White Privilege Part Two

Some folks find the idea of white privilege offensive. After all, I'm white, and I can look around and see scores of people more privileged than I am. But that's not what it means. It just means my default setting, in terms of race, is an easier setting than most other races. I think science fiction writer John Scalzi has a clever way of expressing it

Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.

Get it? You can still lose. You can still be clumsy, lazy, crazy or whatever. And you still have that white advantage.