By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY
What is WPT or “white privilege” theory?
Progressive activists claim it is a social construct and social movement for justice, equal rights and opportunities for people of color who historically were deprived those rights or who have been systemically discriminated against in the United States.
Conservatives describe this rhetoric as a radical neo-Marxist ideology, cancel culture, utopian socialism, race warfare, and reverse racism; and that in today’s America opportunities are available to nearly everyone.
Historically, the doctrine of “white privilege” is credited to the African-American writer W.E.B. Du Bois, but the phrase has entered the lexicon in feminist Peggy McIntosh’s paper titled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” published in the journal “Peace and Freedom” in July/August issue of 1989.
In her subsequent publications on this subject, McIntosh identified 50 race-related occurrences, or in her own words “Daily effects of white privilege,” that do happen to black Americans in our society, and she pointed to the reasons that keep them in the “out-group.”
However, McIntosh assertions and findings have been criticized and objected to by many prominent scholars and academics for a lack of factual data.
Here are several excerpts of factual data on this subject from Toby Young’s article titled “No need to plead guilty: The fashionable doctrine of ‘white privilege’ is fatally undermined by the facts,” published in the The Critic in December of 2019.
“—A survey of white adults born after World War II showed that between 1980 and 2000, just 18.4 per cent of white Baptists and 21.8 per cent of Irish Protestants—the main white ethnic groups to settle in the South—managed to get college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1 percent. Among those Americans of Chinese and Indian descent, the average was 61.9 percent.”
“—When it comes to income, whites are also lagging behind some other ethnic groups. In 2016, white Americans had a median household income of $67,865, lower than Indonesian Americans ($71,616), Pakistani Americans ($72,389), Malaysian Americans ($72,443), Sri Lankan Americans ($73,856), Filipino Americans ($84,620), Taiwanese Americans ($90,1221) and Indian Americans ($110,026).”
“—According to a recent report by the American Enterprise Institute, 57 percent of black Americans now belong to the upper or middle class, compared to 38 percent in 1960, and the share of black men in poverty fell from 41 percent in 1960 to 18 percent in 2016. But if we look at education, African-Americans are beginning to outperform whites. Black women, for instance, have higher college-attendance rates than white men and, according to the New York Times, out-earn their white counterparts when they graduate.”
“—Black Lives Matter activists point to the recent spate of shootings of unarmed black men as evidence of “white privilege,” such as the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012 (although the shooter was a dual heritage Hispanic man). But according to the African-American Harvard Economist Roland Fryer, blacks and Hispanics are no more likely to be shot by police officers than whites (although they are more likely to experience the non-lethal use of force, even taking contextual factors into account). In fact, the odds of an unarmed black man being shot dead by a police officer are about the same as being struck by lightning.”
“—The idea that whites as a race participated in the slave trade or benefitted from slavery is ridiculous. In 1860, less than five percent of whites in the American South owned slaves and, according to the black historian John Hope Franklin, three-quarters of white Southerners had no economic interest in the maintenance of slavery.”
“—Between the 16th Century and the middle of the 18th Century, over a million Europeans were bought and sold in the slave markets of the Barbary Coast of North Africa, encompassing Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. According to the African-American economist Thomas Sowell: “More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or the 13 colonies from which it was formed [between 1525 to 1866, 388,000 slaves were brought to North America, including Canada, from Africa].””
Georgi Boorman, a Senior Contributor at The Federalist published a June 26, 2018 article titled, “How the Theory of White Privilege Leads to Socialism.” She stated, “White privilege theory seeks equality of outcome, not merely the equal dispensation of individual justice. That goal can only be reached by redistribution policies that violate the principle of local governance, treat people as ethnic “units,” limit individuals’ opportunities based on race, suppress freedom of speech, and restrict the freedom to keep and control one’s own money.”
Today, “white privilege” and “critical race” doctrines in America divide our society between oppressor and oppressed. It identifies the systems by which the oppression takes place. It outlines the methods or tactics (i.e., Black Lives Matter, today’s Antifa, “systemic racism,” “structural racism,” “mental racism,” and “institutional racism”) for how “white privilege” and “critical race” doctrines will change our socio-economic system, moral values, and traditional beliefs.
For “white privilege” and “critical race” activists, a complete destruction of capitalism, in order to establish a socialist authoritarian regime, is the only way to end so-called racial oppression and social injustice.
The “white privilege” and “critical race” mission is a very troubling, divisive, racist and alarming perspective for our country. This mission is based on the Marxist–Leninist ideology, mainly, “…from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” in order to advocate for the radical socialist agenda.
There are two the most important missions in life—where to go and with whom. And here is the ideology that should guide these missions: Believe in the Judeo-Christian moral values, advocate good vs. evil, and stand for freedom, liberty, and factual truth.
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
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