The Illusion of White Privilege

Let's start with a joke. A Jew, a black man and an Irishman are all being put to death on crosses and they begin arguing over who is being better treated and why. Now that is the definition of stupid.

I have previously stated that I am Irish, well, American of Irish descent. I have also stated that the English starved one fourth of us to death with the Irish famine. That included people in my family. How many people starved their slaves to death? Not to many, they saw it as the same as starving their horses to death. Slave owners saw their slaves as their property. The Irish had no value to the English at all. I want you to take a moment and think about that, it is not the point I am going to make but is in and of itself something to consider. You see it is about human value.

When I was young I resented the English as I learned of what they had done and were still doing to my nationality. I was about 11 when Bloody Sunday happened. You can look it up or just listen to U2. I heard how the news spun it all and watched as Britain justified it. I saw the propaganda machine at work. I felt a quiet anger as my anger usually is. Anger makes me contemplative and strategic, it is my warning bell to look deeper and find my opponents weakness. I began asking myself what would be acceptable responses to the English by the Irish Republican Army and violence seemed to make sense. It is the simplest of questions, is it okay for the oppressed to kill their oppressor. A simple question that misses the moral issue while making you think it nails it; but that is not the point of this post either.

Lets look at the life of the average Englishman. Is he doing that well? How has he been treated historically. Ever see Braveheart?  The English monarchy treated nations as slaves to the king including their own. The owners of this world do not see color and they don't see sex and they don't see age, they see slaves and competitors for owning the slaves. Should I complain about English privilege?

Define privilege. It means to get a step up on others. It means that someone starts the game with a bigger advantage. Now who should the person given no advantage blame? The person who was started one step ahead, two steps ahead or a thousand steps ahead? Divide and conquer means starting one group in front of another while you are a thousand steps ahead. You get them to righteously fight amongst each other. I have described how musical chairs is the same thing. While 99% of you fight over the increasingly diminishing number of chairs, I take them all but one so you fight each other over the one last chair while I have the rest.

I could have used male privilege as my example or any other privilege you believe exists in a bigoted (the word means universal and generalized, attributing a common thing to a group) way. What is the greatest privilege in the world? What can you be born into that will give you more advantage from the start till the end of life? I think I know the answer and I think the answer is wealth. Beauty and strength can be taken in a moment as can fame; but, money can empower the ugliest, meanest, weakest and most corrupt person in the world for life and beyond. Money is the one thing the world makes sure can be passed on to your children.

UPDATE AND A COMMENT RESPONSE:

I received a comment to this post which you can read in the comment section. The response included a link to a video which I have watched. I am not impressed by the video as it fails to meet certain basic requirements. Lets start with looking at the actual law and not just someone's comments on it.

Legislative Assembly of Ontario - Bill 89, Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act, 2017.

The video claims that Canada passed the law to support gender fluidity and multiculturalism. That is not true. In fact, Canada has had a problem for a long time. Canada used to remove native children from their homes and send them to boarding schools to teach them to be more like Canadians.

If you read the actual bill and know Canadian history you come to understand that they are trying to undue a history of oppression of native Canadian Indians. Here is a quote from the actual law, "One of the additional purposes in the current Act is to recognize that services to Indian and native children and families should be provided in a manner that recognizes their culture, heritage and traditions, and the concept of the extended family." The truth is that the law is aimed at foster care and adoption primarily. The people that made the video in the comment below (click on the word comments at the bottom of this post to read it and see the video) are right wing extremists, I looked at their other videos. The rumour is wrong, it is not illegal to call your children son or daughter in Canada. 

As for the case mentioned in the comment video, here is the actual document submitted by the family to the court.

FRANCES BAARS and DEREK BAARS vs THE CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY OF HAMILTON.  

Two girls were put in foster care while waiting to be reunited with their biological family. Mr. Baars was working on becoming a minister and did not believe in holidays. Imagine having a Foster family that will not allow you to celebrate your birthday because they are Jehovah's witnesses. Here is an actual quote of what the Baars claimed, "Ms. Lindsay’s comments did not relate to any actual situations we were facing as foster parents.  We had not interacted with any prospective adoptive couples, nor would we be doing so, because the plan with our foster girls was that they would be reunited with their biological family. We repeatedly protested this offensive allegation.  We assured Ms. Lindsay that we would treat any same-sex adoptive parents as people worthy of dignity and respect.  Yet, Ms. Lindsay, without any factual basis or grounding, persisted in telling us that because of our religious faith, we would discriminate against same-sex couples.  Ms. Lindsay told us that she intended to prevent us from ever encountering a same sex couple, and that she intended to close our foster home."

The couple were responsible for meeting with prospective adoptive parents and refused to do so according to their own words. The case had nothing to do with sexual orientation, it had to do with the responsibility of foster parents and they refused to do their job. This case also predates the new law.