(DS sez...and here is yet another opinion...)
White Privilege and the Election
I was really happy to see this article on white privilege and politics over at Alternet today. It seems that in the hub bub that is Palin and all her faux feminism, the media has all but forgotten the racial dynamics at play in this presidential election. An excerpt from the piece:
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.
I experienced this one first hand. Marvelyn and I submitted an op-ed about the ways in which her situation (unprotected sex leading to HIV infection) was similar to Bristol's (unprotected sex leading to unplanned pregnancy), the difference being that you can't slap a wedding ring on your finger and expect the nation to de-shame you if you're a young black woman with HIV. The op-ed editor, of a major, well respected newspaper, wrote back, "I'm sorry, but I fail to see the similarities here."
Yeah, because you fail to see white privilege. Unpack the knapsack people.
http://www.feministing.com/archives/011104.html