to white people who say they shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed for being white

You are not in fact being made to feel ashamed for being white. What you are being shamed for is expressing opinions that are a direct result of the privilege your whiteness grants you—privilege you don’t see because you get to be blind to it most of the time. So, you’re being shamed for saying asinine shit like

• why don’t we have a White History Month?
• slavery was around before white Americans enslaved all those Africans a couple hundred years ago, so maybe black people should just calm down, and it’s not my fault your ancestors were enslaved anyway
• why isn’t there a White Entertainment Channel?
• calling me “cracker” is every bit as bad as me calling you “nigger”
• race shouldn’t matter, especially when you’re attacking ME
• thinking that your sense of being persecuted/wronged/attacked is greater and more worthy of pity than the systematic marginalization of an entire group of people—a marginalization in which all of the above comments and beliefs participate

Don’t feel bad for the color of your skin, because there’s not much you can do to change that. But why don’t you step away from the self-pity and persecution complex and listen when people explain facts that are easily verifiable, such as:

• the history predominantly taught in American educational institutions is that of the white European male
• proponents of American slavery attempted to justify it as an institution by resorting to Scriptural and scientific “facts” that deliberately stripped people of their humanity—and when slavery was outlawed, continued to use such principles to deny newly-enfranchised citizens their legal rights
• look at the casts of any ten, randomly-chosen TV shows off primetime, or movies currently onscreen, and I guarantee you white actors and actresses will predominate
• a pejorative term used by a member of the group in power (white people, in this case) is always going to have a more significantly negative effect than one used by a group not in power (POCs). And if you think black people are in charge, please exercise the critical thinking part of your brain for one second.
• race “doesn’t matter” when it’s being (silently) used as a basis upon which active discrimination or disenfranchisement of groups largely made up of POCs is justified
• hurt feelings are nothing compared to the hurt inflicted by lower social mobility, lower salaries for comparable work, higher drug use, shorter life expectancy, decreased access to health care, quality housing, and education, more and more negative interactions with law enforcement, disproportionately high representation in prison populations—and the extensive bureaucracies and political and social histories that justify all these things

And then, after you are done digesting these things, go out, learn about your privilege, and maybe stop whining about how the POCs are PERSECUTING YOU OH MY GOD and do something useful. Like help people. Be an ally. Vote, volunteer, do what you think you can to change some damn attitudes. When someone says “Why don’t we have a White History Month, huh? THINK ABOUT IT!” say “Yeah, no, every month is a White History Month.” Go from there. You won’t be perfect, and you won’t be a saint, but at least you might be less of an asshole. And you won’t say dumbass things like “White people deserve their own entertainment channel.” Hopefully.

via wtfox-:

(Source: dr-wtfox)