[NEohioPAL] A thoughtful opinion written by a Republican pundit, NY TIMES Op-Ed 9/15/08

[rebekka willow]

 White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election  **
*By Tim Wise*
*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 seventeen 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-sized 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 8-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 U.S. 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 church-going 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 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 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 U.S. 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.*
**
*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.
*


2008/9/17 Matthew Wright <Matthew.Wright at oberlin.edu>

>
>
>   By DAVID BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
> Published: September 15, 2008
>
> Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this
> election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question
> is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives
> say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly
> be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer,
> David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is
> unready.
> The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This
> argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what
> are the ultimate sources of wisdom.There was a time when conservatives did
> not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement.
> Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of
> rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned
> knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in
> the best that has been thought and said.
>
> But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist,
> strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical
> knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are
> kindergartens for overeducated fools.
>
> The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor
> simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor
> instinct.
>
> This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the
> belief that time in government destroys character but contact with
> grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has
> produced Sarah Palin.
>
> Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do
> battle with the corrupt establishment. Her followers take pride in the way
> she has aroused fear, hatred and panic in the minds of the liberal elite.
> The feminists declare that she's not a real woman because she doesn't hew to
> their rigid categories. People who've never been in a Wal-Mart think she is
> parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.
>
> Look at the condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters, her
> backers say. Look at the endless string of vicious, one-sided attacks in the
> news media. This is what elites produce. This is why regular people need to
> take control.
>
> And there's a serious argument here. In the current Weekly Standard, Steven
> Hayward argues that the nation's founders wanted uncertified citizens to
> hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate
> class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like
> Palin.
>
> I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn't just lived through the
> last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the
> anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.
>
> And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term,
> it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation
> and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all,
> it requires prudence.
>
> What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a
> specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information
> and still discern the essential current of events — the things that go
> together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to
> engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most
> weight.
>
> How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses
> a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of
> history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what
> is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can't, what has
> worked and what hasn't.
>
> Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified
> (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience
> and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the
> word "experience" 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not
> average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the
> wisdom to select the best prepared.
>
> Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt
> establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance
> is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not
> have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems
> to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive
> decisiveness.
>
> The idea that "the people" will take on and destroy "the establishment" is
> a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right.
> Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away
> standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those
> qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to
> the Palin nomination in the first place.
> *
> *
>
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-- 
Total consumer non-confidence must be the cornerstone of a new,
non-profitable economy.
-Bread & Puppets
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