The recent exchange I had on Twitter with an American lawyer, based in New York, about white privilege and affirmative action began with the following tweet. (See the above image for the tweet I was quoting.)
Just as it’s difficult to admit #KhasPrivilege in #Nepal when you have amounted to very little despite it. https://t.co/qdDLuZPdRo
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
A few tweets down, I noticed this exchange.
And then her response, to which I chimed in with a question.
@MrsTomServo How many whites r poor or have been incarcerated or killed by the police etc. BECAUSE they r white? @SchrodngrsTaint
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
Realizing that I had asked the question to @MrsTomServo instead of @SchrodngersTaint, I tweeted the following immediately.
The above Q is to @SchrodngrsTaint and NOT u @MrsTomServo! Sorry!
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
And about half-an-hour later I tweeted this question, which led to the exchanges that follow.
Another Q 4 @SchrodngrsTaint: What r d chances that a white person is denied something – anything – BECAUSE they r white? @MrsTomServo
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
[Updated on July 3, 2018 with images of the exchanges as @SchrodngrsTaint account had been suspended and the tweet embeds wouldn’t show his tweets any longer!]
@SchrodngrsTaint If it were, then #BlackLivesMatter would translate into white lives don’t matter. @MrsTomServo
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
@SchrodngrsTaint AFFIRMING non-white is NOT equal to DENYING white. @MrsTomServo
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
That was why, earlier, I had told him he hadn’t answered my question.
@SchrodngrsTaint Anyway, go in peace! @MrsTomServo
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
And the concluding tweet:
AFFIRMING non-white (or providing non-white some privileges)
does NOT equate to DENYING white (their #privilege). #RaceRelation pic.twitter.com/0vZmO9D0eK— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) December 7, 2016
Of course, a single African-American getting admission to a college through affirmative action does NOT amount to a general denial of white applicants admission to college! Or, admission of a few or several dozen African-Americans to colleges through affirmative action does NOT lead to, or is not equivalent to, denial of admission to white applicants in general. Those white applicants who don’t get admission to A college because all the seats are reserved for people of color, do not lose out on college. They have other options and will likely get admission to another college. Significantly higher percentage of college-aspiring white students do end up going to college and getting a college degree than black.
For argument’s sake, let’s say in a given year ALL African-American college applicants were admitted to colleges around the US through affirmative action, ALL, every single one of them! White applicants “losing” those spots to blacks will likely represent a small percentage of the total white college applicants, ignoring the fact that even they probably will ultimately end up getting admission to a different college and attend and complete college. In other words, on average, the likelihood of a white applicant going to college will probably still be much much higher than an applicant of color even in that year!
That is, whites in general will NOT have been denied college education!
A similar argument can be made about reservations — affirmative action in the Indian subcontinent — and Khas privilege. (Khas are the hill so-called high caste Hindus in Nepal who, among other things, have had a monopoly over the political power structure.) But that could be a whole different blog post altogether.
What do you think?
