Always.
When I moved to Sudan, it was the first time I'd ever
experienced racial privilege. I am in the ‘right’ race, I am of the ‘right’
complexion I am from the ‘right’ tribe and I have access to everything.
In a nutshell, this is essentially the same thing as ‘White Privilege’,
which is identified exclusively to whites because they receive it everywhere in
the world, not just in ‘their’ countries.
In reality, privilege is not about the colour of your skin –
it’s more related to your people’s ability to market themselves in the best way
possible - to as many parts of the world.
The British conquered the world we live in, they won wars against
supposed ‘equals’ and then colonized the rest of the known world. They spread
their people to lands as far as Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada and
built some of the greatest civilizations in recorded history.
History, which they recorded.
Interestingly, colonizing makes the offspring of colonies
think highly of you, even though essentially it is just a fancy word for being
a bossy, powerful hegemonic immigrant. A person who moves from their land,
occupies another with the agenda of taking over and inserting their way of governing
(ironically this is what Britain and America fear ‘Muslims’ will do in the
west, but they call them terrorists)
And if anyone other than them had written history that is
exactly how they would have been remembered – terrorists. To make things a
little clearer, I am pro British secular values and anti the current fundamental
Sharia Law interpretations, but that doesn't give me the right to force my
beliefs on to others because I think my beliefs are ‘superior’.
The colonization allowed these people to have access to
unlimited world resources, knowledge, money and power and due to this, whites
are able to project any image they like about themselves on a global scale. The
entire world sees when whites do good deeds, when the world sees the white
house, they don’t see barbaric white history whereby they forced slaves to build
it – they see some of the finest white leaders in the world making some of the
most powerful and influential decisions – because this is the narrative whites
project, and everyone absorbs it.
What people don’t realize is that every race does this,
every race talks about the good things in their countries and when a murderer
or a thug is broadcast on the news, everyone knows its an exception – the
majority of the race isn’t like this and there is always a bad apple. The
difference between other races and the white race however – the rest of the
world only watches their media, and white media – nothing else.
Arabs watch Arabic news, and White (Western) News
Asians watch Asian news, and White (Western) News
Africans watch African news, and White (Western) News
And Whites, watch White (Western) News
So when whites talk about a ‘black thug’ – all non blacks
now see blacks as thugs. When whites talk about ‘extremist Muslims terrorists’
all non Muslims see muslims as terrorists and when whites talk about fanatic
church killers – not all whites are seen as racial extremists because they will
need to explain to the white public why this happened, so they dig deeper into
the story (lone wolf, crazy, psychopath etc.)
The world understands other ethnicities from bias white institutions
– institutions that were set by racists who made it impossible for non-whites
to ever speak up or be seen as humans with rights. However when things changed and tolerance
became a sign of progression and not weakness – the structures of the media
didn't. Non-racists whites and other ethnicities decided that pretending race
doesn't exist was the best way to deal with race issues – but pretending not to
see the race without amending the structures of the racist institutions doesn’t
work, it in fact marginalizes more – just in a new justifiable way. It’s the
reason you are so much more likely to get stopped if you’re black driving a
fancy car than if you are of any other racial background (the structure of
society teaches you implicitly that this achievement is not expected of blacks
unless they are thieves or rappers)
The same thing goes in Sudan, I don’t have to worry about
not being accepted for jobs because my name indicates my racial/religious
origin, I don’t have to worry about renting houses/cars because people assume I
will always pay (because of my racial privilege). I don’t have to worry about
my children in school being marginalized not just by students but by teachers
because they are from the ‘right’ race. I don’t have to concern myself about my
‘race’ being the reason for injustice happening to me – it's a hassle I don't
have to deal with.
But what I do have to deal with, are those who hate me
because of it. Marginalized minorities who have to work twice as hard to get
half of what I have. They will never understand that I see this as unfair too –
they will never believe that I see them as equal to me and they will never
truly believe that I deserve all that I have… unless I stop enjoying the
privileges my racist ancestors provided when they built the blueprint for the
way we live today.
The problem with addressing white privilege is that the
motive is unclear – do you want whites to suffer like everyone else? Or do you
want the privilege too?
We need to take responsibility for the global lengths that ‘white’ western news travels – and for this
reason, western media needs to represent all aspects of everyone living in the
west, and not just the whites in the west.
Outside of Britain people find it difficult to accept that
you can be anything other than white and British – this needs to change.
Everyone deserves to be treated without suspicion, not just whites. And in order to do this, minorities need to
stop assuming that whites who enjoy privilege and hate talking about it are
doing so because they think they deserve it and you don’t – and whites need to
stop assuming that anyone who talks about white privilege thinks they are racist
– we know you are not, but your ancestors were, and they built the blueprint
for the world we live in today!
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