What Privileges Do McCain and Palin Receive Because They're White?

By Tim Wise, BuzzFlash. Posted September 18, 2008.

13 ways McCain and Palin have enjoyed preferential treatment in the
presidential race. For those who still can't grasp the concept of
white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some
easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at 17 like Bristol Palin
and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family
is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your
parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and
Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as
irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck,"
like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone
messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how
you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a
responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather
than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six
years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of,
then returned to after making up some coursework at a community
college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to
achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as
unfit for college and probably someone who only got in in the first
place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town
smaller than most medium-size colleges, and then governor of a state
with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island
of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people
don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S.
senator, two-term state senator and constitutional law scholar means
you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under
God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for
the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately
disqualified from holding office -- since, after all, the pledge was
written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until
the 1950s -- while believing that reading accused criminals and
terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you
used to teach at a prestigious law school, requires it), is a
dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make
people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to
have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that
wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska
first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family,
while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11
memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school,
people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and
the work they do -- like, among other things, fight for the right of
women to vote, or for civil rights, or the eight-hour workday, or an
end to child labor -- and people think you're being pithy and tough,
but if you merely question the experience of a small-town mayor and
18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she
took in college -- you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even
agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your
running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the
ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women and made them
give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being
a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and
merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in
Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose
pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize
George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the United States is an
explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring
Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in
speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment
on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just
a good churchgoing Christian, but if you're black and friends with a
black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S.
Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of
U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its
effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by
a reporter, and then having people get angry at the reporter for
asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely
refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly
means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly
intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim that your experience as a POW
has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being
black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a
"light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly
allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W.
Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing,
people are losing their homes, inflation is rising and the United
States is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white
voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just
too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same,
which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

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See more stories tagged with: sarah palin, john mccain, election 2008,
white privilege

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised
2008) and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by
Soft Skull.