Unfair attacks on the Obamas are mostly assertions of white privilege.
That is why they are so hard to grasp. Thanks, Tim Wise for the secret codewords.
http://www.buzzflash.com/...
"White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful."
I was a Hillary voter in this year's primary, but she was not the first woman I had voted for.
I voted for Shirley Chisholm in 1972 because she was a woman with lots of experience.
It was my first presidential election, and while I was in the voting booth in California, I heard the poll ladies talking about the ballot. One said "that is that N****" I was newly aware of racism, but white privilege is harder to pin down, isn't it?
Even abortion is a white privilege issue. Another way in which Black people can't do anything "quite right."
In order to get an abortion before ROE-Wade, when it was illegal, you always knew someone who knew who to call. Some abortions cost $400 (in 1972 dollars), because you had to go to Mexico to get the operation. There was not good follow up health care, so women came into emergency rooms then with infection, bleeding from self induced abortions, and fear they would be arrested if the abortion were discovered.
I hate abortion, but I would never vote for a candidate based on their abortion position, because it is impossible to enforce laws against abortion, but the word allows very evil forces to control your mind. Globalization and technology have rendered the abortion debate a useless argument. It is used to trigger responses from puppets, when it should be a way to look at our culture with clearer eyes thru civil debate.
My Mother's refusal to participate in white flight in the fifties and sixties meant that
I was raised in an integrated middle class neighborhood. The neighbors who, many years later, saved my Mom's life and called 911 were black entrepreneurs with the fanciest house on our block. My high school was the integrated one, and the first mixed race drum core was spectacular playing under a tin patio roof.
I went through without realizing what white privilege was doing for me.
I babysat a Korean girl who later became a doctor. The Japanese family down the street produced the most popular and also nicest girl I knew. There was for them a community of achievers to get inspiration for.
I went to an evangelical church with my Chinese friend's family and learned about Jesus because of them. I gladly went to Chinese restaurants with them afterward, and learned to use chopsticks as part of my "religious" education. My black friends from high school went into the Black Power movement, so I never followed their lives.
I have been through many surprising experiences in my life, including qualifying on several weapons for the first time at the age of 44. One surprise was my being a crack shot, able to hit center mass from 50 yards with no problem even with 44 yr old eyes.
I love to shoot too, but my teachers and fellow shooting students were all races. It was not a skill I associated with white privilege, but Tim is right, the pictures of the Alaska gun/fur/beer toters excludes blacks.
I had a baby with Ina May Gaskin's midwives, avoiding an abortion, although I was always aware I had a choice. Being comfortable there might have been white privilege only because I felt trust in strangers who happened to be white.
(Obviously I am qualified to be president)
My really excellent health insurance, from working in a hospital, didn't cover pregnancy in an unmarried female. (TRUE)
My son is now a handsome and talented 30+ yr old.
No Big Deal, right? Not having medical care was a very big Deal even then.
It was a huge burden when we were broke, traveling to the Farm once at 6 mos and then at 71/2 mos. What a blessing they would deliver so well and for free.
The Farm had a refreshing antiabortion policy: "if you don't want the baby we will take him/her, for a week, a year, 5 years without you having to give up all rights. A family here will raise the child and we will all love the child. You can come back when your life is put together, and work at being a parent then, just don't have an abortion." They taught me gratitude. A gift for a lifetime.
Living "small town values", I stayed home with my kids for years. Had a huge struggle keeping my career alive in a small town, but I have friends and family I have known well for 33 years. I have enjoyed my husbands older family members in spite of their racism, certainly a white privilege. How have I benefited from White Privilege? Let me count the ways...
"White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action."
If my son had graduated Columbia, Harvard Law, edited the Law Review, worked in church projects to alleviate poverty, been elected to state and federal office, learned to debate ideas and love people and still was eager to serve, he would be a credit to our extended white family, but I doubt that the racists would realize it. But would the rest of us realize that this was all done without the safety net of white privilege?