Yes, I’m White and I Call Out White People
Let’s Talk About White Privilege, Centrism and the Patriarchy
I recently watched a video made by a popular white dude creator on TikTok where he ranted about being an “extreme centrist.” Flat out missing the fact that “extreme centrism” is an oxymoron, he goes on to complain about how often he gets critiqued for saying he’s a centrist and vows to shut anyone out who doesn’t admit that they have at least one “centrist view” on something. He then laughably argues for the importance of nuanced conversations on social and political issues…I wonder if he also orders a diet coke with his McDonalds because he’s trying to be more healthy?
Anyway, I came across the video as part of my usual late night doom scrolling and, having no idea how popular this creator was, I made the mistake of adding my two cents to the comments section fairly shortly after the video was posted, giving them maximum visibility. I quickly quipped, “spoken like a true privileged white dude” before moving on to liking videos of farty French Bulldogs and jeans try-on videos for short girls with big butts (as one does). I went to sleep that night blissfully unaware of the barrage of angry late night replies I would receive from adoring fan boys, not to mention a video reply from the creator himself! This dude has 32K followers to my humble 2K — but this comment clearly struck a nerve.
What interested me the most in all this, though, was that the majority of the comments did not actually delve into the argument I was making — the idea that centrism as a political ideology is one that’s only easy to adopt for folks that aren’t impacted by the policies at stake, i.e. privileged CisHet white men. Rather, they generally fell into two main categories:
1. White women are more privileged than white men.
I honestly haven’t watched any of this creator’s other content because I genuinely do not care — or maybe a better way to frame it is that I simply don’t have the energy for it. But what I can guess is that he and his followers have this idea that white women are more privileged than white men because of the usual men’s rights activist-type arguments that have nothing to do with whiteness — meaning they’re thinking of women getting free drinks and dinners from dates, being stay-at-home moms instead of breadwinners and having better odds at winning custody of kids etc. Each of these scenarios could be carefully dissected to show how they are not actually demonstrative of privilege nor do they result in systemic power imbalances. But for the sake of brevity, let’s just recognize that these conditions have been created within the confines patriarchal society. If men want them to change, they have to be willing to dismantle the patriarchy — something a fair amount of them seem unwilling to do, while others argue against the existence of the patriarchy at all. In either case, this only works to their own detriment.
What I also found worthy of note — though unsurprising — is that literally all the folks offering negative feedback were white men, while those who offered support or agreement were women of all races. If we’re to focus specifically on gender here, over time, research has shown that women are more strongly concerned than men with their impact on and relationships with others, while men tend to be more self-oriented. This research includes gender differences in racial attitudes, reporting that women are more inclusive of and concerned for those with others from different racial groups. It was interesting to see a little microcosm of these findings play out in the comments section of a TikTok, of all places.
2. You are a privileged white woman, so you can’t call out white privilege.
This one took a while for me to wrap my head around. At first, I thought if I was more careful with my language, people would have responded differently. Maybe something like “coming from a privileged white lady, that is some privileged white dude BS right there” would have been met better. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility, but my cynicism tells me it’s unlikely. I say this because, as a white person myself, I think white people generally want to distract from honest conversations about white privilege because they think acknowledging it erases any personal struggles they’ve had and/or hard work they’ve done to overcome those struggles. They don’t want to be made to feel “guilty” for something they feel like they haven’t intentionally created or maintained. So instead of interrogating what might be behind my comment, these dudes attempt to distract away from it and weaponize their defensiveness —i.e. they want to invalidate what I’m saying by calling attention to the fact that I too, am white. But in reality, this makes me a perfect candidate to call out white privilege when I see it — without white people being invested in and performing anti-racism work, social justice movements for folks of color face an uphill battle.
As a white person, I will be learning new ways to be actively anti-racist until I die. Growing up in a world that was literally made for me — think everything from makeup shades to TV characters to academia and the corporate world — I know it can be hard when the status quo you’ve become so accustomed to is challenged and called out as a privilege. White people are feeling exposed in a way we never have before, because we’ve never been targeted due to the color of our skin. Whiteness has always been a shield, not a mirror.
To be a white anti-racist person, you must not only confront this privilege, facing the discomfort of conversations about racism and thinking critically about how whiteness has been woven into the fabric of our lives, our relationships and institutions, but we must also develop an activist racial literacy. This means consuming literature, art and research by black creators and scholars so that we may learn from and understand their experiences of social inequity and racial violence. We must expose ourselves to diverse communities and become part of them, because our perspectives will always be shaped by our environment. The more intentional we are about deconstructing segregated white communities where upper class elite white folks send their white children to exclusively white private schools, for instance, the more we will be able to recognize and create inclusive and reparative frameworks of thought, policy and legislation.
It is important to note that all of this must be built in partnership with black, brown and indigenous people, social movements and other discriminated groups. Believing only people of color can talk about privilege or racism is just another way to maintain a safe, insulated position of inaction for white folks. It is not enough to just acknowledge the existence of racial inequity and injustice — we must build relationships based on trust and make spaces where we can create strategies together with those from marginalized communities to end systems of white supremacy in this country once and for all.
So yes, I am white, but I will never stop calling out white people — and you shouldn’t either.
