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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

How White Folks Can Reject Their White Privilege

Going around on Twitter. And if you think this is some fringe or marginal thing, check out the fact that it’s on the Facebook page of the United Church of Christ. This is not to be confused with the Churches of Christ, that are rather conservative.

1 comment:

  1. Where did this categorical, a priori imperative, "You are racist whether you realize it or not," provide a coherent argument for its rational merit? This is an easily recognized unsupported claim in the finest tradition of religious fundamentalism. These statements are like hurried glosses written by mediocre scribes, who embarrassingly appear to lack an authoritative text to which their hackneyed glosses might refer. If someone would merely explain to me why "minority" privilege is morally acceptable, while white privilege is not, using a coherent moral argument with a clearly objective moral basis, I would be grateful. If the name of the game is postmodern identity power politics, in which "might makes right" is the ultimate validator, then why shouldn't the strongest group use whatever privilege it can? Asserting that "marginalized groups" have the "right" to school their "oppressors" not only on the true nature of their own group, but the minority ones as well, is not an argument. It's an inconsistent outlook. If identity groups alone can understand their own significant features, how is it that all of them are also experts in assessing the moral complexities of "white" culture (as if there is any such monolithic stereotypical entity so simplistically labeled)? Just tell me the objective moral basis for the sanctimonious assumption that there is a definable "white privilege," and on what basis it--by whose moral machinations--it is objectively evil. Are the marginalized offended? And is that an objective moral infraction, to somehow stimulate a particular psychological state in another? Those who are marginalization free, allegedly, would also have a right to be free of unpleasant psychological states of offendedness. But of course, nobody has any such right at all. Except on politicized campuses that with increasing ineffectuality pedal race-class-gender guilt. This, of course, is the core purpose of the tradition of an authentic liberal education. That such trivia is allowed to flatten the minds and souls (as A. Bloom said) is utterly astonishing.

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