What is White Privilege?

I saw a Tweet during the week in which comedian Nathan Caton undertook the ‘Check your privilege’ test, lowering his fingers in response to an audio clip featuring some of the systemic racism that black people face.  Check out his reaction at 51 seconds when he’s run out of fingers and the narrative continues.

Now do the test.

How many fingers do you have left?  I had 10, which I achieved by ignoring the teasing that I get from friends for being a Kiwi.  I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count.  It was a salutary lesson in what so many of us white people fail to understand and an illustration of why those responding to the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter with their indignant ‘All Lives Matter’, really don’t get it.  That’s White Privilege

Another comedian, Mark Steel, writing in the Independent provided an analogy that summed it up rather well.

“there are people who object to the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’, making the reasonable point that “ALL lives matter ACTUALLY.”  They make a good point, as long as you ignore the fact that obviously all lives matter, but clearly many people, including armed police, don’t think black lives do matter.  It’s like ringing for an ambulance after a heart attack, and being told, “Why are YOU so important, surely ALL hearts matter?”

I don’t consider myself to be racist, and I’m not, overtly.  However, I’ve just written a screenplay and, in my mind, I had a clear vision of the characters I was writing.  Admittedly, I didn’t dig too deep for inspiration.  It was a cast largely plucked from a Richard Curtis movie: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Renée Zellweger, Rowan Atkinson, Kristen Scott Thomas – you get the picture.  The problem though, is that they’re all too old, and dare I say it – white.  Its conception illustrates my unconscious biases, that a white upper middle-class demographic would fill the roles.  It’s a subtle form of racism; a 50-year-old-man penning a trope that reinforces an embedded stereotype.  I failed to see it as an issue, and therein lies the problem.  For so many of us, it’s not.  That’s White Privilege.

It wasn’t until I submitted my screenplay for professional scrutiny to The Black List that I was challenged to think about the composition of the cast.  The website has a section that invites details on each character including gender, age, and race.  Until then, I hadn’t confronted the ethnicity of the characters.  Their ages are important, so too is their wealth, but they could be from any ethnic background – it’s immaterial.  My prejudices had coloured my thinking, if not my cast.  That’s White Privilege.

I reflected on the cast of ‘Hamilton’; Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant musical telling the story of one of America’s founding fathers.  It is an outstanding production with a fabulously diverse cast that play the parts of white historic figures, deliberately so.  At no point during the watching of the show did I even consider that the casting was flawed because the actors weren’t white.  Frankly, it was performed by an exceptional cast and is a supreme performance which is delightfully colour-blind.  There is no need for the characters to be played by white actors.  What the show needs, and what it has, are the absolute BEST actors; a requirement that should be adopted in many more walks of life.  But it’s not.  That’s White Privilege.

That may lead some angry white men to complain that affirmative action is discriminating against them, denying them their privilege.  I almost joined them when I heard an interview with a literary agent who suggested that right now, it’s not a good time to be a white, middle-aged, heterosexual male writer if you’re trying to break into the industry.  Woe is me.  I determine a career change to pursue my dream to find, after hundreds of years of publishing being controlled by my demographic, that the odds are against me.  At least, that’s the excuse I can use if my novels and screenplays continue to gather dust.  Heaven forbid I should think they remain unpublished for any other reason like, for instance, they’re not good enough.  That’s White Privilege.

Instead of feeling aggrieved or bemused, we white folks need to take conscious and conspicuous action if we’re to dismantle the implicit racism that exists with White Privilege.  We probably don’t have to think, as John Boyega did following his impassioned speech in Hyde Park recently, that his words about the injustices that black people are facing may result in backlash from the moguls in his industry.  Would a white person face the same risks?  Listening to his address, I don’t know why any of what he said would result in censure – but then, I’m a white man, so why would I?  That’s White Privilege.

As it happens, John Boyega just about fits the age profile that I need for my characters, so if he’s interested, there’s a role for him – and he can decide who he wants to play, although perhaps the story’s entitled arsehole should be played by a white man.  Of course, whether it gets produced is another matter altogether.  I think it’s brilliant, but then it’s written by a middle-aged white man and the cards really are stacked against me.  That’s not White Privilege, that’s just delusion.

Twitter: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2020

05 June 2020