Darren Joyce,
United Kingdom
Racism exists. Privilege exists. there are people out to get you. I’m not racist. I’m not privileged. I’m not your enemy.
Just because a white [insert position of authority here] is a shameful human being that will target you more than me. Just because this generates a justifiable fear and different life experience for you. Just because they are usually white. That doesn’t make me, or the vast majority of white people, your enemy. In fact, I am of a subset of ‘white’ that has been equally abused. My ‘people’ were enslaved. My ‘people’ were pushed to the fringe of society. My ‘people’ were refused the right to vote. My ‘people’ were systematically persecuted and discriminated against. The signs would say “no blacks, no dogs, no Irish’. We came AFTER dogs.
But. Don’t tell me white privilege exists. It doesn’t. White racism does. White people are racist to non-white people. Non-white people are racist to white people. Non-white people are racist to non-white people. That doesn’t mean non-white people don’t experience systematic discrimination in the form of racism. They do. But that does not make me privileged. That makes me angry.
The true problem really is what’s in your pocket. You got money? Yes. Then you’re fucking privileged. The fact is if you’re wealthy, you’re privileged. White or not. And the worst part; if you come from nothing and become wealthy, you’re very likely to turn around and look down on where you came from.
Wealth, or more precisely, the lack of it, is the only form of discrimination you can get away from. By becoming richer. And humanity shows us that when we shed our burden of peasantry we simply become the problem.
