To Hoofhearted:
Fine. Talk all you want about "White Privilege". But posit things that are incontrovertible and related to the present. Any part of your hypothesis that has limited evidence is merely your interpretation. Have at it.
Thank you for your understanding, and I will attempt to address the subject of "white privilege", which by the way is not at all easily conveyed as incontrovertible- not unless we take into consideration all of the ignorant slants against people of ethnicity.
It's much easier today to provide incontrovertible evidence of "black privilege", which is why I suspect, so many in here will provide a seemingly steady supply of such evidence at first sign of a racially driven debate.
There are no doubt many laws that affect both blacks and whites discriminantly, and that is actually the subject of another debate.
For example, many of those discriminatory laws were put into place as an immediate response to coping with the bastard negroe children that roamed the streets after the emancipation.
Further, many of the laws were harsh, and offered little more than basic animal rights to the African American orphans.
As generations succeeded, many of the laws were modified or removed, while others were ratified- all in attempts to make right what our forefathers had gotten wrong.
Fast forward through a century or more, and many of the so-called "Black privilege" laws today are a mere continuation of the ever changing, ever jostling legislature which deals with our heritage of righting our past wrongs.
Many will say the white culture has done more than enough to amend its mistakes, while others will adamantly disagree.
But as I said- that particular form of "Black Privilege" is the subject of another debate entirely.
As for "white privilege", well that one is much more slippery rat to handle these days; this is largely due to the heavy mandates of legislation which have, in essence, forced the white man to keep his mouth shut about many matters in the work place, lest he face consequences which could damage his efforts to build successful business relations.
But make no mistakes, just because evidence of "white privilege" is not always determined to be incontrovertible, this by no means is an excuse for ignoring it's very real existence.
As a boy, I traveled much of the country with my father, who was a commercial architect.
By the time I was 12, I was regularly building among the construction crews, sometimes with as many as 300-500 laborers on a single project.
In every town, and every city we traveled to throughout North America, large crews were formed to complete the work.
At first, I quickly noted that the vast majority of all the workers were of white or European bloodlines- at least in the U.S.
Oh sure, there was the occasional black crew member, who's job was usually to load the wheel barrows and put rubbish in the dumpsters.
As I got older, it became apparent that Mexicans were filing in, and that they were quite capable of doing many of the skilled jobs whites were used to doing.
The main difference being, that Mexicans were willing to work for a small fraction of the "white privilege" wages.
So, many of the racial dynamics within the building crews were changing, but it wasn't hard to figure out that the less laborious and highest paying positions of foremans, crew leaders, project managers, general contractors, etc. were set aside for the good ol boys, who shared the European bloodlines.
I recall an occasion, when a black man approached the site looking to work as day labor, or wanting to sell his hand tools if there wasn't any work for him.
One of the good ol boys asked how much he wanted for his circular saw, and when the black man said, $50, the good ol boy laughed and said it would cost him a lot more than that to get bailed out of jail for possession of stolen property.
Nearly the entire crew gave a hardy laugh, and the black man slumped away, head bowed, disappearing down the alley way.
I saw the black man, named Leroy, again later in the week, and offered him part of my day's salary, as I had plenty more to do in front of me than I needed or desired.
The good ol boy, Jake, who made the slant against Leroy earlier in the week, took particular notice to my new assistant laborer.
Pretty soon, he started throwing small rocks and debris from a level above us, trying to bounce objects off of our heads.
I warned him, "If I get a rock in the eye, you'll get a boot in your ass."
But he just laughed and continued his childish ways; and in the process, he nearly killed Leroy after tipping over a skid of concrete blocks above his head.
Leroy escaped with minor bruises but refused to finish the rest of the day, being pretty badly shaken up.
Jake also finished the day early, never to return after I kicked him backwards down a flight of stairs, and busting his forearm.
There were other similar occasions, with recurring themes.
In all those days, there was never any shortage of black jokes. Whites always ran the show, and all were paid better than the ethnic workers.
It's true that White privilege is less prevalent today, but it's all too familiar scent still lingers on the nose hairs of the less ignorant.