1. she states that she can choose to arrange herself in the company of people of her own race easily. This is not a white privilege. Any person from another race can find a way to surround themselves with people of their own race no matter what they are doing.
2. She says when she moves into her own house she can be sure her neighbors will be pleasant to her the first day. This is not a white privilege. Just because you are white does not mean that the person who lives next to you is going to be nice to you. It all depends on the person. I have moved several times and have never had my neighbor just come up to me and ask me how i was and tell me how glad he is to have me in the neighborhood and what not.
3. She state that she can go to the mall and go shopping without being harassed by the security guards. This is not a white privilege. If you are from any minority group or a white person and you are walking around looking suspicious then somebody is probably going to stop you. If a black man or hispanic man walks into a store and looks around maybe tries on a few things and leaves as long as that person isn't looking all suspicious then they would not be any more subject to being stopped as a white person would.
4. She says she can turn the television on and see her race represented positively. This is not a white privilege. I dont know what kind of newspaper or news shows she is watching because the media is notorious for exploiting all the bad things that happens. Most of the time when i turn on the news or open a newspaper if its about a white person it always has something to do with them being a corrupt politician, murder, kidnapping, being a sexual predator. Anytime you hear about those crimes its most of the time a white person. And of course on the other hand you hear alot about minorities involved with violent crimes as well but most of that is gang related violence. Its about a 50-50 chance that what you see will be a white person or some other racial group being negatively represented.
5. She says when she is told about her heritage and how our country came to be that people of her race are attributed to the creation of it. This is once again not a white privilege. This boils down to basic leadership. If you look back at any war heroes you think of the leaders not the soldiers. If you are the leader and your group does poorly then when people look back at it they see it as you didn't do your job, and visa versa. During the formation of our country the white people where in charge and other racial groups where the workers. What was eventually formed out of all of that was the our great country we live in today so the credit goes to the people who were leading at the time. Even though these leaders where white does not mean that in today's day and age that white people gain anything from that. In America YOU have to make something for yourself, say my grandfather was rich, it doesn't mean that i will be rich because he was, i wont be rich unless i work hard and make myself that way.
To say that white people have special privilege is a completely false statement. It all depends on the circumstances that surround you. If i walk into the middle of East LA with a polo shirt, khaki slacks, and some deck shoes on i couldn't expect people not to harass me because im white. I think that the author that wrote this article has a guilty conscience for things that happened in the past and did not try to find any counter points to her argument. I think she simply made a statement based on what somebody told her without looking at reality.
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