Says the white dude.
Via NY Daily News (Shaun King):
An America without white privilege has never existed.
Since the country’s founding, being white has meant freedom from a certain level of harshness, be it slavery or Jim Crow — and freedom of a certain level of access, be it capital or opportunity.
Every generation of white people, in fact — including those involved in slavery — found their own way to deny their privilege.
Even during slavery, arguments were made that enslaved Africans were happy, preferred it, and that it was good for them.
While this may seem preposterous today, it should give you a glimpse of just how far people will go to deny white privilege.
And on Halloween, Rhode Island House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello told The Providence Journal, “I don’t think there is a white privilege.”
Few things reveal the very existence of white privilege, and the stupefying aloofness that comes with it, more than having the freedom to boldly claim it’s a farce.
If white privilege does not exist, then racism does not exist. That is to say that the ability to live a life free of racism is an exclusively white privilege.