George Reisman: The White Privilege scam

Here is GR's blog entry.

GR gets the basics right.  The solution to A having more de facto rights then B is to give B equal de facto rights, not take away some of A's.
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Over the course of American history, the individual rights of whites have been far better respected than the individual rights of blacks. Whites were never enslaved; they were never murdered by lynch mobs; they were never the victims of government-imposed racial discrimination/segregation in housing, schools, restaurants, stores, railways, buses, movie theaters, and elsewhere.

Now the obvious, blazingly clear solution for the lack of respect historically shown for the individual rights of blacks, is to put an end to that disrespect, and henceforth to show the same respect for the individual rights of blacks as is shown for the individual rights of whites. The guiding principle is very simple: In each and every individual case, the rights of the individual, black or white, must be respected.

Indeed, to a large extent, this has already happened. Black slavery was ended in the Confederate States by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and then, in 1865, by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in whatever states in the Union that still allowed it. The last reported lynching in the United States occurred in 1981. Racial segregation and discrimination have also greatly diminished as the laws that imposed them were repealed or struck down by judicial decision.

The obvious path that needs to be followed in order to complete the job is to extend to blacks recognition and respect for the same individual rights held by them that have been far more often recognized and respected in whites than in them. Nevertheless, a widespread movement has developed that holds that a very different solution is required. This alleged solution is the elimination of respect for the rights of whites insofar as it exceeds respect for the rights of blacks. The greater respect shown for the rights of whites is transformed from a matter of respect for individual rights into an alleged matter of group “privilege,” in this case “white privilege.” Thus whites allegedly enjoyed a privilege in not being enslaved. They allegedly enjoyed a privilege in not being murdered by lynch mobs. They were allegedly privileged in not being victims of government imposed racial discrimination/segregation.

The concept of white privilege is a giant scam. Like any other scam it leads people to give up something that is valuable, such as their life’s savings, in exchange for something that is valueless. In this case, they are bamboozled out of paying attention to and valuing the concept of individual rights and are left instead with the utterly nebulous and highly destructive concept of white privilege.

The very concept of privilege implies injustice and calls for the abolition of whatever privileges are in question. But since white privilege is used as a different name for what in fact is respect for the individual rights possessed by whites that have not been properly respected in blacks, the actual effect would be the loss of respect for those individual rights of whites. By the logic of the situation, whites could be enslaved, lynched, and otherwise wrongly treated all in the belief that it was merely a matter of stripping away white privilege. The concept of white privilege is an invitation to the violation of the rights of whites to the same extent that the rights of blacks have been violated.

The concept of white privilege is a formula for massive injustice. It obliterates the concept of individual rights and thus destroys the possibility of respect for anyone’s rights, white or black. It aims at a society in which everyone is a slave—not to a plantation owner perhaps, but to the state.