The concept of 'white privilege' is valid, and it exists. The problem is that, like so many race relation subjects, it's instantly perverted and warped into something nonsensical.
Sure, there's 'white privilege.' As an example, research has shown that identical resumes will receive more attention and generate more interviews when headed by a 'white sounding' name than when headed with an ethnic name. There is no doubt that there is a bias at work accounting for the marked discrepancy in frequency of response.
The problem is when race baiters take a piece of information like this, and they extrapolate wild ideas that everything that all white people have comes from white privilege. Or, the inverse, which is that all black people are perpetually undermined by an absence of white privilege. Or, perhaps the most insidious inferences that are often drawn, that all white people have an inherent degree of racism or that all black people are inherently victims of racism.
I personally end up with a front row seat of how this nonsense plays out. I'm Hispanic. According to the "theory" I'm not subject to white privilege. But on the other hand, nothing about my life reflects the typical "poor oppressed minority" storyline. By and large, my life has played out with the absence of any bias, favorable or unfavorable, associated with race. Nobody has hired me because I'm Hispanic. Nobody has denied me work because I'm Hispanic. The closest I've experienced was dating a girl back in high school whose parents forbade her from dating me because they were flaming racists. We dated anyway. For a while, at least. Eventually her parents found out and threatened to kick her out of the house, and at that was the end of that. That sucked. Ironically, about a year later she was taking after her parents and had some pretty ugly racist shit to say to my younger sister. But I quickly put that to an end when I pointed out she herself had Hispanic in her,
or at least she had had some in her, and she quite loved it. You know, that ***** hasn't sent me a Christmas card ever since.
Anyway, when I make the point to people that I've never had 'white privilege' work against me, all of a sudden my identity undergoes a dramatic change. Instantly, I go from being a Hispanic man who is unwittingly held back by other people's white privilege, to being a "white looking" man who is so soaked in white privilege that I don't even know it. The narrative becomes instantly different, and bizarrely so. All of a sudden I'm being told that because I 'look' white, I get white privilege too. The weird thing about this is that I don't really 'look' white. Sure, I might not look like the image of a reddish Mexican mestizo that most people bear in mind when they think "Hispanic." But most people who meet me for the first time can instantly identify me as Hispanic based on my appearance alone. While 'looking' white (or Hispanic) may be somewhat subjective, what's remarkable is how I don't start to look white until after I make the case that what I accomplish in my life is on my shoulders and not based on racism.
