July 14, 2020
Written by C.N.
White Male and Female Privilege 101
As the protests for racial justice continue around the U.S. and the world, I want to share and amplify two very powerful articles by women of color. The first is written by Dr. Leslie T. Fenwick, Dean in Residence at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and Dean Emeritus of the Howard University School of Education (among her many accomplishments). Recently published in Diverse Issues in Higher Education, her article is titled, “A Brief History Lesson and Open Letter to the Nation’s Schoolchildren and College Students about White Male Power” and provides a very nice historical and contemporary summary of how White Male privilege/power developed into the hegemonic system of exploitation and oppression that it is today. Here are some excerpts:
Did you learn about Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg in your history class? . . . General George Pickett (known as the Lost Cause General of the Confederate South) fought a losing battle on July 3, 1863. Pickett and his all White male brigade were fighting to maintain an apartheid south built on the brutalizing, free labor of enslaved African men, women, and children. . . .
That July afternoon for about an hour, those 12,000 Confederate soldiers ran straight toward Union cannon fire. They were soundly obliterated by 6,500 Union soldiers in a bloody battle. Historians tell us that when Pickett and his soldiers ran into that near mile-long open field, they probably knew their charge was a defeat waiting to happen. After all, Pickett’s compatriot, General Robert E. Lee, had lost his battle the day before.
For a moment, I want you to think about those 12,000 Confederate soldiers as individuals. What was each one fighting for? These rank and file were illiterate. They owned no land. They were not members of the White gentry. They were poor, uneducated, and hungry for food. Most had tattered and torn uniforms barely clinging to their skin. Many were bootless. Their weapons were insufficient. Yet, they ran across that field with the undeterred vigor of bulls all the while knowing a sure death awaited them. What was each fighting for?
Why did they run into those canons knowing that southern apartheid and a slave economy had not and would not promise land, education, or wealth for them as White men? Why? They were fighting for the supremacy of their Whiteness and the silent compact between wealthy and powerful Whites and poor Whites that affirms: The power of White maleness will prevail over all else. If I am White and male, I will forever have some measure of power over those who are not White and male.
I strongly encourage you to read Dr. Fenwick’s article in its entirety but she basically goes on to describe how, based on this foundation of “White maleness,” whenever White Male power and privilege is challenged, it lashes back and becomes even more toxic, as illustrated in many recent events that range from the “Living While Black” incidents that are visible attempts at asserting White supremacy, to more structural-level and perhaps less visible ways of trying to protect White supremacy such as disenfranchising Black voters and other voters of color, to naive and toothless attempts at “police reform,” to the continuing exclusion of Black people in positions of power and authority across our political, educational, and financial institutions, to name just a few.
The second excellent article is by journalist Cady Lang, titled “‘Karen’ and the Violence of White Womanhood, recently published in Time magazine, which examines the social phenomenon of “Karens” — middle-aged White women who are quick to engage in “shameless displays of entitlement, privilege, and racism — and their tendency to call the police when they don’t get what they want,” as Lang writes. “Karen” is probably best personified by the “Central Park Karen,” Amy Cooper, who called police to falsely accuse a Black man of physically threatening her and in the process, invoking the racist stereotype of Black men as inherently violent and criminal, in response to his request that she leash her dog. Lang goes on to elaborate:
Visuals of Karens exploiting their privilege when things don’t go their way have become Internet shorthand of late for a particular kind of racial violence white women have instigated for centuries — following a long and troubling legacy of white women in the country weaponizing their victimhood. . . . The Central Park video only highlighted the extreme violence — and potentially fatal consequences — of a white woman selfishly calling the cops out of spite and professed fear. . . .
In a larger sense, the mainstreaming of calling out the danger that white women and their tears pose has been building up to this moment. There’s the oft-cited stat that 52% of white women voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, the constant lies of white women like Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders in service of the Trump Administration have made it abundantly clear that white women can and are often complicit in oppressive systems.
Similar to Dr. Fenwick’s article, Cady Lang goes on to describe the historical origins of this ‘Karen’ phenomenon in which White women were positioned by White men as the paragon of virtue and innocence, how they needed to be “protected,” how White women leveraged this position of privilege to maintain their “protected” status (very similar to the poor and rural soldiers in the Pickett “lost cause” charge during the Civil War and its implied promise of solidarity with White male supremacy), and how all of this has used countless times over the last few centuries to justify and rationalize systematic violence and brutality against Black men.
Fortunately, both articles also describes how this White Male (and Female) power/privilege can be dismantled. In the case of the “Karens,” Lang writes that, similar to how the internet and communication technology has been leveraged to facilitate collective activism, so too can internet memes be used to promote greater social consciousness:
[By helping Whites to] recognize a pattern of behavior that they don’t want to be a part of it, but might be complicit in and can be an easier way to have a conversation about white fragility, entitlement and privilege; it also holds them accountable for racism. . . . [T]he accounts of the real people who have experienced the racism documented in these memes and the hashtag, #LivingWhileBlack, are helping to demand accountability and are actually helping to push forward legislation, like the Oregon bill that was passed in 2019 that punishes racist 911 callers.”
Similarly, Dr, Fenwick’s article also concludes by presenting a powerful call to action that draws on the energy of today’s young generation:
You, today’s public school and college students, are the nation’s best asset in the fight to realize the nation’s egalitarian ideals and promise. Your multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalitions of Black, White, LGBTQAI+/Same Gender Loving (SGL), Asian, Latinx, First Nation, and differently-abled people is the antidote to this deadening brand of White male power and the poisonous leadership it spawns. You are our teachers, now.
Each generation seems to be defined by a particular moment in history. For the Boomers, it was the social movements of the 1960s. For Generation X (such as me), it was the advent of the internet and communication technology that was fundamentally transformed our lives. For the young generation of today of Zoomers/Generation Z, I think both Dr. Fenwick and Cady Lang are right when they say that, armed with powerful social media tools that can be used to promote social justice, young people have the passion, energy, tools, and power necessary to lead the way forward in taking down White supremacy, or at the very least, to fracture it enough to start dismantling it. This is something that previous generations, including my own, have not been able to do.
But I hope that I and my fellow educators around the country and the world have at least given the young people of today some useful knowledge and tools to help them fight the battles ahead. I am confident that their charge forward will not end the same way as George Pickett’s.
Author Citation
Copyright © 2001- by C.N. Le. Some rights reserved. 
Suggested reference: Le, C.N. . "White Male and Female Privilege 101" Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. <https://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/2020/07/white-male-female-privilege-101/> ().
Short URL: https://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=2000
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