My initial reaction was .. this guy is a dick. My second reaction was I am tired of hearing about how “white people” are clueless and none of us admit that racism exists.

People like John don’t get heard because they insist on speaking in absolutes. ALL white people, ALL black people, ALL little green tree frogs tongue emoticon. When you lump everyone in a category, you are going to get offended, indignant people that are no longer listening, they are just reacting.

Most people I know who have more than two brain cells to rub together agree that white privilege exists here in America. So does male privilege and religious privilege. Whenever you have a group that is a majority in control, they will have privilege that others don’t. However, while I see a lot of articles like this calling that fact out, what I have never seen is a solution suggested. They tell us “acknowledge you benefit from it and then work at changing it.” Exactly how do you change benefiting from privilege? refuse to work? move to a poor neighborhood with bad schools so your kids don’t have advantages? Somehow, none of those things sounds reasonable. So when people want to scream about another group benefiting from privilege all I ask is .. How would YOU go about not benefiting from your privilege? He is male, he is straight, he is Christian. He has three kinds of privilege I do not. ALL make him more employable than me. (If he gets fired for being black he has a lawsuit, if I get fired for being bi or Atheist .. I get told to keep my mouth shut next time).

People act like the issue is clear cut, it isn’t. All I can do (and have done) is encourage people, kids, my family and friends to look beyond the surface at who someone is.

I will say it is interesting that the author by saying white people do not think in terms of groups (we or us) he has reduced us to nothing more than a skin colour. We don’t have different backgrounds, cultures, religions, languages, or subgroups ..we exist only as white people in his world.