WHITE PRIVILEGE – SERIOUSLY?

The buzz word; stuff that op-eds are made of; twitter chatter ad-nauseam; a depressing amount of balderdash and on and on. Have we nothing better to focus on?
Now I have to invoke my brown, Muslim woman, South Asian heritage privilege to say “give me a break”!
This generalizing of white people as though they are the scourge of the earth and responsible for most of society’s ills, doesn’t jibe with me.
Granted that racism, bigotry, inequality, gender bias and all of these societal ills do exist and have been there since time immemorial. But they have a context. It’s not always the white person who is the perpetrator. I can tell you about many black and brown people who are also guilty of the very same infractions. But we never hear of brown or black privilege.
Most people regardless of their color, caste, nationality, ethnicity or gender have at various times in their life used “privilege” for their own benefit. So where does this become a ‘white’ thing?
What this new backlash is doing is creating an atmosphere in which white people need to shut up, sit down and take the crap. It’s bad enough that we are being choked by political correctness, but now the term ‘white privilege’ is being used to stifle even more speech and its not acceptable in a country where freedom of expression should be the first mantra.
I believe we, as adults, are capable of fighting our own battles and dealing with people on our own turf without being told that there is a monster out there called “white privilege”!

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