Politics

A Different Perspective on White Privilege

by Andrew Tuttle
06/03/20
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The term white privilege seemingly came out of nowhere a few years ago.

I don’t know who coined the term or why it took a foothold, well I guess I do in this world of victimization and blame pinning. All it really does is divide, prevent ownership of one’s life choices and those who use it to either build themselves up or tear themselves down fail to understand the underlying implications and how it undermines God's plan for marriage.

Whites, or Caucasians, who pat themselves on the back for sounding “woke” when using the term to put themselves down and build others up, who they see as inferior, know not what they do. While “people of color,” whatever that means, use the term to denigrate anyone with less melanin in their skin who by society’s account has gained a decent measure of success as a result of having skin that burns more readily in the sun.

The riots, in the last week, on the heels of black man George Floyd dying by the knee of a white cop, has brought out of flood of do-gooding Caucasians “sympathizing” with the black community’s plight in the Racist States of America. This despite Black Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson saying that America "is now the least racist white-majority society in the world."

A day before Floyd died, the pastor at my church started his sermon on finding friends with an irrelevant story from his high school years (that he never circled back on) when he was invited to dinner at one of his assistant football coach’s house. He posted a photo of the coach, ensuring the online viewing audience could see the assistant coach was black and the pastor went on to say, without explicitly using the term “white privilege” that he grew up privileged in a white San Diego subdivision while detailing the slums where coach lived. 

Once the protests started, a deeply committed follower of Jesus Christ and longtime missionary, also a friend, re-posted someone else’s Facebook comment on “white privilege” more or less explaining how we cannot comprehend the plight of the black man. The pastor’s trivial story did not surprise me considering past statements but the missionary denigrating herself by the post did.

I am white. My mother and father have been married for nearly 60 years and I grew up in a subdivision of Orange County, CA. Yes, lots of white folk. My parents made me work for the things I wanted and from an early age I did not put my hand out for a few bills to attend the movies with friends or buy a cassette tape.

I was not privileged. Certainly not in my house. I studied and could not get straight “As” no matter how hard I tried, I did not receive a full academic scholarship to college and I have been laid off more times than I care to remember.

The bottom line: I find life pretty hard overall and I do not feel privileged in anyway.

However, one thing I will concede is my parents waited until they were married to have children and my dad did not abandon my mother any time after I was born. This “privilege,” I suppose you can call it, directly contrasts the plight of black children today.

Out-of-wedlock births in the black community have jumped from 25 percent in 1965 to 73 percent in 2015. Don’t worry, white kids are jumping on the bandwagon as the numbers for fatherless homes in Caucasian families went from less than 5 percent to more than 25 percent. Hispanics meanwhile reached 53 percent of fatherless homes in 2015.

Kweisi Mfume, former president of the NAACP once told talk show host Larry Elder that the absence of black fathers pose a bigger threat to the black community than white racism. And President Barack Obama said a kid raised without a dad is five times more likely to be poor and commit crimes; nine times more likely to drop out of school; and 20 times more likely to end up in jail.

Young black males make up approximately 3 percent of the population of the United States but that same 3 percent commit the majority of all street crime and half of all murders. The #1 cause of preventable death for young white males is car accidents. The #1 cause of preventable death for young black males is homicide usually at the hands of another black person.

If my father bailed on my mother I assure you I would be a far different person today. I too may be filled with this unexplained anger I cannot quench. I know a young man whose father wanted nothing to do with him and despite the constant presence of several father figures in this man’s life along with a caring and doting mother, he had, shall we say, significant growing pains.

If my “white privilege” means I have to apologize for my parents for waiting until they got married to have children and that my dad stuck around, than what does that say about what God intended for marriage?

My parents were not overtly Christian and I found my faith thanks to them sending me to Christian schools. But my parents still embraced the Christian concept of a nuclear family that consists of the marriage between a man and a woman and childrearing together as husband and wife. My mother was not left to fend for herself, marry the government then try and raise two boys while tackling the role of mother and father.

When someone implies I have “white privilege” they mock and spit in the face of my parents and even worse they ridicule Jesus Christ and hold in contempt His foolproof plan on marriage.   

Don’t tell me I have white privilege. I simply had both parents who loved me.

Apparently, so do 25 percent of black kids.

And I bet they are busy working and making a life for themselves.

That’s not a privilege. It’s how life should be.