It’s the year 2016, and political correctness and race-gender-sex-disability-body type sensitivity have suffused the social landscape. We can hardly breathe without being offensive. Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s great everyone is trying to be mindful nowadays. Or, well, at least trying to be good at hiding the self-centered assholes we are.
One thing I do not understand, however, is this concept of “white privilege” that has permeated all corners of society. Considering the history of colonialism, it’s true that Caucasians (hereafter referred to as the colloquial and universally PC-accepted equivalent of the word: “white people”) have proclaimed their superiority over other races and occupied the higher echelons of society. White people still enjoy certain advantages that people of other races do not. I understand this.
However, I do not see why this privilege is a bad thing.
What exactly is so reprehensible about white people leading easy, undisturbed lives? They endure so many fewer inconveniences and prejudices than the rest of us ethnic minorities. It’s amazing that they have the opportunity to lead these lives and I am happy for them, as we all should be. In fact, I spend a lot of time wishing I were white myself.
For starters, white people have normal names. Never mind the fact that your first names are sometimes last names, or that every girl’s middle name is Nicole — after all, uniformity is better and reduces chances for potential rifts in society. At least you guys don’t have names with questionable pronunciations like “Shithead” or “Slutmuffin”. And don’t even get me started about those Oriental names like “Wai Dick” or “Kim Bang Ah.” Why would someone even name his or her child that, when it has vulgar and embarrassing connotations in a language they don’t know? Clearly, parents should do their research (and learn English).
Accordingly, introducing yourself as a white person is probably a relatively straightforward deal. You are born with the White Clearance Pass for the Two-Step Verification Process of:
- Where Are You From
- No, Where Are You Really From?
No one bothers to inquire about your Irish descent, or the fact that your grandmother is 1/8 Cherokee. You save yourself the inconvenience of divulging your entire family history — although, if you wish to, I am sure others would find it fascinating. Meanwhile, us ethnics have to trace the entire lineage of our descendants to explain where we are from. I am often caught in the exasperating dilemma in which I forget to bring my pedigree and family biography, and do not know how to explain how I am Chinese but from the United States.
Then there is, of course, the situation of being asked, “What are you?” Every time I am asked this, I spiral into another existential crisis and cannot think of a reply for a good 30 minutes. This must surely be detrimental to mental health in the long run.
Speaking of other things that need to be explained, I particularly envy the fact that white people are always presumed to have native proficiency or good command in English. While that means you are likely never complimented on your language abilities, I must admit (and I hope this does not paint me boastful) that the compliments are too much sometimes. It’s as if the white guy I was talking to at the bar last weekend signed me up for the TOEFL and gave me a score of 120/120 during our 5-minute conversation. He said my English was fantastic! Never mind that it is my native language — I felt great about the compliment, coming from a white person. I think the compliments inflate my ego sometimes, though. After all, English is not a language my people usually know, and I can’t help but feel a bit cavalier.
Which reminds me: life must be a lot more easygoing only knowing one language. I speak Cantonese (this is a dialect of Chinese — for ease of understanding, it is just like Japanese and Korean) and it is insanely distracting to have all those extra hieroglyphics and funny-sounding words bouncing around in my brain, you know. Daily life must be much more effortless only knowing how to speak, listen, read, and write in the one universal language: English. Some people say being bilingual makes you smarter, but I’m not so sure about that. I used to dumb myself down and pretend I didn’t speak another language so people wouldn’t pester me to “Say something, something, anything!!!” in it. It’s quite oxymoronic. Maybe if I had white privilege it wouldn’t have happened. It is really something to strive towards.
Not to mention, white people are never expected to know another language. Expectations can be so stressful (and I would know). Imagine all the disapproving stares us ethnic people get when we aren’t fluent in our native tongue. But I suppose everyone should know English the best anyway, so that isn’t particularly relevant. Anyhow, it seems rather convenient to be monolingual. Traveling must be easy when you stroll into an establishment in a foreign country and the native people, whose language you don’t speak, immediately try to accommodate you by speaking English. And if someone doesn’t understand you, you can just yell at them for not knowing English and make them feel guilty. It’s really miraculous. No wonder so many white people are wanderlusts and love traveling the world.
I can’t discuss white privilege without adding an aspect of personal life: dating. Dating must also be relatively stress-free for white people. No one ever questions why someone white dates someone from his or her own race. It’s quite hilarious when ethnic people date within their own races though, isn’t it? It’s as if they couldn’t date a white person, so they retreat back to the comfort zone of being with someone with whom they share a cultural identity. Then they can both relate when it comes to all their funny cultural traditions, and speak their funny language to each other.
Meanwhile, no one laughs at an ethnic person if he or she dates a white person. In fact, a lot of ethnic people put white people on a pedestal when it comes to dating. It must feel empowering to date an ethnic person — not to mention, as the white person in the relationship, you’re presumed to be culturally aware, open-minded, and worldly.
As a last note, when it comes to general daily life, it is all smooth sailing for you guys. It’s quite unlikely that someone would ever suspect a white person of being a drug dealer, a prostitute, holding a gun, or engaging in any other criminal activity while simply walking in the street. What a nuisance — to be taken in for questioning or arrested while meandering to Starbucks to get your morning cup of coffee! I only wish for every ethnic person to have this same white privilege. I am not sure why some people view this as bad. Surely, it would not be right for people minding their own business to be accused of something they did not do.
There is really so much more to be said about why “white privilege” is actually quite advantageous and should be respected. As an ethnic minority individual, I’ll never really know what it is like to be white, so I can only posit my own conjectures based on my personal experiences and observations of white people. I suppose any of my criticisms would be invalid anyway, as they likely stem from deep-seated jealousy of the white race and an inner longing to be white. I can only hope that my future generations can embrace and perpetuate this “white privilege” by marrying into the race until all traces of my Chinese descent have been dissolved.