White Privilege = House Negro

Divide and conquer

I think, in order to get people to acknowledge their privilege, you have to show them how that privilege oppresses them.
Privilege is just that, privilege. Privilege is something that can be given and taken away by a more powerful force.
White privilege was given so that workers would be divided.
White privilege was given by the heads of private industry in order to prevent worker (slave) revolt

What's happening now, is that white people are seeing white privilege as the sham it is, but in a clouded mirror.
They see that white privilege is not real power.
We've never met the people with real power. The people who give white people their privilege and take it away.

The leaders of private industry have us so twisted that we still fight amongst ourselves when white people see that their privileges are being taken away.
What white people need to see now, is that the heads of industry don't need white privilege as much as they did back then.
We are successfully divided. They use class privilege now.
They don't need working white people to have more privilege because they have successfully created a global economy where they can oppress us and people in other countries.
They can use class and nationalism to divide people of the world.
So when white people talk about their current struggles (struggles that people of color have been going through for centuries before), they need to know that their privilege is being taken away. Because it's almost unnecessary.
The leaders of private industry have complete control over our government, our laws.
The leaders have created a culture where they can redistribute wealth to the wealthiest individuals and make us believe that the poor and people who can't find jobs are the ones threatening our prosperity.
And yet, institutional racism, the racism where a person of color is sent to jail with higher frequency, higher sentencing, less opportunity for jobs and housing when they get out of prison, is still working very well.
When white people get more government assistance, yet the face of welfare is black... we're successfully divided.
The seeds have been planted and the trees are fruitful
WE have fallen for the best strategy of the minority (wealthy) against the majority (working class).
Divide and Conquer

There is no need for an apology.
There's no need to be ashamed to be white
There is a need for seeing the part you play in a game you didn't create
There is a need to see that working class white people are pawns
You didn't create the game. and it's time to stop playing along



We're made to believe that marginalized groups had no true power to begin with. When really, their power was just systematically taken from them
and barriers people can easily overcome, or rather, traits about them have become barriers because we perceive them to be barriers.
All people are strong if they are allowed to find their strength and learn how that strength can be used in cooperation to form a better society

Patriarchy is still about providing false privilege to men by denying women access to the tools (and each other) that give them power.
It's still about this false premise that women are weaker or that being a woman is somehow a physical barrier to something
But when you look back on your childhood and the childhood of our ancestors, you see how men are given tools and training to develop their physical strength and women are not given those same tools.
You see the difference in physicality of the women who are given those tools at an early age.
The idea of women has the weaker sex is a lie. It's a product of male privilege that, like white privilege, can be given and taken away

patriarchy is still about power and control of the few over the many.
It's still about wealth. Patriarchy is about maintaining power and control over property, resources, people
The leaders just changed the nature of the game.
It's still divide and conquer.

It's easy to exploit perceived weaknesses. It's easy to convince a person they are weaker than others, even when they are not.
It's easy to exploit perceived weaknesses in an individual when you demonize cooperation.
An entire family who is oppressed by one man, because they are pitted against each other and don't realize that they can overcome that one man if they unite as a true family.
Physical and mental barriers are barriers because we refuse to cooperate.
We refuse to acknowledge the strength of those with perceived weaknesses.

Originally posted 3/14/11