The fractionalization triggered by the pseudoscience of "white privilege"

Trying to remedy the effects of past racism has only guaranteed its perpetual existence. Identifying "white privilege" in the color of bandaids available at the pharmacy, or the efficacy of hotel shampoo on the texture of a user’s hair, is not a cure for racism. It’s like shooting Americans with race heroin.

The phrase “white privilege” comes with a host of negative connotations. Judging someone based on the color of their skin without any basis is the very definition of racism. Yet when stereotypes and prejudices are placed upon whites under the pejorative phrase “white privilege” it is presented as social science rather than racism.

That is why Ta-Nehisi Coates is so misguided, or maybe, so devious. He is a professional race baiter. Without racism he would be out of a job, as would Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Colorblindness is not their goal, far from it. They aim to sensationalize and codify America’s racial divisions.

That’s why Coates writes that besides Barack Obama, each of “Trump’s predecessors made their way into office through the passive power of whiteness[.]” According to Coates, the achievement of Trump and 43 of his 44 predecessors is diminished by the color of their skin. The implication is that there is a hierarchy of virtue, with historically oppressed minorities at the top, and white men at the bottom.

In another passage, Coates identifies Trump as a beneficiary of identity politics and brands the media as complicit for ignoring it. He contrasts the 61% of whites making between $50,000-90,000 who voted for Trump, with the 11% of black voters in the same income band who did so as evidence for his proposition. According to Coates, when a majority of whites vote for the same reason it is evidence of racist and malicious identity politics.

However, when 90% of black voters select the same candidate is it is apparently a benign use of informed self-interest. Coates scoffs at working-class whites for voting against their self-interest. Yet he completely ignores the lack of progress blacks have made voting almost uniformly for Democratic candidates over the past 50 years. He might be correct when he writes that Trump is not doing much for the 60 percent of white-working class voters who supported him. Yet he completely glosses over the lack of progress for African-Americans under Barack Obama.

In the world Coates inhabits it is inconceivable that a majority of Trump voters might have selected him for reasons other than race. Of course, that is farcical. While some Trump voters were likely motivated by racist impulses, many others voted for religious, economic, social, foreign policy, and national security reasons, amongst others.

Many voters likely selected Trump in spite of his perceived racism. It’s even possible to imagine a race conscious voter selecting the candidate who spoke about bringing manufacturing jobs to America to spur inner-city growth over the candidate who once called young, urban criminals “super predators.”

Whiteness in America may have one time been considered property, perpetuated with Jim Crow laws, and rubber stamped by our courts. However, that time has passed.

I hope that all Americans believe that any law that discriminates against a racial minority is odious to our national mores. There are a number of statutes designed to protect against racial discrimination, and I hope that further protections are enacted to that effect.

I hope we aggressively prosecute violators of these laws. If you can point out an example, I will be the first to condemn them. Private and government causes of action exist for racial discrimination in employment, lending, higher education, and a multitude of other fields. Government organizations like E-RACE aid in the investigation and prosecution of violators.

But that is not the aim of these racial flamethrowers. Over 50 years after the erosion of Jim Crow, these activists seek to enact new racial codifications in our legal code. However, this time, instead of whiteness, blackness will be the valuable property.

Just as whiteness might have opened the door for college or job applicants 50 years ago, progressive advocates now seek to convey a similar advantage onto blackness. Affirmative action programs are one example of a benefit that activists seek to confer upon black skin. In a 2014 article for the Atlantic, Coates advocated for the most aggressive valuation of blackness, reparations.

America’s shameful history of horrifically mistreating African-Americans is undebatable. However, placing the costs for that history on the shoulders of a generation of innocents is misguided. It creates an awareness and sensitivity towards racial differences that otherwise would not exist. It also triggers racial animus amongst both blacks and whites who have naturally divergent interests in the property value of their skin colors.

A 2016 Marist poll on reparations found that only 24% of Americans believed the government should pay all African-American citizens for past racial discrimination. However, the poll was sharply divided amongst racial lines. While a mere 11% of white Americans support reparations, an overwhelming 63% of African Americans support them. The same poll found that 69% of Americans believe that slavery and racial discrimination are a part of history but it is time to move beyond it, compared to only 27% who believe that it’s a wrong that the government still needs to make right.

Most troubling, these movements often trade on misleading facts to conjure discriminatory intent where it does not exist. According to much of the media, white cops kill innocent blacks with impunity. However, this does not account for a variety of factors including the situations in which blacks and whites tend to encounter law enforcement. Professor Peter Moskos of John Jay College found that given an equal threat level, a white person is actually more likely than a black person to be shot by police.

Another example of “white privilege” commonly proffered is that whites are exempted from predatory traffic stops by supposedly racist police. A Public Service Research Institute study tracked nearly 40,000 drivers on the New Jersey turnpike. Its results found that African-Americans made up 16 percent of the drivers on the turnpike but constituted 25 percent of the speeders.

The study concluded that African-American drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to speed, and even more likely to speed at reckless levels. However, African-Americans were only pulled over 23 percent of the time – less than their speeding habits would predict. Although African-Americans are more likely than whites to be pulled over or killed by police on a per capita basis, when taking into account an equal risk level, their treatment by law enforcement is remarkably similar.

Empowering individuals and government organizations to investigate and prosecute tangible examples of discrimination is the best method to erase racism from society. Almost 70% of Americans believe it is time to move past America’s racial history. Codifying racial differences will only maintain the divisions that have plagued America since inception. The late economist and former president of Clark College Vivian W. Henderson might have said it best when he opined that “any efforts to treat blacks separately from the rest of the nation are likely to lead to frustration, heightened racial animosities, and a waste of the country’s resources and the precious resources of black people.

America can never be colorblind or move past racial divisions if we simply flip the script and start defining whiteness pejoratively to balance out years of doing the same to blackness. Identifying discrimination and stamping it out, rather than promoting it under a different name is the answer. Hopefully we can each help in the fight to eliminate discrimination, regardless of the form.

For an interesting discussion of the relationship between “white privilege” and “class privilege” click here. I subscribe to the idea that “class privilege” is a relevant conception, which scholars should consider when analyzing societal trends. To learn about the awkwardness academics have faced from "white privilege" hawks when promoting class privilege click here.