Basic fairness not ‘white privilege’
In Dale Carnegie’s bestseller “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” the author illustrates a great truth. Carnegie said that everyone believes he’s a nice fellow, no matter how others may see him. Carnegie explained that even gangster Al Capone considered himself a swell guy.
The general point was that you can’t expect to make headway with people if you begin by calling them rotters.
I bring this up because of a term now bandied about in popular culture — “white privilege” — and I figure Carnegie’s advice might prove useful for the people who use that term.
I hope we can agree that some people have been treated worse than others during our history. Slavery is easy enough to acknowledge as despicably evil, and that folks with darker skin didn’t have their troubles magically disappear with the Emancipation Proclamation.
After that, there were the “separate but equal” provisions of what came to be known as Jim Crow laws. In general, many white people just plain believed they were better than black people — and they acted that way, too. Laws were changed, but attitudes take longer. There are still black people who believe they are routinely mistreated by whites, and white people who routinely believe they are superior to blacks.
If you don’t buy that, there’s little worth discussing here. It’s the truth, though.
Some people wish to address these problems and correct them. That’s not only understandable, it’s commendable. However, talking about so-called “white privilege” isn’t helping matters.
As briefly touched upon, one of Carnegie’s main tenets was that criticizing others won’t win them over to your side. When someone says, “Your privilege is showing,” they are criticizing that person’s behavior — and implying that the person’s intelligence is so limited he or she doesn’t even see that special treatment. They are saying that a person is seeking unfair advantage; cheating, in other words.
The nomenclature is faulty — and incendiary. “White privilege” is a term that infuriates some, including this white person, for very good reason. It is not “privilege” that I, and others of my general skin tone, enjoy. It is simply an expectation of decent treatment and an assumption of certain freedoms as part of being American.
Those things are not “privilege.” They are rights that should be accorded everyone in America, no matter their skin color or other defining characteristics.
Everyone enjoys being treated with respect, feeling important, being sincerely appreciated. I certainly understand why some people of color feel as though they aren’t receiving that treatment, and I can understand the desire to see that changed. I’m all for it. However, if someone begins by calling those things “privilege,” then the simple act of being treated fairly is, in fact, being termed an unfair advantage. It feels — to this white person — that you’re asking me to give up something, rather than asking for yourself, or others you care about, to be raised to an equitable state.
Semantics? Sure. But in an age of soundbites and character limited tweets, words need to be chosen more carefully than ever. Giving voice to your thoughts in a way that insults the very people you hope to influence, and win as friends, is a horrible way to begin a civil conversation.
It is simply an expectation of decent treatment and an assumption of certain freedoms as part of being American.