Dennis Prager is a real character. On his self-made venue, PragerU, he tries to convince people that white privilege doesn't actually exist. That it was "invented by the Left," he says. I wanted to focus on the video with Prager himself, but the edited-down version is not on PragerU. The only version is the full half-hour "Fireside Chat," titled, "Ep. 138 - Pay Attention: Your Freedom Is Fragile." Interestingly, the edited version is only available on Facebook, where the PragerU people are complaining about discrimination. Well, so be it. You can see the short video on Facebook by clicking here.
Prager says that white privilege was invented by liberals "to explain why whites were doing better than blacks."
"But here's the thing," he says, "Asians are doing better than whites. Is there Asian privilege? Why not? Why don't they speak about Asian privilege?"
Let's take a good look at that. Praeger has apparently forgotten the once-common phrase, "Not a Chinaman's chance," which was still popular as late as the '70's. But yes, Asians are currently doing better than whites in many ways. Their structured culture lends itself well to academia, their strong family ties make upward mobility a bit easier, and they lend to each other freely. For every Sikh seen running an inner city convenient store or gas station, there are probably two or three sons out on a drilling rig in the Caribbean, transferring oil money back to their family in the U.S. to make sure that their little convenient store can never, ever be bought up by a black entrepreneur. But are these the only factors?
Let's face it: there IS a kind of Asian privilege! It comes in the form of white people not reacting with the kind of involuntarily-taught visceral fear they have towards blacks. When white suburbanites encounter Asians, they tend to ignore them. Police do not target them. And, for the most part, they are left to go about their own business. What's more, big companies like GE can meet their diversity quotas and appear to be equal opportunity employers by hiring dark-skinned Indians or Pakistanis. GE looks diverse, and they don't have to hire any of those icky people from "da hood!" The Asian privilege is simply this: white people aren't out to get them. In fact, they don't particularly mind when they're around, and when it comes to diversity hiring, they are outright favored!
The same thing that helps Asians is the same thing that hinders blacks: white people!
In other words, Praeger is saying that white attitudes that favor certain ethnic groups somehow constitutes evidence that white attitudes that don't favor other ethnic groups don't exist!
HUH?!
And let's also understand, "Asian" means quite a range of ethnicities! It could mean Chinese, Japanese, Hmong, Vietnamese, Laotian, Indian, Pakistani, Philippine or Indonesian, to name just several. It is logically and scientifically wrong to lump all these groups into one ethnic category and label it "Asian."
Just as an aside: a whole generation of young, white men learned to appreciate Asians and their heritage during the "conflicts" of Korea and Vietnam. It was a game-changer in many ways.
Praeger goes on to say, "How are black immigrants doing since the 1980's? African immigrants to the United States for the last 40 years? They're doing great. They're one of the most successful immigrant groups in American history. If there's so much white privilege and so much racism, why are African immigrants - and by the way, I'll bet you never learned this in school, ever, High school, college, graduate school - considerably more blacks have come to the United States from Africa voluntarily as immigrants than came involuntarily as slaves."
Praeger apparently forgot that populations grow. I'll not bother to check his math - I'll concede for the sake of brevity that more blacks arrived as immigrants than slaves. But why would a plantation owner import a slave when he could simply breed one in the field for free? And didn't African immigration to the U.S. have at least two centuries to catch up to the original number which were imported off slave-ships? Why, yes! Nobody bought slaves off a ship since 1808, when South Carolina became the last state to pass a law barring the importation of slaves.
But he nearly has a point. There are many young black people who see education as a "white thing." Who don't bother to study, because it's seen as "selling out." African immigrants look on this attitude with horror and amazement. Many of them come from countries where education is all but impossible, where homework must be done underneath the light of the only street-lamp in the center of town, or where governments don't invest in education at all. Yes, this attitude must be confronted, and changed.
But it IS being confronted and changed! Many in black academia do their damnedest to do so! Prager, however, sees the black youth's attitude as an excuse to imply that somehow black Americans are inherently lazy. It falls short of being outright racist due to the comparison with African immigrants, but it comes damned close! It essentially tells inner-city blacks: "You fail because you LET yourself fail! And I, from my heights, am therefore not obligated to help you in any way!"
Yeah, except you ARE, fool! "For as much as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me," Jesus said in the Gospels. Praeger, a Jew who supposedly defends America's Christian heritage, has done a piss-poor job of following the example of a Jewish carpenter.
"You know what privilege there is in life?" Prager asks. "The greatest privilege of all is being raised with two parents. Having a father in your life especially - because fathers generally set rules, and are models for boys, and boys need models, not to grow up violent, because male nature is violent."
There's no doubt, having a nuclear, two-parent family increases the chances of success for any child. A two-income household is much more likely to thrive than a one-income household. But this is another variant of the, "You are failing yourselves, so I shouldn't have to help you succeed," type of argument. How about you lend a hand, Mr. Prager? Then you can preach about marriage and fidelity!
And perhaps he does. But he didn't include that in this particular rant. That, by itself, is more evil than anything else he said - or neglected to.
Oh, yes, I know, this video was edited. But the full rant is here. And he doesn't say anything about his own personal charity there, either.
White privilege is REAL. What's fake is PragerU.
"Money is not the answer to everything," Dennis says. "Values is the answer to everything."
Ah, so THAT'S why you don't want any tax money to go to blacks! What bullshit!
Why, oh why, Dennis, can it not be both money AND values?
Eric
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