2012, with all due respect I cannot accept this article and base it on white privilege. It's not because I cannot accept it, it's because the article is one sided. He grew up in "ONE OF THE WHITEST STATES IN THE COUNTRY", look at his neighborhood and city. It's ALL white. Now of course he's has WHITE privileges, what other is there? He hasn't had the chance to GROW UP in a state where it's divided with many races. This guy is a pure idiot as well, to state he has white privileges in one of the whitest states is just LOGIC not anything more. Also, be bases things on assumptions.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states in the country. I grew up in a virtually all-white world surrounded by racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only numerically significant non-white population, American Indians.
So he hasn't had to chance to even "mingle" with another race that's significant in numbers to his. That's pretty sheltered if you ask me, and makes sense that an all white state would be racist.
I have struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself, one thing never changes--I walk through the world with white privilege.
Being racist is why he thinks he has privileges. This honestly is a sense of falsehood, which he has no idea he's doing. You cannot honestly claim this man has white privileges in an all white state. If this man was in a state say, California and lived in LA, and wrote this article based on facts then sure, this article might have something but it doesn't.
What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
Again, he racist, so of course he thinks these things and again, he's in an all white state. His STATE is pretty much racist.
That isn't meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Simple OBSERVATION, which ISN'T FACTUAL. If he based this on numbers, a paper that was written and such then it could be taken more seriously. He's ASSUMING these things, based on his rasing in RACISM and train of thought being "privileged".
I am not a genius--as I like to say, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer ...I did not get where I am by merit alone.
Yes he did, if he had nothing then no matter how "white" this man is, he wouldn't have landed his job.
I benefited from, among other things, white privilege.
Of course he thinks this, he's racist in an all white state....gets repetitive.
That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people.
So he's admitting that OTHER races, besides HIS OWN, CAN AND DO land these jobs. It had NOTHING to do with race but what his BACKGROUND is (record, education, etc)
I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great. There I also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized tests written by and for white people.
His state = well funded, which gives better education which = a better job. Everything else is just the racism you should expect from North Dakota.
All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one non-white tenured professor...
I suppose you know what I am going to say? In an ALL WHITE STATE, expect this.
All I've learned from this is DON'T GO TO NORTH DAKOTA. Horrible article to base on white privileges. Give me an article from a man written where the numbers are mixed, not where the whites are the huge majority w/ hardly any contact w/ another race in large numbers.
My job, when I went for it a few years ago in Target, consisted of myself and many others. The room was full of people, black, mexican, asian, white etc. By the end of the week, the room was down to 5 new members for Target, I was one of them and so were two black people, 1 man and 1 woman. What I noticed is they carried themselves well, well dressed, as expected for a job interview and they got it. Where was the white privileges there? There were quite a few whites as well, but I noticed ONLY THE WELL DRESSED GOT THE JOB. I'm sure the way they carried themselves in the interview went their way too. So there isn't TRULY a white privilege, its about how you carry yourself.