COMMENTARY: Black Privilege – What the Media Won’t Tell You

In previous books and articles, I have attempted to debunk “white privilege”—a bigoted concept pointing to the unfairness of societal privileges that allegedly benefit all people identified as white.

Whatever those privileges may have been in the past, they are no longer prevalent in today’s America. “More whites have begun talking about themselves as a racially oppressed majority,” reports CNN. “In a widely publicized 2011 survey, white Americans said they suffer from racial discrimination more than blacks.”

White privilege attempts to relieve minorities, especially African-Americans, of responsibility for the problems in their respective communities by placing the blame on a so-called tradition of white racism. The justification given for white privilege is that America is a racist nation bent on oppressing its minorities. White privilege is in itself a racist doctrine.

Heather Mac Donald, author of The War on Cops, contends that the bottom line question is: Should African-Americans be held responsible for their own behavior—including criminal behavior, or are they victims of a racist society? Mac Donald and I are in agreement that blacks cannot shirk responsibility for their own behavior. The notion that African-Americans are victims of a racist society may have been true prior to the 1960s, but this is a half-century after the Civil Rights Movement. “White institutional racism has disappeared from our society,” says Scott Greer in No Campus for White Men. “Black Americans now have every opportunity that white Americans have long enjoyed.”

Actually, in today’s America, the tables have turned. What we are witnessing now is black privilege. African-Americans are accorded special treatment across the board. “Victim status is treasured in America,” says Ben Shapiro, “and black skin guarantees automatic victim status thanks to America’s history.” Being black today, Shapiro concludes, grants privileges ranging from landing coveted college scholarships to becoming activists who can build careers on racial grievances. Here are some examples of black privilege:

• Affirmative action quotas are the norm in education and employment—“more firmly entrenched in our society than ever before,” says Scott Greer.
• Political correctness supports anything related to African-Americans and condemns anything related to Caucasian-Americans.
• College and university courses are specially designed for black students.
• Black students benefit from the lower standards applied by college professors who practice “affirmative grading.”
• Corporate diversity programs. CNN reports that corporations offer programs and internships to black workers but not to whites.
• Diversity training represents blacks in a positive light and whites negatively.
• Many courts are reluctant to prosecute blacks for various criminal acts in fear of being called racist.
• Blacks can belong to clubs and organizations that cater specifically to their race, reports CNN, “but there’s no National Association for the Advancement of White People because such a group would be deemed racist.”
• Media bias caters to positive depictions of blacks and avoids negative ones.
• “Black pride” is considered a form of empowerment; “white pride” is considered a form of racism.
• Blacks can get away with racial slurs, but whites can’t use the N word.
• Hollywood casting has completely turned around as a consequence of aggressive lobbying by black special interests.
• Black privilege even extends to the White House, observes author David Horowitz, alleging that Obama “wouldn’t be elected dogcatcher if he wasn’t black.”

The white establishment is bending over backwards to accommodate African-Americans who demonstrate even marginal capabilities. You won’t see that happen in the NBA, which is based on performance, but the rest of our society has ceased to be a meritocracy. Given the enormous strides we have made on the issue of race, black privilege is no longer justified. On its face, it is just as racist as white privilege.

The Left is delighted with black privilege because it helps to destroy the important American value known as taking personal responsibility. Progressive liberals would rather see low-income blacks dependent on big government, trapped in the tentacles of the welfare state. By expecting little from African-Americans, the government has promoted what I call a victim mentality: the unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s own behavior and instead blaming others (white people, for example) for life’s problems.

Black privilege, in the long run, perpetuates the victim mentality. It is just not going to be good for anyone, regardless of skin color.