The real definition of “White Privilege” can be summed up in two words “The Assumption”

While scanning through my email this morning, I ran across a story titled “The opioid crisis is creating a fresh hell for America’s employers” published on July 26, 2017 by the Managing editor at Linkedin Chip Cutter. The more I read this article the clearer it became to me exactly why many people are quietly whispering this concept of “white privilege”.  According to Wikipedia “White privilege is a term for societal privileges that benefit people identified as white in Western countries, beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people under the same social, political, or economic circumstances “but when confronted by this long definition, fear of discovery and lack of clear justifications leads to denials and refusal to accept such nonsense as fact.  It is my thought then that possibly if we shorten the definition maybe then we could truly bring awareness to this reality which explains why I have chosen to define it as simply the assumption.

In the previously mentioned article it is written “Clyde McClellan used to require a drug test before people could work at his Ohio pottery company, which produces 2,500 hand-cast coffee mugs a day for Starbucks and others. Now, he skips the tests and finds it more efficient to flat-out asks applicants: “What are you on?”  At Homer Laughlin China, a company that makes a colorful line of dishware known as Fiesta and employs 850 at a sprawling complex in Newell, W.V., up to half of applicants either fail or refuse to take mandatory pre-employment drug screens, said company president Liz McIlvain.  “The drugs are so cheap and they’re so easily accessible,” McIlvain, a fourth-generation owner of the company, said. “We have a horrible problem here.”  The misuse of prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl is, by now, painfully well known. The U.S. tops the world in drug deaths; in 2015, more people died from overdoses — with two thirds involving an opioid — than from car accidents or gun violence. The epidemic is also having a devastating effect on companies — large and small — and their ability to stay competitive. Managers and owners across the country are at a loss in how to deal with addicted workers and potential workers, calling the issue one of the biggest problems they face. Applicants are increasingly unwilling or unable to pass drug tests; then there are those who pass only to show signs of addiction once employed. Even more confounding: how to respond to employees who have a legitimate prescription for opioids but whose performance slips. “That is really the battlefield for us right now,” said Markus Dietrich, global manager of employee assistance and work life services at chemical giant DuPont, which employs 46,000 worldwide”.

Now while all that is a major concern, it hearkens me back to the purpose of this article because as history has shown had this been an issue that only affected those “non-whites” would it now be a crisis or epidemic or would it be simply titled something else?  When we think of the assumption, we sometimes miss those lessons that history has taught us and many of those same actions are still performed today.  When polio was discovered, Jonas Salk was praised for his cure and is still being taunted today but when sickle cell anemia was discovered, where was the parades and fanfare for its cure?  The assumption was sickle cell mainly affected non-whites and therefore had to be more about a poor diet than anything else.  The assumption by our police, judges and prosecutors that those they see every day are criminals and ignorant of the law so when they come in contact with them, they consciously or unconsciously treat them in that fashion.  Assumptions of store detectives choosing who to follow through a store and who not to.  Assumptions of a gas station attendant as to who to cut the pumps on for and who to make prepay.  The assumptions of candidates for political offices who are taken seriously about their quest for office and those who are just pretending.  The assumption offers whites the benefit of the doubt much faster than it is afforded to any other ethnic group yet we do it so often and it has become so natural that many of us don’t even know it’s happening or that we are doing it.

More people are now becoming aware of this and searching for ways to fix this injustice but few have any idea how to even tackle it.  My suggestion is before you begin trying to correct everyone else; first and foremost we need to correct ourselves.  Even though we might not be a part of the class who receive this privilege, we may still be a large part of the group that extends this privilege.