Normally, I post on topics linking Faith & Reason with everyday life, but this post is more about secular reasoning alone.
A public High School Teacher I know recently completed a “White Privilege Exercise” required by her school district in Illinois as part of their ongoing Equity Training. If the intent of the exercise (or test) is to gather objective data, I found 3 problems with it in terms of a problem-solving and decision-making course I’m certified to teach. The problems relate to something we call “reality confusion”.
The test consisted of 24 multiple-choice questions or statements.
The 3 answer choices were…
5 = The statement is often true for you
3 = The statement is sometimes true for you
0 = The statement is seldom true for you
…and the higher your score, the higher your level of “White Privilege”
Examples from the exercise:
“Because of my race and/or color…
- If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of hassle-free renting or purchasing in an area in which I would want to live.
- I can be pretty sure my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant o me.
- I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
- I can swear, or dress in secondhand clothes or not answer letters or emails, without having people attribute these choices to bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.”
- Perception vs. Fact
Perception and reality are not the same thing. We perceive that the sun moves across the sky each day and the earth is still, but the reality is much different. Many of the questions/statements are written in a way that will draw out perceptions as opposed to gathering facts. If you perceive yourself as a victim, a victim’s answer will follow. If you are after objective reality, the answer will reflect the facts.
Instead of imagining yourself in the situations above, try to recall what actually happened when you were in that situation. The statements above could be re-written to maximize the facts and minimize the perceptions…
- When I have moved in the past, I experienced hassle-free renting or purchasing in an area I wanted to live.
- My neighbors in such locations were neutral or pleasant or me.
- When I have gone shopping alone, I was not followed or harassed most of the time.
- When I swear, or dress in secondhand clothes or have not answer letters or emails, people did not attribute these choices to bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
- Assumed Root Cause
Each statement begins with the premise “Because of my race and/or color…” Each statement is looked at through the “lens” of race. If we change the lens, then what we perceive changes.
Consider this statement…
“I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.”
Whether you answer often, sometimes, or seldom is the root cause always your race and/or color? Suppose a 15-year-old boy is shopping alone, wear baggy old clothes, behaving nervously and is then followed by store security. Change the “lens” and we can say it’s age discrimination or gender discrimination or it’s because he looks poor or it’s because of his mannerisms (perhaps caused by a mental or physical disability).
- Stacking the Deck
Questions or statements can be “engineered” to help support an idea. Targeted questions increase the odds of getting the answer you are looking for. It can be done as a backward way of problem-solving… first form the conclusion you want and then get the data that fits.
Consider these…
- “I can be pretty sure that if I ask to see ‘the person in charge’, I will be facing a person of my race.”
- “I can be in the company of people of my race most for the time.”
If the population is about 60% white and 40% “all other races combined”, the whites will always tend to score higher than other groups for these types of questions. Let’s ask questions based on population for a section of Heaven in which 60% of the angels are Archangels, 30% are Seraphim and 10% are Cherubim. The Archangels will score high, and the Cherubim will score low, even as they bask in the bliss of a perfect community together with God.
It wouldn’t be difficult to design a discrimination exercise based on age, gender, class, religion, personality type, disabilities, or even body size & shape. Just use some carefully targeted questions.
Here’s one for a “Gender Privilege” exercise:
- I can do well in a challenging situation without anyone noting my gender.
- Original statement: “I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.”
“Age Privilege”:
- I can comfortably avoid or ignore or minimize the impact of ageism on my life.
- Original statement: “I can comfortably avoid or ignore or minimize the impact of racism on my life.”
“Body Size/Shape Privilege” or “Able-Bodied Privilege”:
- I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people like me cannot use the facilities or will be mistreated in the place I have chosen.
- Original statement: “I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the place I have chosen.”
What about a “Black Privilege Exercise”? Could it be done?
- I can apply for a job with an affirmative action employer without concern that I won’t get the job because of race.
- Original statement: “I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect I got the job because of race.”
Here are a few more just off the top of my head…
- I can be present at a racial justice protest (or riot) pretty well assured that protesters will not target me because of my race.
- I can criticize a member or group of another race without being thought of as racist.
- I can disagree with theories about racism without anyone noting the fragility of my race.
I’m thinking a person of color might score higher than a white person in the above exercise.
To a hammer everything looks like a nail; we see what we are trained to see. If we choose to look at life through only the lens of race, then everything is about race. If we change the lens, then what we scrutinize changes.
Given all the above, here are some questions to ponder for those with “Logic Privilege”… 
- Is everything truly affected by race to the degree some claim?
- Is it the most important factor in terms of injustices/inequalities?
- What is the point of emphasizing or only seeing life through the lens of race?
- Does using only one “lens” help anyone get to the root cause?
On second thought, perhaps there is one “lens” that can explain any societal problem…Sin!
Just stop participating.
It’s time.
Take your firing to a very public trial at which you refuse to settle.
I would refuse to either give (as a training instructor) or take (as a student) this test. Siemens Energy tried this crap in 2012 / 2013. They eventually got tired of asking me to take it. Fortunately, they needed me for their Neutrons ‘R Us work prior to Germany de-nuking itself. Obviously I left. My current company tried this crap. I wrote a damning albeit anonymous Condition Report. They stopped it but they still have a diversity inclusivity tolerance program of everything except Greco-Roman law & philosophy, and Judeo-Christian tradition. They’ll try again, I am sure. Too many godless liberal progressives in charge.
But if you refuse that just proves your white fragility. Now if people of color refused to participate that would be more interesting
But if you refuse that just proves your white fragility.
Proves to whom?
Sounds like a toked-up hippie version of the Examination of Conscience, which was at least about real sin and for which one was accountable only to God. But of course, the Left thinks it’s God.
White race privilege is nothing compared to being straight.
Here is another thought: UN Report Calls for Legalizing Sex Between Adults and Children.
The sex devils will not be mollified.
All these dumb ideas come about because we have as a society too much idle time. As my mother would say….”get a real problem”.
Discrimination,
Exclusion &
Indoctrination
In 2020, while we were working at home, my wife’s department in her company held a meeting in which white employees were called upon to apologize for their white privilege and systemic racism. Fortunately for her, her supervisor stepped in and took the hit, doing it so those in the department didn’t have to. But it goes to show how far we have come toward the logical conclusion.
Darn straight I am white, Ben. From a long and proud line of Anglo-Saxons. Nothing fragile about being white. And nothing wrong with being proud of my heritage. I encourage the same for black people and Asian people. PS, my wife is Filipina and many in her family are as dark as any African descendant. And proud too. Rightly so.
“White privilege” is nothing more than “morality privilege” or “I-know-how-to-behave-in-public privilege.”
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Two of the very popular guys at my club are black men (American born and raised) and they are amazing.
not sure this is pertinent, but i think the real attack in america is an attack on the use of reason.
the attack begins in many government controlled schools.
if liberty, independence and freedom are to be preserved , school vouchers are a necessity.
An attack on Western Christian civilisation. You have people dying to live in civilised Christian nations, even trying to get there illegally (mind you- it’s not the other way around). Yet at the same time you have an attack on the people who made those nations so civilised and habitable to begin with, by those ungrateful for the society they have the opportunity to live in. This is all being done in order to cater for a disgruntled minority who feel perpetual victimhood and choose to live uncivilised. It’s clearly envy at its core – you destroy what you are not willing to work hard for. Toddlers do this.