That’s not privilege

I am more than a little weary of the current fashion for those inane social and political buzzwords, all of which are clearly and malevolently designed to disparage and undermine the confidence of white society. The latest in a long list of fatuous buzzwords is “white privilege,” which is not only crass and without foundation, but the height of impertinence.

In Russia, millions of unjustly incarcerated prisoners were not only tortured and starved but suffered the unspeakable misery of sub-zero temperatures. Was that “white privilege”?

In Great Britain, little more than a century ago, children were forced by economic necessity to work and often die in grim, satanic factories or in coal mines thousands of feet below Earth’s surface. Those dear little children must truly have thought that they had been assigned to hell, and many died without ever knowing the boundless joys of childhood. Was that “white privilege”?

Two World Wars and many more of lesser import, plagues and other highly contagious diseases, religious persecution, floods, famine, aristocratic tyranny and the Holocaust are just a few of the many major traumas endured by Europeans throughout the centuries. Again, was that “white privilege”?

However, “white privilege” or not, in view of the overwhelming contribution to the sum of human achievement by white men of sublime and towering genius, white people have surely earned the right, and deserve to enjoy, the rewards of their astonishing ingenuity and enterprise. WILLIAM G. CARLYLE North Little Rock