Once, when I was 15 or so I was downtown. In a very black part of town. I was working. A fellow employee and myself were surrounded by a large group of young black males. They started pushing us around and threatening death for being white and in their neighborhood. I should have, at this moment, explained to them power dynamics and how I, being white, held all the power and that they could imagine killing us for being white but could actually do no such thing. Instead, another black neighbor came out and broke it up. We spent the next 20 minutes hiding behind a car wondering if we were going to die.

One of my friends went to a mostly black public school in Baltimore County. One day the black students thought it might be fun to beat up white kids and had a beat up whitey day. My friend was beat down for being white. He had to change schools because it was too dangerous to be white at that school.

Power is based on perspective and situation. Pardon me if I don’t buy into the white people are all powerful mantra. I don’t buy it. Please excuse my ignorance.

I assume that is a response to my comments and I think it is a poor response indeed. You may think it clever to turn this into a me vs. you thing and that I am telling you to be something you aren’t, but I’m not going to stand for you making generalizations about an entire group of people. And then to make it seem like I am being the jerk and you take the moral high ground? “I’m sorry I’m not the person you want me to be?” What kind of a response is that?

If you post something with a title like “advocacy groups are dumb” and then don’t expect people to openly comment/criticize your point of view, then I would honestly prefer you didn’t post at all.

Here’s better proof than any other that white people have privelege in the US: Of the Fortune 500 companies, 494 of them have white CEO’s. In case you didn’t catch how big that is, 99% of the top companies in the US are run by white people.

http://www.civilrights.org/press_room/buzz_clips/civilrightsorg-stories/op-ed-the-exit-of-black-ceos.html

In case you weren’t sure, more than 1% of the US population is non-white.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been some administrative action on your incredibly inflammatory “vast generalizations” made about your “first-hand” experience working for a phone company which was then clothed in the sheep’s wool of “this is my meager” experience and a mention of possible similarities with white people.

You basically perpetuated some serious stereotypes of people of color, as you have no substantial proof that you were talking with a representative number of black folk, or of white folk. You didn’t even mention that you walk into that situation with your own privileged point of view.

Talking the position that “advocacy groups are dumb” smacks of privilege. Only someone who occupies a place of power would question the efforts of groups that try to represent marginalized people (such as the NAACP). You can look at them from a distance and judge what they believe from a vantage point.

Did you even bother to go to the NAACP website and see what their legislative action is? Take a look: they back a lot of educational initiatives, health care, etc.

NC cops have been accused of hitting black suspects with their SQUAD CAR!!!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339908,00.html

One trooper was suspended and ordered to go through diversity training. Another was suspended for three days. In both instances the driver intentionally hit a civilian suspect that posed no threat. In one instance, the one who was required to go through diversity training, used a racially insensitive term.

If I hit a man with my car I’d be carted off to jail. Cops do it and they get suspended.

Cops who use racially charged jargin shouldn’t be in a position that requires them to fairly discern criminals. Both of these guys should lose their jobs.

I think, on that, we can all agree.

Still trying to figure out who said this.”

Start here:
J Alan Meyer said: “No white people are “innocent” of racism, and that includes myself (and you).”

Why? Why do you disagree? I really don’t have time to find all the studies and reports that have shown rampant discrimination on issues related to home loans and other housing issues, but I would really like to know what your reasons for disagreeing are based on.

In the meantime I think the rationale that all white people are white supremacists is exactly the kind of thinking that Advocacy groups want.

Still trying to figure out who said this.

But after many studies it’s been proven that short people are less likely for promotions. At a stature of 5′4 I’m likely to be discriminated against. But I don’t make an issue of it. I don’t call names. I go in and do my job unless I’m here bickering with you.

In the meantime I think the rationale that all white people are white supremacists is exactly the kind of thinking that Advocacy groups want. What better way to promote their radical agendas then to get all whites to admit to their racist ways or, if they fail to disclose them, then they are branded a “racist” for denying their own discriminations. Now everyone’s a racist!!! And since everyone is a racist the NAACP can go on existing.

(Government plays this game too. FUN!)

That is a pretty strong assertion. I think that it is quite clear that BOTH economic/social status AND race are factors in oppression. This has been shown over and over again in studies of job applicants, the criminal justice system, home loans, etc.

Further… I still don’t see any person in this thread saying that all white people are racist. Now… is supporting an unjust, unfair, and racist institution racist? It can be, no question. But I also think that we need to consider what it really means to support an institution, and we also need to consider what it means to be aware of the injustice of such institutions and systems.

