The “Boot Straps” Myth

A counter argument to the notion that “Wealth privilege” can or should replace “White privilege” in our rhetoric.

Hello

firstly thank you to both the original author and to you Joshua for your comment. both of you write well — your ideas are clear and easy to follow.

Joshua — I would like to comment on one particular thing you mentioned “wealth privilege” dominates “white privilege”.

this is an incredibly interesting point you have made and I both agree and disagree with it.

I would agree that those who have the most amount of wealth are with out doubt the most privileged in society. They will have better access to health care and education, they are more likely to go to university, less likely to commit crimes and more likely to live longer etc etc.

wealthy people well dressed people in “nice” neighborhoods are obviously less likely to be stopped by the police, because statistically they are less likely to have either committed a crime or to have been the victim of crime. And if they do commit a crime they are able to afford bail and will have access to a good lawyer, so are less likely to face jail time.

All of this is true in both the US and the UK (where I am from) however the point I think you are missing is that statistically the percentage of wealthy black people in america (and in the UK but to a lessor extent) is extremely low. white people are far more likely to be wealthy and there for far more likely to be privileged.

what becomes most upsetting about these statistics,is if you start to unpick all of the social economical (and I’m sorry to say) covertly racists reasons as to why black people are often less wealthy, and as a result by your own omission less privileged, it starts to become clear that “white” and “wealth” are shockingly interchangeable.

*please feel free to check your own sources for these facts as they are readily available on the internet and come up in many of the sources I mention below**

one argument I hear over and over again regarding black American and issues with racism and white privilege around their treatment by the police goes something like this; “its not surprising that more black people get stopped and searched, statistically more black people are convicted criminals so they are bound to be considered more likely suspects”

Firstly if you have not done so already, I would highly recommend you watch a Netflix documentary called “13th” Fortune Entertainment give the following synopses;

“ Named after the 13th constitutional amendment, which abolished slavery except as “punishment for crime,” the doc uses archival footage and expert commentary to make the case that slavery hasn’t disappeared from the U.S. — it’s evolved into our modern system of mass incarceration, one in which many prisons are run by for-profit companies and prisoners can be paid a pittance to work for corporations.”

this documentary systematically takes you through the journey from slavery to the present day and reveals some unpleasant (evidence based) truths about the intentional manipulation of policy and the law to keep black Americans down trodden, criminalized and incarcerated with horrific consequences on individuals and the community.

the second point I would like to make is this; I know there is a prevailing view in the US that anyone can “pull themselves out of poverty if they work hard enough”. I would argue that this is a complete fallacy. You only need to look at the shocking statistics around the working poor. So much of it depends on where you were born and what access to education, healthcare etc you have.

In the pod cast “this American Life” Ira glass dedicated a whole show covering the discrepancies in funding and access to education in the US and the devastating effect it has on young people in poorer areas — who consequently happened to mostly be black — Ira said the following:

“ In America, local property taxes fund our schools. So if you live in a rich area, you get better schools. And the gaps can be huge, right? In New York State, for instance, the richest school districts, the top 10%, spend $25,000 per student, which is twice as much as the bottom 10% spends per student. And yes, there’s federal money targeted to poor students, and yes, there are a tiny handful of states that have aggressively tried to shift the balance so poor kids get more because poor kids’ needs are greater, but by and large, if you’re living in a poor neighborhood, chances are your schools will get less money and not be as good. Neighborhood isn’t destiny all the time for everybody, but for a lot of people, it comes pretty close.” (taken from a transcript from the This American Life web page).

As most black people live in poorer areas their kids don’t have access to the best education and will therefor find it a lot harder to “educate” themselves out of poverty.

if your reply to this is; “well then they should try to move to better areas” then let me draw you attention to the This American Life pod cast “House Rules” act one of the episodes covering the following;

“ Reporter Nancy Updike talks to a group of New York City residents about their frustrating attempts to rent an apartment. With hidden microphones, we hear landlords and supers tell the apartment hunters that there’s nothing available. But that’s not necessarily true. Forty-five years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, ProPublica reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones talks to Nancy about the history of racial housing discrimination in the United States and what has been done — and hasn’t been done — to rectify it. (31 minutes)legal system • race” — taken from the This American Life website.

I would also encourage you to listen to the Radio Lab pod cast http://www.wnyc.org/story/who-deserves-to-be-poor

which dispels the myth that anyone can “move” or “work” themselves out of poverty — and by your definition into privilege. it talks about how the black community in America started off at a huge disadvantage and although on the surface things have change, racism is still prevalent, and what is perhaps worse is that it is more hidden — which makes it easier for those who don’t know or who don’t want to know what is actually going on. to quote Martin Luther King Jr.

“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”

the facts are that racial discrimination that prevents Black Americans from rising up out of poverty and thus gaining the privilege of wealth are hiding in plane sight — so much so that I would argue that for the most part “White Privilege” and “Wealth Privilege” are often the same thing.

I am not for one second suggesting that poverty does not effect huge amounts of white Americans as well — the point I am making is that to imply that it is all about wealth and not race is to ignore the fact that a huge amount of black Americans are poor — and the evidence shows that the reason they are poor; is because of historical overt racism and modern more covert racism that keeps them in poor neighborhoods, which results in poor education and less opportunity to move up the socioeconomic ladder.