What is White Privilege?

White privilege does not mean that you are monetarily wealthy or a homeowner or with stock options or possess a degree of higher education or are able to waste food or have taken lavish vacations abroad or can afford to go shopping loaded down with consumerable goods or come from a high class.

It means that you will be able to be published author and not be toted as an “upcoming Chinese American author”, your ethnicity is irrelevant not only because you’re white but because you are seen as a person not attached to the color of your skin.

It means you have the power and convenience to rail on about how afraid you are about driving in the “ghetto of Oakland” because you are afraid of people who will harm you because of the color of your skin. It means you think of yourself as nonracist yet you inherently fear black people because you have been sufficiently indoctrinated with the notion that white women’s virginity must be protected from the dark men of color who will rape you.
 
It means you will legitimize the overt racist jokes in your favorite TV show “2 Broke Girls” because you identify with these two “poor” white girls because you fail to see the privilege they possess because they lack monetary wealth or class status, and because they make fun of “all races equally” yet fail to see each of the racist, sexist stereotypes that demean men and women of color into nothing but caricatures and you can afford to laugh at them because you will never ever face racism or sexism like I do, like my family does, like my friends do, like my loved ones do because of our ethnic origins, because of our religion, because of what we look like.

It means you glorify television, literature, music that glorify white culture and the conquerors because they are the ones who won and you hide behind your some percentage of your heritage being (as you claim) Native and Italian. It means you will never understand that discrimination and racial discrimination is different. Italians suffered prejudice and discrimination in this country but they did not suffer racism or colonialization or imperialism or genocide like we of color did.
It means that you declared yourself not racist because you are a subvert racist as opposed to an overt racist. Just because you don’t say the N-word or called me “gook” or “chink” does not mean you are not racist.

It means you tell me that I am racist, because I did not want to be your friend anymore because you would rail on against people because of their personal choices, because of their religions, because of their cultures, because you think everyone is out to get to you. It means you will never ever understand what I have to go through and what people for centuries have gone through and you know the ironic thing is?

Being a history major. What history were you studying? Do you think because there was a Civil Rights movement, racism is over? You think we live in a post-racial society? You are a History Major. You study what you want to study and believe what you want to believe. The conquerors, the colonists of the West-European civilizations are proud of you. You believe what they wrote because what they wrote must be true. History is told from the perspective of those who won.

You look down upon Ethnic Studies, upon Intersectionality, upon Queer/Gender/Women’s Studies. They threaten you. Because deep deep down you know my words have standing.
One thing white privilegists hate: being told “NO.”

Why? Because that means you lose power, you lose your footing.

And what is more terrifying than a person of color who is powerful. I mean look what happened to leaders of color? You may glorify them now, but they suffered for their strength. We of color, women of color, we of queer communities will resist you. We will fight you. We will not be your friend and educate you and hold your hand.

That is white privilege as I know it, as I’ve seen it.