Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?

John Otteson (otteson@b4ppha66.bnr.ca)
12 Apr 1995 20:20:43 GMT

In article <3mh712$p9l@thetimes.pixel.kodak.com>, pajerek%telstar.kodak.com@kodak.com (Don Pajerek) writes:
|> You're saying that there are advantages to being white. Maybe so, but
|> the word 'advantage' connotes comparison; i.e., I can only be said to
|> have an advantage in comparison to someone else. Therefore, the proper
|> use of the word 'advantage' in this context might be 'whites as compared
|> to blacks'.
|>
|> In this sense, whites may be 'advantaged'. However, this so-called
|> fact has no psychological reality for whites, because whites don't
|> perceive themselves as being in competition with blacks. A white person
|> may have an advantage over a black person, but not over another white,
|> at least not simply by virtue of being white. To the extent that
|> whites perceive themselves to be in competition with other whites,
|> the advantage that they supposedly have over blacks is a non-factor.

I really don't understand you. I agree that whites are mostly oblivious to
the advantages of being white. So what?!?! That certainly does not make
the advantages irrelevent. If whites don't perceive an advantage, then
the advantage isn't important? To whom? In what sense?

I'm so confused!

---John