A lesson about white privilege
If you’d like to start an argument, use the words “white privilege” in a sentence.
Or that’s how it seemed last Wednesday night, when I saw a verbal donnybrook between two of the nation’s television icons.
Bill O’Reilly doesn’t believe there’s any real white privilege. Jon Stewart does.
They went toe-to-toe on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
For the record, I DO believe there’s such a thing as white privilege.
Here’s an example of it.
I elected to take a journalism class when I was a senior at Uniontown High School,
I’d decided that someday I’d like to find out stuff, and tell people about it.
In case you hadn’t noticed, nearly 50 years later I’m still doing that.
But as an aspiring journalist, I was aggressively ignored in class by a journalism teacher (she’ll remain nameless here), who had an obvious disinterest in my presence.
I became so frustrated by her near-contempt for me that I decided to confront her about it one day after class.
Her response was simple. “Nobody who looks like you could ever become a journalist.”
To be clear, she wasn’t talking about my looks, but about the dark casings that covered them.
That, by the way, isn’t an example of white privilege. But what follows is.
I’d wanted to become a sports writer. Playing in the Red Raider band afforded me the opportunity to see every Red Raider football game.
I would eagerly write all of the game accounts for Uniontown’s “Senior High News.”
I’d submit those accounts to a sports editor, who happened to be white, and who happened to have told me she had little interest in – nor knowledge of sports.
Yet, each week, my word-for-word game accounts would appear in Senior High News – except for two words.
My name was removed from the byline. Her name would replace it.
That’s an example of white privilege.
Bill O’Reilly, who believes those kinds of examples of “white privilege” don’t exist anymore, was confronted by Jon Stewart, who strenuously argued that they do.
Bill O’Reilly claims that the basis for his philosophy is, “There is no more slavery, no more Jim Crow, and the most powerful man in the world is a black American, and the most powerful woman in the world — Oprah Winfrey — is black!”
Stewart countered with, “Slavery and Jim Crow are dead, but there has been a systemic systematized subjugation of the black community. Would you not agree with that?”
O’Reilly agreed, but with a caveat.
“Sure. That was then. This is now. America is now a place where if you work hard; get educated and (you’re) an honest person you can succeed. That’s what should be put out there. Not all of this other stuff.”
Sadly, O’Reilly believes, as many conservatives do, that working hard and “playing by the rules,” makes all players on a playing field equal.
That’s simply not true.
Or, as Stewart countered, “You are carrying more of a burden as a black person in this country than a white person in this country.”
To that, O’Reilly agreed again – but, once again, with a caveat.
“Collectively yes,” O’Reilly interjected.
Stewart countered with, “Individually? They don’t stop and frisk Wall Street bankers, even though they’ve done far more damage to the economy.”
As the conversation continued, and with O’Reilly giving in on some points, it was revealed that he’d grown up in Levittown on Long Island, N.Y., which had been a planned community, which means that it was racially segregated by design.
O’Reilly admitted that. He also admitted that his Levittown upbringing contributed to his values.
So, when Stewart pressed him on the fact that many young black people have been warehoused in less than ideal communities, O’Reilly gave another admission.
“Yes, it’s harder if you’re a ghetto kid. But can you do it? Yes,” he replied.
But Stewart kept pressing O’Reilly, and he talked him into one final admission.
“So, it’s a factor (in white privilege)?”
O’Reilly replied, “It’s a factor.”
O’Reilly finally learned something.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net