Any system of social change that focuses on demonizing what the haves have instead of lamenting what the have-nots lack risks contenting itself with the equitable distribution of oppression and misery, rather than with actually amending the social ills it deplores. For this reason, I am disturbed at the focus on white privilege. Such a focus makes the benefits whites enjoy the problem, rather than the oppression from which nonwhites suffer. If white privilege is ended, and whites are also subjected to being gunned down by the police, being overlooked for hiring and promotions, having to attend substandard schools, and being unjustly and inaccurately stereotyped, the job will be far from over. Such a state of affairs will be no better than the current one, and I doubt it is anyone’s goal. Yet I fear that popular philosophies will lead to such a conclusion. Demonizing other people’s benefits provokes envy and resentment, sentiments that are more apt to cause destruction of others’ benefits than construction of one’s own freedom and happiness.
Take the story of Solomon and the two prostitutes arguing over a baby. While we usually focus on the affection which prompts the mother of the live baby to be willing to give up her child rather than see him killed, there is another streak in this story. Note the other woman’s reaction to the suggestion that the baby be cut in half. She consents readily, greedily. Her baby is dead, and it is enough for her that they both have dead babies, although the killing of the live baby does not make hers any less dead.
Consider also this Ukrainian joke. An angel came to this one man and said to him, “I will grant you one wish, but, whatever I give you, I will give twice over to your neighbor.” The man thought a bit, then said, “Take out my eye.” The joke ends here, but you can guess the rest, and the moral. The man saw gain to himself in having more than his neighbor, even if that meant losing something. This is not to say that we should not desire equality in society, but an equality achieved by taking away the benefits of one group without changing the circumstances of the oppressed helps nobody. It is not enough to make everybody equally miserable. The problem in our society is not that whites enjoy certain freedoms. It is that these freedoms are not given to all.
