"What privilege?" The White Man's Denial

(I wrote this for my sociology class. Enjoy...)

Perhaps we’ve grown tired of privilege. Perhaps entitlement is no longer in fashion. Perhaps the thousands of years of sitting at the top of the totem pole have created the blinded and apathetic white male we see today in abundance. Whatever the reason, these men are in denial and progress will be halted for as long as we refuse to acknowledge the inequality that persists even in this progressive world of ours.
Of course, few of the privileged few would be so bold as to deny the long history of oppression and ignorance that stains the history books and was still largely in effect even one generation ago. But that recognition must be tempered with a certain distance in order to ensure that we don’t have a crisis on our hands. The new generation of WASPs shakes its collective head woefully at the terrible deeds of our forefathers and celebrates the courage and forethought of Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, and Cesar Chavez while skillfully dodging any responsibility to continue the fight they began. So long as those problems remain long ago and far away fairness and equal rights can be the watchwords of an increasingly delusional majority.
The fact of the matter is we do have a crisis on our hands. Not a new one by any means but a tired set of age-old problems that haven’t faded away as fully as we would like to believe. We still see alarming statistics such as the US Census, which states that only 34% of black children in the US are being raised in a married-couple family, compared to 75% of white children. We see from the same source that whites are almost three times more likely than Hispanics to receive a Bachelor’s degree or higher. And the census also shows that women earn a mere 71% of what their male counterparts receive in the workplace. Clearly, issues of race- or gender-based discrimination persist, so why the adamant refusal to acknowledge their very existence? The answer lies in the ethos of the group that benefits most from these startling numbers.
Having grown up in a white suburban family with three brothers and no sisters to speak of, I know these benefits well. I knew the color of my skin would never be a factor in determining my financial dependability. I could go shopping or out for a walk without the fear of being harassed. And I never thought twice about how frequently I saw politicians, news reporters, or successful businessmen who looked like me because it was simply what I had always known. Did I think of myself as privileged? Certainly, compared to the Rwandan refugees I saw on the news or the Indian prostitutes I heard about in school. But any suggestion that I had a head start compared to the girls in my classes or to my friends of other ethnicities would have fallen on largely deaf ears. This wasn’t my father’s or my grandfather’s America; this was the land of equality and liberty that our womanizing, slave-trading forefathers had envisioned. Best of all, this was a land where a young Caucasian boy in a Northern California suburb could go to school and move up in the world without the slightest guilt or second thought concerning those he had passed along the way.
It appears that no one told today’s white man that he couldn’t have his cake and eat it too. It is indeed an enviable position to have the upper hand in nearly every arena while looking at the rest of the world through the rose-colored glasses of insufficient social programs and innumerable excuses for the continuing trend of inequality. There is no guilt when we consider racism and sexism to be unpleasant relics of our past. Complacency has become the white male’s best defense. Still more alarming are those who push this complacency even further, venturing into the realm of underprivilege themselves. Unsatisfied with ignoring the cold hard facts, many of my advantaged brothers seize any opportunity to make themselves into the martyrs, blaming their own failures or inconveniences on Affirmative Action or other programs aimed at truly leveling the playing field (however imperfect said programs may be). As if white males didn’t have enough, they leap to take from disadvantaged groups the very right to claim disadvantage. Simply put, those who are entitled to more than a true meritocracy would allow are unwilling to surrender their advantages and at the same time are largely incapable of admitting that such advantages even exist.
Facing up to a pervasive social problem is a frightening thing. It disrupts the quiet apathetic life that I and the countless others like me have grown fondly accustomed to. It asks that we relinquish our privileges and open the collective blind eye we’ve turned to the problems around us. But if progress is to be made toward a truly just society, it’s a risk we’ll have to take.