Tim Wise on white privilege:
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters–the black protesters–spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government. Would these protesters–these black protesters with guns–be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
One minor quibble: if we imagine the tea party protests happening not against Obama but against Bush and his policies, do we think they would have recieved the same amount of media and political support/approval as they do now? It’s not just white privilege that gets the teabaggers their free out of jail cards: it’s also that they are broadly in line with an important part of elite opinion as well. Setting aside their own motivations, rightwing leaders in politics and the media find the movement an useful tool to pressure Obama. This perhaps as much as white privelege explains the indulgent way the teabaggers have been treated.