Student Union
- By Ariel Hall
What Is 'White Privilege' and Whom Does It Help?
Following the death in May of black American George Floyd after he was restrained by police in Minneapolis, the national conversation in the United States has turned from the global coronavirus pandemic to racial and social justice.
Those discussions are often punctuated by complaints about "white privilege," which are controversial for some people. But the words do not always have the same meaning to all users.
"White privilege doesn't mean white people (aren't) murdered, doesn't mean white people (don't) live in poverty or suffer from bullying/mental illness. White privilege means we don't suffer these things as a direct result of the color of our skin," Twitter user @mullificent89 tweeted on June 9.
White privilege doesn’t mean white people arent murdered, doesn’t mean white people dont live in poverty or suffer from bullying/mental illness. White privilege means we don’t suffer these things as a direct result of the colour of our skin. LISTEN #BlakeLivesMatter #ThisMorning
— 𝔄𝔦𝔰𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 🦙 (@mullificent89) June 9, 2020
"White privilege doesn't mean white people are *never* punished, just that they're regularly punished less harshly for the same crimes," said another tweet from @thermopanda_xl.
Your don't appear to understand what is being discussed. White privilege doesn't mean white people are *never* punished, just that they're regularly punished less harshly for the same crimes.
— Brad (@thermopanda_xl) June 16, 2020
Origins
Today's understanding of white privilege builds on concepts published in the 1930s by civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African American to graduate with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Du Bois argued that the poverty shared by poor whites and blacks should have united them. But whites had freedom of movement "to public functions, public parks, and the best schools" that blacks did not. Legal obstacles made it harder for blacks to vote, leaving politicians with more incentive to address white people's concerns.
"White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools," Du Bois said in his 1935 book "Black Reconstruction in America."
White voters — rich or poor — put public officials in office, Du Bois wrote, "and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them."
Voting rights and equal access to public facilities would only be afforded to blacks in stages — when the Supreme Court desegregated schools in Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954; when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed to make discrimination illegal; and when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to end racial discrimination in voting.
Cliff von Howell, professor of African American history at Delaware State University, says Du Bois was making a class or economic point.
"He's saying how systemically the working-class white man and the working-class black man have more in common than they do with the elite class," Howell told VOA.
But "when power brokering is happening, the whites have a higher standing," Howell said, "because though they have little in common with the elite whites, they psychologically have nothing in common with the powerless Negroes. Thus, a constant fight for wages among what could have been natural allies fuels the racist system of oppression in America."
The term "white privilege" was used in 1988 by Peggy McIntosh, an activist and associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, when she published "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."
"As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage," she wrote. But she hadn't been taught the flip side, she said, that white privilege "puts me at an advantage."
Today, the phrase is used passionately and widely in the context of racial profiling — police treatment of people as criminal suspects based on their race.
"White privilege means that essentially you don't have to go through any obstacles if at all, that other races have to experience consistently," said Thomas Brown, 18, a sophomore at the College of Southern Maryland. "That privilege is expanded across literally anything in life. That's what white privilege is to me," he told VOA.
Lyndsay Rivers, 19, a biotechnology student at the University of Maryland, said white privilege to her "means having a system of advantages at your disposal that no other race has, simply because you are white, and that said system puts black people and other POC (people of color) at a disadvantage in life."
Both Brown and Rivers are black.
White privilege and police brutality
The use of excessive force by police in recent incidents against people of color has brought the term to the forefront as a protest chant.
Observers point to the deaths of Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Philandro Castile, Breonna Taylor and Floyd as examples of blacks being treated more aggressively in confrontations with police.
Gray, Garner and Floyd died in custody after being restrained. Castile was shot in his car while explaining to an officer he had a legal permit to carry his gun. Taylor was asleep in bed when she was shot by officers who forced their way inside her home. All but Taylor's encounter with police were recorded on phone video and went viral on social media.
Taylor's death prompted the passage in June of "Breona's Law," which bans no-knock search warrants used by Louisville, Kentucky, police.
"White privilege is knowing police officers aren't going to racially profile you. White privilege is never being told to go back to your country. White privilege is never having to hyphenate your American-ness (ex. African-American, Asian-American, etc.)" Twitter user @j13ohara tweeted on June 9.
White Privilege is knowing police officers aren't going to racially profile you.
— jan (@j13ohara) June 10, 2020
White Privilege is never being told to go back to your country.
White Privilege is never having to hyphenate your American-ness (ex. African-American, Asian-American, etc.)
Lessons learned
Many celebrities have also used social media and their late-night television programs to display comments and perspectives about white privilege.
"I know that a lot of white people bristle when they hear the word privilege, as in white privilege, because there are millions of white people who did not grow up with money or a good education or a solid family background or maybe even a family at all," "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host Jimmy Kimmel said in a June 2 monologue.
But he said that picture changed for him when he pondered how often excessive force is used against people of color that is not captured on video.
"How often does this happen without a camera recording the whole thing? … And then we're shocked, and black people are like, 'Why are you shocked? We've been telling you this has been happening over and over again.' So, if you're wondering why people are angry and why they can't just march nicely in the street holding up their signs in a single file line, maybe that's why," Kimmel said.
"White privilege is a complex yet critically important concept," Erin Cooley, an assistant professor of psychology at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, explained in written remarks to VOA.
"That said, more research is needed to clarify how to harness white privilege lessons to combat hierarchy. Further, continual education about all of the ways white privilege may shape different aspects of our society (e.g., wealth redistribution, police use of force, hiring/promotion decisions) is imperative to begin to address persistent systemic racism."
Ruby Rosenthal and Sarmat Misikov contributed to this report.
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US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
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5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
