Georgetown track member and 5th year Sr. Andrea Keklak talks about white privilege and racial discrimination on the team

This woman has never lived in the real world. Her family's money, not her skin color, is her privilege.

The USA is racist fascist regime with rigid caste system with blacks on top and whites on the bottom.

If you Black then of course then you can't see your Black Privilege.

Yeah, just because their Black Privilege isn't "verifiable" doesn't mean it's not there...........LOLOLOLOLOL(So basically, "privilege" and racism can never be proven and the argument will always be completely opinion based. Wonderful.)

Black Privilege Strikes Again wrote:

The USA is racist fascist regime with rigid caste system with blacks on top and whites on the bottom.

If you Black then of course then you can't see your Black Privilege.

I have never been to DC and know nobody from GT, but as a Privileged White Male I take responsibility for the entire mess.

This is very well done, measured and accurate opinion. She is clearly moderate, and understands the concepts of white privilege ( I wish there was a better word for this that more accurately portrayed what it is).

I like her.

Black Med Student, I read the letter Ms. Keklak wrote, and here is the crux of the problem with her line of thinking:

"For example, I have the privilege, if asked to leave a sports team, to not have to wonder if my race was a factor in that decision."

One can wonder literally if anything that makes them "different" is a reason they were asked to leave a sports team was a factor, for example, if they are from a particular country, have a different political or religious viewpoint, have an awkward personality, is not particularly liked, looks ugly, etc.

If you were given a rational reason for being let go based upon objective, non-discriminatory reasons (not fulfilling your agreed upon responsibilities that were spelled out in your scholarship contract), with no mention of your "difference" in the reason, you can wonder what you want, but you really have no grounds to go accusing of being mis-treated because of your personal difference.

Perhaps she has not been conditioned to always wonder whether race is a factor in any decision affecting her.

College is so removed from the real world.

The concept of "Micro aggression" is all the rage of college campuses these days and it is in that article. I've asked people I know outside of academia about "micro aggression" and they look at me like I'm crazy.

Andrea wrote this in her article and I think it is crazy: "It simply means that as a white person, whatever situation - personal, economic, political - you find yourself in, you are automatically better off than a person of color would be in an identical situation."

That statement is absolutely crazy.

1) First she's trying to create a situation that doesn't exist, "an identical situation" where all else is equal. There are very few times that exists in the world. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist (it exists and will always exist as long as people are people, hopefully less and less so), but I don't think worrying about hypotheticals is very worthwhile.

2) However even if we take her hypothetical for granted an equal black person is not always disadvantaged to an equal white person. I'd argue a lot of the time things are pretty equal. There are so many other factors at play. When racism is at play sure they can be disadvantaged, and there are times the black person can be advantaged. There are millions of other factors involved.

Say I'm from Texas, you're from Texas and black and we're in Minnesota. I may like people from Texas better than non-Texans so I like you better than the guy next to you. Now she'd argue that isn't an identical situation, what if I had a black and white person from Texas with me, but I'd say it's the real world. In places where affirmative action exists, all else equal the black person can have an advantage in that specific instance.

If we're both at Starbucks ordering a coffee, I think things are pretty equal. She'd say there might be some micro-aggression going on against the black person or some racist in the store might be looking at him differently. Who knows? What if I have a barrista who is racist against white people? The point is to say white people always have it better off than black people is crazy. I guess she'd stretch it out further and say we may be equal in Starbucks but down the road the black person will encounter racism and be worse off, so they are worse off while in Starbucks. I'd say she's got too much time on her hands.

A friend of mine who grew up with a drug addicted mother who went to prison and was white, never understood why affirmative action helped rich black kids over himself. Did he have it better off than a poor black kid with a drug addicted mother who went to prison and was black? Who knows.

But while we're talking about isms, I'll throw a question out there, is the world more sexist or racist? It depends on the person and place, but I'd never say that "no matter the situation, men always have it better than women."

But I'm a privileged white male.

The American people continue to fully support white police beating, assasinating, torturing blacks. So what else is new.

Very interesting that there has been a surprising number of black officers involved in many of these incidents. Jus' sayin'.

No Kill wrote:

The American people continue to fully support white police beating, assasinating, torturing blacks. So what else is new.

wejo wrote:

...

Andrea wrote this in her article and I think it is crazy: "It simply means that as a white person, whatever situation - personal, economic, political - you find yourself in, you are automatically better off than a person of color would be in an identical situation."

...

Send her out for a run in Compton.

wejo wrote:

But I'm a privileged white male.

Yes you are. A member of the most ignorant group of people on the planet

wejo wrote:

Andrea wrote this in her article and I think it is crazy: "It simply means that as a white person, whatever situation - personal, economic, political - you find yourself in, you are automatically better off than a person of color would be in an identical situation."

That statement is absolutely crazy.

