Check Your White Privilege - A Purely American Phenomenon

[fretslider]

In another thread I stated that the concept of White privilege is an American one...

In 1965, drawing from the insight of Du Bois' 1935 Black Reconstruction in America, and inspired by the Civil Rights movement, Theodore W. Allen began a forty-year analysis of "white skin privilege", "white race" privilege, and "white" privilege in a call he drafted for a "John Brown Commemoration Committee" that urged "White Americans who want government of the people" and "by the people" to "begin by first repudiating their white skin privileges"


I was informed that this is mind-blowing denial. That white privilege is an English idea. No evidence was offered up to back that claim, so lets do some research on it...


When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no “white” people there. Nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. In this seminal two-volume work, The Invention of the White Race, Theodore W. Allen tells the story of how America’s ruling classes created the category of the “white race” as a means of social control. Since that early invention, white privileges have enforced the myth of racial superiority, and that fact has been central to maintaining ruling-class domination over ordinary working people of all colors
The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control by Theodore W. Allen ISBN: 9781844677696


So who is Theodore W. Allen? Well, he ain't English and neither are his ideas on race. Allen was, unsurprisingly, an American intellectual, writer, and activist. He published a two-volume work, The Invention of the White Race (1994 and 1997): “The Invention of the White Race,” Vol. 1: “Racial Oppression and Social Control” (1994, 2012) and “The Invention of the White Race,” Vol. 2: “The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America” (1997, 2012); which explored racial oppression as a system of social control (in Volume 1) and the origin of racial oppression in Anglo-America.


So clearly, the driving force behind the American concept of white privilege is one Theodore W. Allen. Is there any evidence that the idea originated in the UK at any time?


Is “White Privilege” a useful concept in the current UK context? by Andy Gregg, Chief Executive, Race on the Agenda.

In the United States over the last 30years a useful concept has been developed which we could do with discussing much more on this side of the Atlantic. This is the concept of ”white privilege”.
www.rota.org.uk/content/%E2%80%9Cwhite-privilege%E2%80%9D-useful-concept-current-uk-context


The ROTA article links to...


Critical Race Theory: An Introduction Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic NYU Press, 1 Apr 2001

Delgado is Professor of Law at Seattle University and has collaborated on four previous books, including The Latino Condition, 2nd edition (NYU Press, 2010)

Stefancic is Research Professor of Law at Seattle University and is the author of many articles and books on civil rights, law reform, social change, including No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America’s Social Agenda.



There is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the concept of white privilege is anything other than an American one. Given the American experience of slavery that's hardly surprising.

All one can say is that like many (often insane) American concepts, like political correctness, the concept of white privilege is a very recent import to the UK by those on the far left.

[mouse]

so how does American white privilege expand to become an English problem ???as mentioned in an other thread...

Ariel wrote
"""The whole concept of "white-privilege" came squarely from the English, who have always had a notion of white-privilege and class-privilege."""

so how does American white privilege expand to become an English problem

what exactly is white privilege

why is class privilege deemed to be only an English privilege/concept

Invention of the White Race...how do you invent a race

[mouse]

just out of interest the first owners of black slaves in America were the DUTCH settlers of and around what is now New York.....but back then was New Amsterdam

not the English or the british but the Dutch.....
of course unfortunately the Dutch were also white...as were the majority of the settlers who came from the UK and Europe and were of caucasion background ..