This will piss an awful lot of people off. I know this upfront so I beg some patience here to read through this posting with an open mind. There is within the activist community in the United States, a bit of subculture within a subculture that probably is the stuff of nightmares among the FOX news crowd and the right wing Republican party. It's the cult of attacking white privilege in this country, it's often extended to the attack on what is basically white male privilege. There's books on this, even a national conference titled aptly enough the "The White Privilege Conference." You can even get college credit for attending.

Now try as they might to not frame themself selves as bashing or pointing fingers there really is only so many "nice" ways to say that white people are the root of all the problems in society. That a white euro-centric perspective and cultural dominance is the root cause of pretty much all our social ills. Sexism, racism, classism, pretty much any ism you can think of as well as let's not forget homophobia. Now I think you can make some points there yet I just have to take exception at their approach and it's effectiveness.

I myself am an activist, a minority (gay), and work in areas and have friends of friends where our circles overlap with the White (Male) Privilege crowd. I admitted live in two worlds, a white male world, and a minority world. So though many might discount my opinions outright just because of my genitalia and skin color, I'd like to put forth that I am uniquely qualified to comment on this since I can straddle a bit of a fence and see across toward both opposing worldviews here.

One of my big complaints about the White Privilege argument is that it's just too easy. I see people calling white privilege fouls at every turn. Yet I'd argue that much of what is pegged as white privilege is indeed class privilege, people love to talk about racism, sexism, but no one likes to talk about classism. Classism also includes many facets though of racism, status, wealth, religion, so it's harder to pin down and quantify sometimes. It's much easier to see a white guy doing well and say "oh yeah, another white guy making the big bucks and living in the big house." It's just not that simple.

Middle-class whites need to realize that they actually have much more in common politically, socially, with middle-class African Americans that they do with the upper 2% of whites that run this country. Certainly poor whites need to realize that they have much more shared values and shared stakes in politics with poor African Americans than rich whites. Yet, why don't these people realize that? Well here I would like to point out white/upper class privilege. It's a very effective tool to maintain racial tensions and keep all whites on the same team to keep a certain elite in power. Thus we get this rather twisted notion by poor and middle-class whites that raising the taxes on the upper 2% somehow is an attack on them. That class warfare means whites and against blacks, freeloading welfare moms against hardworking white males - which is just not the case. Most often the very people that I try to convince are on the losing end of the class warefare in the country, somehow think they're the ones having to defend the gates. We may never shake up the status quo here in this country with regards to jobs, equality, stopping this runaway income disparity unless working class peoples see their commonality.

Also, I'm just not sure that with the White Privilege crowd. That alienating even friendly, allies in the white community is a good policy. Part of the genius of MLK's civil rights movement, was that it gave white's a gracious exit strategy out of the status quo. Not only did minorities benefit, but the civil rights movement offered a huge benefit to whites as well. It painted a picture of a color-blind society where white's could see themselves as progressive, as more civilized and evolved. Let's not underestimate the power of liberal smugness, especially when it's deserved. Dr. King's vision of young children of all races playing together one day, was not only a win for the black child not facing discrimination it was a win for the white child as well who was living in a better society.

That is one of the big things missing in today's social arguments. That sense of a greater good and a striving for a better society for all it's members. We seem to have forgotten how to sell that big picture. So I'm just now sure how effective the approach is in trying to educate white people on just how privileged, how spoiled, and just how badly they've messed things up is going to work. Who would ever even be open to that argument, no one likes to be a scape goat, even if it's partially deserved.

People work in their own best interests. That's obvious in today's political environment. The tea party crowd doesn't want to pay for anything that they don't directly benefit from. No one sees the benefit in social programs, in safety nets. We seem to have just forgotten just how bad things have been in this country on so many fronts; race relations, labor laws, safety concerns, care of the elderly, healthcare, the list goes on. What we need is a bit more enlightened self interest. People who can once again sell the benefits to everyone on a society that looks after the least among us. We need to sell the benefits of [education, of the middle class, of a livable wage and job security. So that we all can see that we're working toward a better society, not retreating to some perceived American "Father Knows Best" society which never really existed.

Also, just on a practical note if you push the main problem with society as being white privilege, what is the solution? They'd have you believe that it's mainly just education, yet if you really believe that, it seems the only real solution is taking away some of that privilege from whites. Just how do you do that? No group in power is going to willingly give it up, that's just again self interest. So are we talking legislation, or just outright revolution, storming the castle with torches and pitchforks?

It seems though that if you take the approach that the problem is more class, then the answers seem more workable. There are obvious solutions to fixing class divides. Chief among those is access to education, education is the great equalizer. Education should be free, across the board. A college education should be a right for everyone that can make the grades. Yet we have just the opposite going on in the country today, education is getting more expensive, more exclusive. Students are saddled with years of debt, technical education is pushed over a broader liberal arts education. We even have the emergence of a growing private for profit education system that is both expensive and of questionable value. I'm not going to be surprised in the current environment if states don't soon start saying that it's not longer their job to provide education and just privatize education altogether.

There's other items as well, healthcare. We have the greatest healthcare in the world (or so we like to believe) until we actually need it and get sick. Or heaven forbid we lose our insurance. We can do better.

So the challenge is how to sell the benefits to all people of a more even playing field of a more classless society.  So let's do better. I'm tired of being beaten over the head for all this supposed white privilege I have. I'm just not quite sure in this economy how much good that did me a I lost my job and didn't find steady work for almost two years. How I almost lost my house and my savings, insurance. I keep asking myself, now just where is all this white privilege I'm supposed to be enjoying. I think a lot of people are in my same boat.