White Privilege and the Christian Imperative

I finished a paper titled, “An Alternative Perspective on White Privilege,” in which I argue that the concept of white privilege is not, as postmodern progressive academic elitists characterize it, a deliberate conspiracy perpetrated by white people, but the natural result of historical sociocultural evolutionary development stemming from Western European conquest of the New World and the fact that, according to the 2016 U.S. Census, nearly 77% of the US population is white.

Thus, white privilege exists in social structures created by the majority of the population. This dynamic does not, of course, ignore the various injustices of slavery and Jim Crow laws, or the various legal actions that countered them – the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

What we are left with is a society not wholly just, but then, what we do about it, especially as Christians?

We cannot, even as Christians, expect 77% of the total population of the United States to capitulate its majority; that would be contrary to human nature. And, if we are to legitimately talk about white privilege as existing within the social structures of the United States, we need to understand exactly what are we talking about?

Several postmodern progressive academic elitists have written about the symptoms of white privilege, and none of them appear to be very concrete. Here’s an example, taken from Peggy McIntosh’s seminal paper, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” (1989): “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more less match my skin.”

What makes this claim difficult is that other explanations are plausible and altogether likely. With 77% of the population white, it is, on the one hand, a simple business decision to produce Band-Aids that fall average within the human skin color spectrum. “Black” does not mean literally “black” as Black skin color ranges fundamentally the same as White skin color, from light to dark. The truth is, some Blacks have whiter skin than many, if not most whites. On the other hand, there are companies that produce actual black-colored band-aids. Easy to look up. There are also neon colors and Band-aids with cartoon characters on them, one, Doc McStuffins, is a little Black girl who tends to her toys.

Another example from the same paper is: “I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.” Here, we must acknowledge the fact that Affirmative Action is a program designed both to discriminate based on ethnicity, and to give privilege to minorities in keeping with the egalitarian principles of secular social justice. If we are white and land such a job, we did it against the discrimination of our own ethnicity.

This is the problem with the postmodern progressive academic elitist concept of White Privilege – it has a very amorphous structure which makes it difficult to deal with.

Thus, we turn to our Christian teachings in order to mitigate a majority social structures – keep in mind that we have already mitigated the nation’s legal structures. What is the first principle of Catholic social teaching? The answer is that all people, regardless of ethnicity, are created in the image of God, and are therefore imago Dei, deriving all human dignity from Him. This means, that despite all historical injustices, and despite all legal mitigations, we must, by Christ’s own command, “love one another” (John 13:34).

Unfortunately this particular strategy for overcoming ethnic differences and treating one another as children of God is often called, by the same postmodern progressive academic elitists, “colorblindness” and they simply label it another form of racism. It is human nature to naturally observe differences in ethnicity; it is keeping with Christ’s commands to ignore those differences in ethnicity and treat each person as a true child of God.

What are additional principles of Catholic social teaching that come into play when attempting to establish true justice in God’s kingdom on earth? They are as follows: the Common Good, the Universal Distribution of Goods, Solidarity, Subsidiarity, and Participation. How are we to use these principles? The Common Good, obviously, is that which is good for all of the imago Dei, which, of course, includes people of all ethnicities. The Universal Distribution of Goods, means that all of the goods of the earth created by God are meant for all the imago Dei. We must, with the power of our economic structures, provide for universal access to those goods. Solidarity means that we understand all ethnicities to be imago Dei. We are all one in the eyes of God. Subsidiarity means all decisions regarding social involvement, economics, or anything that has to do with the goal of justice, be made at the closest possible level to the imago Dei. Finally, Participation means that, as imago Dei, we all work for the establishment of justice in God’s kingdom on earth.

Only Catholic Social Teaching can solve these problems as approaches used by postmodern progressive academic elitists have continued to divide us for decades.