|
At its core, white skin privileges are not a novel or
new concept. It can be characterized as both an explicit and
implicit society wide operating system (akin to Windows 10)
and is adaptable via a host of software applications, to
wit: judicial system, legislative decisions and the
distribution of economic empowerment to its intended
audience…i.e., white people.
White skin privileges draw its nourishment and longevity
from the protections that it affords white people who seek
its
perks and benefits; but they must pay the societal wages of
agreeing to its abhorrent tenets and stifling dogma or they
can face expulsion or ostracism by those who rigorously
reject any attempts at its elimination.
The chronological start of white skin privileges in and
on the land that we call the United States of America is
normally assigned the start date of 1619. That was the first
recorded date of people of African descent being physically
present in the American colonies.
From that date of notoriety, when slavers brought
citizens of Africa to these shores and consciously bludgeon
them mentally, emotionally and physically into people of no
value,
America has not recovered from the Big Lie that people of
color were sub-human and not worthy of respect or equal
treatment.
Notions of white skin privileges skillfully and with
great nuance and effect, infected the white citizenry with
non-Biblical concepts of what is human worth and value and
tried to portray people of color as the spawn of the devil.
White skin privileges can only succeed and prosper when
what it gives to its followers is of greater value than the
propagated fear that those “others” are not like you and
never will be; and you must be diligent against their
efforts to be reckoned as equal alongside you and your
family.
White skin privileges tell a wicked and evil tale that
the native Americans (aka: Indians) and people of color are
not able to exhibit a standard of civility and proper
civilization; and thus, it is incumbent upon white people
the burden to lead the way and educate them in the finer
things of life.
For White America, if that education required the use
of slavery, chronic mental and emotional abuse, killings,
denial of equal rights and subjugation by an indifferent and
callous police force, so be it.
White skin privileges employed the many genres of a
corrupted educational system to reinforce the supposed
inferiority of people of color, a law enforcement apparatus
whose main mission was and is to protect the property rights
of the “ruling class” and apartheid like laws that held in
check any chance of revolt or challenge.
White skin privileges means that you can call the police
on innocent black people gathering in a public park, but you
lie and state that they are causing a disturbance.
Those same privileges affirm the irrational behavior of
educators who denigrate the intellectual ability of black
people and scorn their advancements as being accomplished at
the expense of other whites.
White skin privileges simply assumes that if a non-white
has achieved anything of note or value, that it must be
suspect and not a quality product as would be produced by a
white person, even of a lesser status.
At the core of white skin privileges is the dire and
haunting fear that unless people of color are lessened or
diminished, white people will become a minority group in
America by the year 2045.
That fear has as its twin, the irrational ghost of
revenge by people of color for centuries of wrongs, yet
unrequited, that would be inflicted upon whites in this
country.
The past legal doctrine of separate but equal was a
futile attempt to legislate racial separation in the hopes
that people of color would be satisfied with a half of a
bone rather than a three-course dinner paired with a dessert
and a brandy.
White skin privileges automatically assumes that all
goodies and perks of this American economic system are and
were deliberately designed for their continuous enjoyment
and any infringement upon those entitlements should be met
with force to prevent “others” from entering in.
White skin privileges says that you can call a black
person who has earned a Ph.D., by his first name only and
never call him or her, Doctor.
It is a system of thinking based upon the Big Lie that
white is always right and that Black, needs to get back.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com
|
