
interest we better understand that this
is a system that is every bit as capable
of hurting and killing us we're not the
first targets no we are not the intended
targets we are perhaps the collateral
damage of this system but damage
nonetheless and if we don't want that to
continue if we want to be free of that
risk that we ourselves are now placed in
we have to care about it not as an act
of altruism or paternalistic concern but
as an act of self interest in
self-liberation and this is our job and
this is our duty irrespective of our
guilt
see it is very important I want to close
with this before taking questions I want
you to know that this has nothing to do
with guilt
I realize that none of the people in
this room and none of the people in the
other rooms to which I speak every
single week in this country somewhere
are the ones who themselves individually
or even collectively are responsible for
the creation of this system of
inequality of privilege of oppression of
marginalization and that is not the
point i know we didn't create it but we
are here now and we inherit the legacy
of that which has come before if you
were to become the chief executive
officer of a company one day you would
not be able to go in to that company and
call your chief financial officer on the
phone and say you know what I want to
look at the books i want to know how
much we have what our assets are what's
our revenue stream and I want to know
all that because i want to take us to
new and greater heights and so you ask
the CFO to come in and give you the
power point presentations spreadsheets
and she comes in with all of this
technology and all of this data and
gives you the presentation
here's our assets here's our revenue
stream here's our outstanding debt what
do you think you wouldn't be able to
look at that CFO and tell her you know I
really liked your presentation
it's great to know we have all these
assets and some really amazing income
coming in but the next time I ask you to
come and show me that don't bring me the
debt material all that stuff about what
we owe can see I wouldn't hear when you
ran that up that was that other guy that
was your last chief executive officer
the debts of those older leaders those
are on them have them pay them i'm going
to make use of the asset so yes I'm
going to make use of the income
oh oh yes but i'm not going to pay the
debts because they're not mine you
couldn't do that you'd be ushered to
your car by security but that's exactly
what we do as a society isn't it
we say the debts are not ours oh the
glory is ours all the stuff that we've
accumulated as a nation and as a people
that's ours we don't mind living in the
past as long as it glorifies us that's
what history books do that's what july
4th is
we just don't want to own up to the part
that's less flattering because we feel
guilty but it isn't about guilt it's
about responsibility those two things
are not synonymous if we don't know the
difference we should look it up when we
get tired of living in the funk in the
residue of that which has been given to
us by others with no regard for the
impact and the damage that they would do
to us and to our children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren if
and when we are lucky enough to have
them when we get tired of living in that
residue in that funk and saying enough
then we'll get busy cleaning it not
because we created but because we're the
only ones left to do the job and if we
don't we will be back for our children
and our grandchildren and our
great-grandchildren will be back in
rooms just like this one in generations
to come
but I assure you that if they inherit
this legacy as we have inherited the
stakes will be far greater the risk will
be far greater and the odds of success
and victory at creating justice and
opportunity for all will be far more
remote and so if we don't want to see
that day comment is up to us to get busy
is up to us to take responsibility not
because we are guilty but because we are
here
thank you very much and take care
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