The regressive fantasy of White Privilege

Class privilege is what most people are thinking of when they think they are thinking of white privilege.

Class privilege is what most people are thinking of when they think they are thinking of white privilege. The vague concordance between the two ideas is enough to pardon a lot of sloppy thinking.

The notion of white privilege is a bauble. It is embraced by comfortable liberals (like me, except not me) who are more than happy to “interrogate” anything that doesn’t touch on the real and substantive ways that society is indeed unfair.

Poor people suffer, and struggle, and fail, because they move in toxic vapors of systemic disadvantage, isolation, hopelessness, and cultural rot. I catch the scent of that despair as a teacher at a public high school, and I assure you: it is colorblind. It’s an equal opportunity killer.

The modern catechism of White Supremacy obscures objective reality, and with it the possible paths to a more just society. I recognize that American society is still lousy with racist animosity. But race-based structural inequality has been more than corrected in most of our institutions.

The problems bedeviling poor communities of color today (hopelessness, trauma, fatherlessness, violence) are not rooted in present-day racism. Hardly more than the problems afflicting poor whites.

I know that’s a provocative claim, and some people cry racist sooner than take it on board. Still more would rather just think about something else. But to look away, or to engage in name calling rather than critical thinking, is to be a part of the problem.

The problems bedeviling poor communities of color today are not, by and large, about present-day racism.

Class privilege, on the other hand, has an actual impact. The progressive racial narrative only obscures that fact, and prevents actual cross-racial class consciousness from developing. Which suits today’s left-leaning activist class (read: the elite) just fine.

There are meaningful things one could do in the interest of mitigating class-based privilege. Advocate for housing reform, and equitable education funding. Advocate for higher estate taxes and against the mortgage interest deduction. Fight the bigotry of low expectations. Don’t pretend you don’t know that the game is deeply rigged for those with privilege. Check your privilege — and don’t imagine you’ve “done the work” by reading books by frauds like Robin DiAngelo and Kendi.

I’m not a Marxist and I'm not implying that some sleight of hand is being employed by an eeeevil, conniving, left-liberal elite power matrix. I'm skeptical of conspiracy narratives. But it is nonetheless highly convenient to the progressive (and conservative) elites that the new orthodoxy around white supremacy, white privilege, and structural racism requires nothing but lip service, while leaving class privilege entirely unexamined.