In a recent episode of “The Oprah Conversation,” the revered Ms. Winfrey goes on at some length with Black NFL player Emmanuel Acho on the subject of White Privilege, her main observation being that White people who prosper without appreciating the extent to which their Whiteness has been of benefit to them are, whether they know it or not, Racists. The prejudicial system to which she refers, she says, is the product of a consciously imposed agenda rather than the natural, inevitable result of the realities of History.
Strange! In explaining the “oppressed” condition of Blacks in contemporary America, the Left never ceases to invoke the History of Slavery in support of its narrative. At the same time the cancer of Western Colonialism is inevitably invoked to explain the dysfunction of much of the contemporary Third World. But when the historically documented achievements of Western Civilization are invoked as the explanation for the benefits available to White Westerners, the Left simply eliminates History from its narrative. It’s the sort of double standard that is commonplace today both in the consensus media and academia. It’s a level of duplicity that is preposterous.
Clearly no individual has any control over the circumstances to which he or she is born. But the simple fact is, Oprah, that the European antecedents of White Americans did inestimably better in dealing with the demands of the Actual World than did their African contemporaries. If Ibram X. Kendi were himself not a Racist he would grant the efficacy of the Rationalism of the European Enlightenment rather than resentfully impugning it as just another point of view [i.e.,the relativist option]. And if you, Oprah, were not equally compromised, you would pay homage to the Democratic/Capitalist regime to which you were born and from which you have so conspicuously profited, admitting the wonderful accomplishments of its White European Architects rather than disparaging their offspring as merely the arbitrary benefactors of “privilege.”