<p>I decided I should clarify the kind of thing I was talking about when I said that “white privilege” is sometimes used inappropriately. Here’s an example: a young woman at my son’s college went off to dinner, leaving her books and laptop on a table in the library. She was away for two hours. When she returned, she found that someone had moved her stuff to the side so that they could sit in “her” chair. I think that it was a group that wanted to sit together. In moving her things, they had accidentally popped open the disk drive. (I know this happens with may laptop if one grasps it by the sides and accidentally presses on the drive. It is not a big deal.) She became irate, and went on FB (and possibly twitter, I don’t know) claiming that they had moved her stuff because of “white privilege.” This set off a firestorm. IMHO, her claim was patently ridiculous. I’m sure that in the history of the school, a student of color has moved someone’s stuff after they were away for a couple of hours, and it wasn’t because of “white privilege.” I think it is as ridiculous to ascribe a single motivation to all white people simply because of their race as it is to do the same thing to black people.</p>
<p>Does white privilege exist? Yes, and mostly white people are unaware of it. They just haven’t thought about it. They take it for granted that people don’t lock their doors when they see them coming, for example. On the other hand, I think it is in danger of being trivialized as a concept by people like the young woman above. Unfortunately, her silly accusations simply caused people to become defensive and angry. THe next time they read something about the issue, they may be dismissive, which would be a pity.</p>