Challenging Conventional Wisdom: What about Black Privilege?

For once, someone (in Seattle, at least) has to say something.  

A statement if said often begins to assume the dimensions of an irrefutable, self-evident truth.

I choose to speak out.  In my own words.



We hear all the time the buzzword phrase "white privilege"?  But what about Black Privilege?

Does it exist?

I think so.

Black people are statistically speaking bigger/taller than other other races.   African-American culture is also a lot more imbued with macho than "mainstream" (read:  WASP) culture.  Black males command respect in a way that males of other races do not, whether strutting their stuff or just sending you a look that sends shivers down your spine ("I mean business, MF").

Black men, and Hollywood, the music industry, and sports are at least partially responsible for this, are considered the nec plus ultra of sexy, strong, virile.  And noble, too (Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, "12 Years a Slave," "The Butler"...)

You don't need statistics to sense that many if not most of these guys don't pull any punches.  You do what they ("the man") say.  Who would dare to (or be stupid enough to) bring up the extraordinarily high rate of violent black crime except a racist?

In America, affirmative action most helps African-Americans and I have witnessed many cases where African-Americans have been treated with great respect and warmness on the basis that they been "oppressed."

From what I've observed over the past 20 years, African-Americans get better treatment than people of other races, if only because others are so wary of having a furious, out-of-control black person on their hands.   People in Seattle go out of their way to be nice to black people, even when the latter are acting unreasonable, unpleasant, aggressive, etc.

Cutting in line in front of you at a bus stop or in a grocery line is another sign of not just incivility but also of impunity and privilege.  I rarely witness others do this.

African-Americans can and do conduct themselves in an extremely unruly, disorderly fashion:  playing their music at a deafening volume, screaming, kicking, shouting, throwing things, using non-stop foul language, etc., that would lead to arrests if it were anyone else.  The police look the other way, most of civil society looks the other way or pretends it isn't happening.

Blacks--12% of the total population of the U.S.--dominate professional sports (this an area in which it has been difficult for Asian-Americans to break into). Millions of white and other non-black Americans who idolize black people, much of it having to do with hero worship as well as sympathies based on history.

In the world of show business, African-Americans are disproportionately represented.  (But no one speaks of this gross inequality).  Think of music.  Think of movies.  Television (Oprah).

Black people are loved by at least half of America (most Democrats and many Independents).  This phenomenon borders on hysteria:  witness the euphoria at Obama's winning the Democratic nomination six years ago, or his being elected president.  Or siding with black Americans, whatever the merits of the position (Proposition 8 in California, Henry Louis Gates, Travyon Martin...).

Other races can be racist.  Black people, society believes, have an hereditary, historically based and racially based inability to be racist.

Compare this to the feelings Americans of any color have about Hispanics (immigration issues), Asian-Americans (foreigners any way you look at it, and they're taking our jobs), Muslims (terrorist concerns).

African-Americans can always blame failure in academic performance on "a racist school board," racist teachers, a racist system, centuries of oppression, slavery:  things I have yet to hear Asian-Americans or whites complain of.

It is easier for some groups to shift the blame onto others than it is for others.

As far as I can tell, no one at all tells a black person what he should (or should not) do.  Far from it.

 Everyone is very careful not to offend an African-American out of fear of being called "a racist."

You can give a white person "a piece of your mind" most of the time, if you disagree with him or her, but almost never a black person.

In Seattle, many if not most black persons have been accorded a moral and physical superiority over other races.   (Just read The Stranger, or The Seattle Times, for that matter, where black people are always represented as being decent, heroic, wonderful people who have been victims for generations of injustice).

The number of times, I, a person of color, has been put in my place by an African-American--who I believe was acting on the basis of his belief in his innate "superiority" over me simply by dint of his being black--is numerous.

If we want a society in which we have equality, we are going to have to treat different races equally--with equal respect.


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I found this online, so what I have talked about is not exactly a secret.:

Black men, and black women as well, command respect, which persons of other races (white, Asian...) simply do not simply by virtue of being black.