A friend of mine who grew up with a drug addicted mother who went to prison and was white, never understood why affirmative action helped rich black kids over himself. Did he have it better off than a poor black kid with a drug addicted mother who went to prison and was black? Who knows.

Your post was very thoughtful. It's important for white people to think about race and talk about real problems. These few lines, however, really miss what the real problems are. You write off her definition of white privilege that is really spot on. White people have privilege simply from being white that people of other races do not have. White people live in and benefit from a system that favors themselves. Many are complacent with this and do not acknowledge that this is what is going on. You bring up the classic example to downplay white privilege- I have a white friend who was disadvantaged. I understand. That is what you see in front of you. Understanding the advantages that come with your privilege does not mean that white people do not have it hard too. Read in her article before your quoted portion, "That doesn’t mean that being white means your life isn’t hard." The situation of that friend of yours was terrible. It's hard to look at that situation and then make the jump to why affirmative action makes sense for other races. People of color disproportionately end up in jail. Black youth unemployment is much, much higher than white youth unemployment. People of color feel very differently than you when they see a cop and worry who will be the next in their community to be murdered. As a white person, you will never be asked to provide a viewpoint from the position of your entire race. These are examples of white privilege. It's easy to write off disadvantages and say that "those people are lazy." The fact of the matter is opportunities in the U.S. are different for white people and people of color. It helps to view things in a larger context then what you might see in front of you day to day. I hope you continue to explore problems of race in this country and it was important to recognize at the end of your post that you are a white male. You also asked about sexism and racism. It is important to get to a point where you see white privilege so maybe thinking about what it is like to be a black female in this country is a good place to start.

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Eloquently written and easy to comprehend if you are one seeking insight on how to make things right. It is easy to tell from comment when someone just seeking to be right...they are never were truly reading for comprehension rather finding a sentence to take out of context to make a rebuttal against!

Not a good read. Cry baby. Playing the race card when things didn't go her way. I have relatives that go to G'town and they all separately told me this girl is a known whiner.

I wish I could just play the race card anytime something doesn't go my way...

Let's assume that in 1945 blacks and whites were on an equal footing in the US. That is a ridiculous assumption, but the example I'm about to use works even if it is true.

At that time because of the GI Bill returning veterans of various economic backgrounds had access to college on a scale that hadn't previously been true for many Americans before that. Also in the years that following the suburban expansion across the US allowed a higher percentage of Americans to become homeowners. The vast majority of them became wealthier every month just by paying their mortgages and building equity.

Let's imagine three returning Army veterans, two white and three are black. All three of them come from working class families and were mechanics in the military. One of the whites decides to take advantage of the GI bill and goes to college to become an engineer. The black guy has what it takes to go to college, but because of his race isn't able to take advantage of the GI Bill and takes a job as a mechanic in a major city. The other white guy isn't smart enough for college and takes a job as a mechanic in the same city.

The college guy graduates from college, takes a job as an engineer in the same city, and makes enough money to buy a house in the suburbs. The white mechanic eventually saves enough money to buy a somewhat smaller house in a suburb that's not quite as wealthy as where the engineer lives. They both have families and before their oldest kids graduates from high school are both able to twice sell their current home, increase their savings, and move someplace a little bit nicer, even if the engineer stays ahead of the mechanic. Their kids go to good schools, and so even though the mechanic's kids don't have more natural intelligence than him they have a better education and are able to get into college. The engineer is able to pay for his kids to go to state schools, while the engineer contributes to tuition while his kids work to make up the difference and put themselves through college. By the 1970s and 1980s they and their kids are firmly entrenched in the middle class with prospects for each generation of their family being able to comfortably provide for the rest.

The black mechanic is kept from getting a mortgage because of racist lending policies. So he has to pay rent every month and is never able to build up equity that will let him grow steadily, if slowly, more wealthy. His kids have more natural intelligence then the white mechanic's kids, and as much as the engineer's. But their inner city schools aren't as good so they never perform on the same level as the white kids in the suburbs. When the suburban kids are starting college in the 1960s, the black kids try to find what jobs they can in neighborhoods that are devastated by riots and by the increasing economic marginalization of their big city. Their kids, unless they are athletic superstars or off the charts when it comes to natural intelligence, have very limited prospects of ever going to college or entering the middle class.

That's white privilege. For most of us, we're middle class college graduates posting on an internet message board and taking pride in how good we are at our aerobic hoppy because we had the good fortune to spend 9 months in the womb of someone who descended from someone who was able to take advantage of the post World War II economic boom because they were white. Yes there are exceptions to this rule, the grandkids of someone who graduated from Howard University in 1950 are likely to be better off than those who has the bad luck to have a grandpa who was broke and jobless in a destitute Appalachian town at the same time. But the general patterns are clear and its foolish to deny it.

"hobby" not "hoppy"