Sure… but where did anyone say that all white people are racist?

(Then again, isn’t it a vast generalization to call all white people “racist”? Whatever, I know how these politically correct games work. I should have known better.)

Anyway, off to sell some lightbulbs. Who wants to buy some “soft-white” lamps? The “soft-white” obviously indicates that white people are “soft” and soft is better. White supremacey!!!!

I am not really sure what to say after that last comment.

First of all, white people are clearly in a place of power and privilege, even if you only sell light bulbs. Sorry if you don’t get that.

Second, on home loans, start actually doing some research if you want to really wonder where they got their numbers and what their agenda is. The facts are quite clear that there is a bias in the mortgage industry, and that minority populations receive the bulk of the bias.

This thread is all sorts of off track but if I can keep it off track for one more moment:

When I worked selling cell phones I had to run credit checks. More often than not blacks failed credit checks. I know I wasn’t doing anything to make them fail. I entered the info into a computer and it brought back a result of either accept or deny. Why would Verizon want to deny a potentially paying customer?

Most often blacks would fail. And almost always they would make some side comment as to why it might have failed. For over 4 years I heard comments like: “Well, I had Sprint but they over charged me so I dropped ‘em.” (Didn’t pay their bill) Or “That bank overdrafted my account” (Wrote too many checks. Didn’t check balance). (By contrast white customers, even if they felt slighted or overcharged, would pay the bill to keep their good credit standing)

A couple years ago Sprint started accepting credit challenged customers. And you could see a line of people in front of the store before it opened on Saturday Mornings waiting to pay their bill.

I had a similar experience working in rural Virginia with poor whites. (Bought trailers with cash! Didn’t pay credit card bills.)

I’m hardly an expert on matters of credit and lending institutions. But when you pair my meager first hand experiences with blacks with my meager first hand experiences with black comedians and my meager first hand experiences with white trailer park people…………I’d say they are, economically, about the same.

So when I hear things like blacks can’t get good home loans I really start to wonder………”who got those numbers?” and “what, exactly, is their agenda?”

But seriously, whites were a minority in my graduate class. They probably consisted of about 1/3 of my class. The rest was made up of Asians, Indians, and Black folks.

I honestly don’t know any single successful person on this earth who hasn’t had to fight through some form of adversity to get where they were. For some its poverty, for some its race, and others its being a lower middle class pollock son of an unpopular teacher in an all WASP high school in a rural area in southern Delaware. The question shouldn’t be if racism exists, it should be what can you do to rise above that adversity.

The real oppression comes from social and economic status much more than race. If you want to break your misconceptions about white privilege, come spend a day at the pharmacy I work at and see the poor lower class whites struggling to get by. They struggle just as much as anyone but no one talks about the plight of the white lower class because it doesn’t fit with their world view of racial oppression.

I’m not going to sit around and sit in self condemnation because others in my race may treat others unfairly. I accept the grace and freedom of the cross, and as Jesus said, ‘go and sin no more.’ Where there is clear injustice, I’ll stick up against it, but there’s no point in having a racial pity party. I’m forgiven and I’m free in Christ and so are you! Thats the good news of the Gospel.

I don’t understand how you both can deny the role that skin-color and race plays in our society, independent of education or economic status. When you walk out of a store and the alarm sounds, do you really think you’re treated the same way as a person of color — even if it was an honest mistake? When checking out in a store, why are more non-whites forced to show ID and display their receipt to the security at the door? Why can white people get better loans and cheaper housing than non-whites who have the same education level and economic status?

Sure, you “earned” your education and your doctorate. But you didn’t earn the privileges that made it easier for you than for non-whites.

For example, I just renewed my ‘White Privilege’ Visa Card from Chase last week. It gives me all sorts of perks that other races just can’t get. Whenever I show my card at restaurants, movies, or wherever, people look at me and say ‘Here’s a White Guy’ and they give me all kinds of advantages that I didn’t earn by going to school for 9 years and earning my doctorate.

If you’re missing out, its probably because you forgot to renew your membership.

I’m not in a position of power. I sell lightbulbs.

That’s flat-out BS. I’m not talking about what you do for a living, I’m talking about who you are and your place in society. You’ve said that you’re white. You have unearned privileges in society because of your white skin. You can get better housing, lower interest loans, better treatment from the criminal justice system, etc. At their best, advocacy groups such as the NAACP remind people that racism is still present in society, and help point out systems of white supremacy. I don’t care if you sell lightbulbs, or you’re the president of the United States. As long as you’re part of society and you have white skin, you’re in a position of power.