Do white Americans benefit from white privilege? Recently I was in group that was asked that question. Amazingly, or maybe not, one participant said that she has never so benefited. This book is for her and others like her.
As Jim Wallis of Sojourners recently emailed me, America has been built by enslaving one race and ethnically cleansing another.
Tim Wise points out that whites have pretty much been able to go to school where ever each chooses, buy a house in most neighborhoods, get a mortgage at a somewhat reasonable rate, or go to another source to get a better rate, enroll in any college for which one has the funds and the test scores, and some even have the connections to get a good job with great benefits, when one has only mediocre abilities.
Regarding immigration, consider that our government passed NAFTA in 1993, for the benefit of multinational corporations. “Since then, U.S. companies have flooded Mexico with agricultural goods (to the benefit of the U.S. farmer), which have driven down prices in Mexico, such that Mexican farmers cannot compete. This causes Mexican farmers to leave rural areas for cities, but finding the labor market there glutted, they move farther North to support their families—as any of us would do, were we in their shoes. In other words, to whatever extent migrants are crossing the border and thereby (ostensibly) taking other people’s jobs, it is only because the economy of Mexico has been considerably undermined by the policies of our country.” (Page 95).
I encourage all to read this letter and to become informed of the simmering racism that pervades the United States.
-Janice Gintzler, Acorn patron
No comments:
Post a Comment