Tim Wise of The Red Room wrote this piece that was published on Saturday that a friend just brought to my attention. He defines white privilege through specific examples of the current election. Although I think Wise may be stretching certain examples a little far to fit his list, it's a good reminder of what kind of race politics still exist in our own mentalities, why some things might be okay for a white public-figure that we wouldn't consider okay for a public figure of color.
One thing Wise points out that I've been thinking a lot about is what I had considered to be a sense of anti-intellectualism, a subject on which I've been working on an essay of my own. But he adds another dimension to the anti-intellectual mentality that I hadn't considered:
"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."
Basically, John McCain finished 894 of a class of 899 at the Naval Academy and Sarah Palin attended four colleges in six years. Barack Obama earned a degree in Political Science at Columbia and then went on to Harvard Law; Joe Biden has degrees in Political Science and History from the University of Delware and a JD from Syracuse. But instead of highlighting the obvious disparity of education on the two sides, we have been taught to see Obama as elitist and "uppity." I don't know about you, but if I were choosing a doctor to do my leg surgery, I would choose the one with the best education, not the one who barely based his boards, but who looks like someone I could have a beer with. Obviously, there are more issues than a candidate's education that come into play when making an educated vote, but I would hope we could choose our president with some of the same reasoning.
One thing Wise points out that I've been thinking a lot about is what I had considered to be a sense of anti-intellectualism, a subject on which I've been working on an essay of my own. But he adds another dimension to the anti-intellectual mentality that I hadn't considered:
"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."
Basically, John McCain finished 894 of a class of 899 at the Naval Academy and Sarah Palin attended four colleges in six years. Barack Obama earned a degree in Political Science at Columbia and then went on to Harvard Law; Joe Biden has degrees in Political Science and History from the University of Delware and a JD from Syracuse. But instead of highlighting the obvious disparity of education on the two sides, we have been taught to see Obama as elitist and "uppity." I don't know about you, but if I were choosing a doctor to do my leg surgery, I would choose the one with the best education, not the one who barely based his boards, but who looks like someone I could have a beer with. Obviously, there are more issues than a candidate's education that come into play when making an educated vote, but I would hope we could choose our president with some of the same reasoning.
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