Huffpost black voices:North Korea Proves White Male Privilege Is Not Universal

[mauricio]

https://archive.is/8AEaX

“That’s what the hell he gets. Good for him!” My mother had uttered those words in her typical matter-of-fact tone one morning as she watched the news. “He” was Michael Fay, an 18-year-old from Ohio who had confessed to vandalizing cars in Singapore, and was subsequently sentence to six lashes from a rattan cane. I was in sixth grade and all I could imagine was how horrible the pain would be. My mother was unmoved at the thought, remarking, “He earned that.”
I thought about my mother’s words a few days ago while watching video of 21-year-old Otto Warmbier, another man from Ohio who last week was convicted of subversion for stealing a propaganda banner in North Korea, and sentenced to 15 years hard labor. Just as in Fay’s case, I was shocked by the severity of the punishment. I’ve tried to imagine spending a decade and a half performing what the North Korean state deems hard labor and I can’t. But I’m not 11 anymore, and now, my mother’s callous reaction to Micahel Fay’s sentence is my reaction to another young white man who went to an Asian country and violated their laws, and learned that the shield his cis white male identity provides here in America is not teflon abroad.
“
“That kind of reckless gall is an unfortunate side effect of being socialized first as a white boy, and then as a white man in this country.”
As shocked as I am by the sentence handed down to Warmbier, I am even more shocked that a grown man, an American citizen, would not only voluntarily enter North Korea but also commit what’s been described a “college-style prank.” That kind of reckless gall is an unfortunate side effect of being socialized first as a white boy, and then as a white man in this country. Every economic, academic, legal and social system in this country has for more than three centuries functioned with the implicit purpose of ensuring that white men are the primary benefactors of all privilege. The kind of arrogance bred by that kind of conditioning is pathogenic, causing its host to develop a subconscious yet no less obnoxious perception that the rules do not apply to him, or at least that their application is negotiable.
Headline after headline has highlighted that Otto Warmbier is a student. His LinkedIn profile states that he is majoring Economics with a minor in Global Sustainability and is a Managing Director of an “alternative investment fund.” A man reared in this country who studies the globe as a part of his higher education curriculum must have been at least passingly aware of the notoriously strained relationship between the United States and North Korea. Surely he had read the stories of Jeffrey Fowle and Matthew Miller, other white American men arrested in North Korea for “petty crimes” who were subsequently sentenced to hard labor.
Yeah, I’m willing to bet my last dollar that he was aware of the political climate in that country, but privilege is a hell of a drug. The high of privilege told him that North Korea’s history of making examples out of American citizens who dare challenge their rigid legal system in any way was no match for his alabaster American privilege. When you can watch a white man who entered a theatre and killed a dozen people come out unscathed, you start to believe you’re invincible. When you see a white man taken to Burger King in a bulletproof vest after he killed nine people in a church, you learn that the world will always protect you.
“
“If he had obeyed North Korea’s laws, he would be home now.”
Coming from a country filled with citizens who lambaste black victims of state sanctioned violence by telling us that if we obey the law, we wouldn’t have to face the consequences, Warmbier should’ve listened. If he had obeyed North Korea’s laws, he would be home now. In fact, if he had heeded the U.S. Department of State’s strong advisement against travel to North Korea, he would be home right now. And if Eric Garner is to be blamed for his own death for selling loose cigarettes or if Sandra Bland is dead because she failed to signal when changing lanes, then Otto Warmbier is now facing a decade and a half of hard labor because he lacked both good judgment and respect for the national autonomy of a country which has made its hatred for and vendetta against America unequivocally clear.
And while I don’t blame his parents for pressuring the State Department to negotiate his release, I wonder where they were when their son was planning a trip to the DPRK. Didn’t they impress upon him the hostile climate that awaited him? Didn’t they rear him to respect law and order? Did they not teach him the importance of obeying authority?
What a mind-blowing moment it must be to realize after 21 years of being pedestaled by the world simply because your DNA coding produced the favorable phenotype that such favor is not absolute. What a bummer to realize that even the State Department with all its influence and power cannot assure your pardon. What a wake-up call it is to realize that your tears are met with indifference.
As I’ve said, living 15 years performing manual labor in North Korea is unimaginable, but so is going to a place I know I’m unwelcome and violating their laws. I’m a black woman though. The hopeless fear Warmbier is now experiencing is my daily reality living in a country where white men like him are willfully oblivious to my suffering even as they are complicit in maintaining the power structures which ensure their supremacy at my expense. He is now an outsider at the mercy of a government unfazed by his cries for help. I get it.

[mauricio]

Dat last pragraph

[Shiranu]

I think "White privilege" is equatable to "global warming"... it's not the right phrase for what you mean. The more appropriate term would be "Majority privilege". It just happens that the main two majority factors are "White" and "rich" in our culture... with rich being dominated by white males.

That last paragraph is definitely hyperbolic though. Being a North Korean captive might actually be scientifically, objectively provable to be worse than being black in America.

[mauricio]

Relevant replies from the interwebs cause i'm too lazy to write:

When you can watch a white man who entered a theatre and killed a dozen people come out unscathed, you start to believe you’re invincible.

Jesus Christ this writer is a psychopath, nobody believes that except people who already have severe mental issues.

That guy killed white people. How the fuck can anyone look at that and think that white people are invincible? White people literally died in that situation. Most people look at a shooting like that and reflect on the fragility of mortality. This woman is a sociopath.
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When you see a white man taken to Burger King in a bulletproof vest after he killed nine people in a church, you learn that the world will always protect you.

The bulletproof vest is there so he doesn't get assassinated and they can give him the sentencing he deserves. As for BK, he was calm with police and told them he was hungry and told them he hadn't eaten in a few days. The police has a duty to feed you while under arrest for a long period of time. And also do it to promote goodwill when you are cooperative.

The fun part is you can take this SJW bullshit and rewrite for anything. How about the Beltway sniper, where two black guys killed 10 people.
When you can watch a black man who shot and killed 10 people come out unscathed, you start to believe you’re invincible.
And he was arrested peacefully because he didn't resist. Does she really want a world where police shoot unresisting people just because they are accused of murder? And I hardly think 12 life sentences and 3,318 years is getting away unscathed. He will die behind bars. What kind of bizarre logic does she employ to imagine that seeing someone only get life in prison would cause a mentally normal person to decide to go to North Korea for a holiday and believe himself to immune to their law?

[mauricio]

North Korea proves your white male privilege is not universal

Maybe it's because I'm so tired, but I'm having a hard time processing that headline. How does white privilege work, then? Is it only a privilege in countries where white is the majority? Should it be relabeled "Majority Privilege"? Or can "people of color" who make up the majority in other countries not have privilege? Is it only an American thing? I'm genuinely confused, and should probably go to sleep.

[Hydra009]

I think "White privilege" is equatable to "global warming"... it's not the right phrase for what you mean. The more appropriate term would be "Majority privilege".

I dunno about that one, either.  Often, it's an extremely small minority that holds disproportionate wealth/influence/power.  The first and second estates, for example.

[Shiranu]

I dunno about that one, either.  Often, it's an extremely small minority that holds disproportionate wealth/influence/power.  The first and second estates, for example.

Majority doesn't necessarily mean you have more people but also means the majority of power.

And I don't necessarily like the way the term implies there are "Strongs" and "Weaks". I think it is more more like a hierarchy than a A or B thing.

Should it be relabeled "Majority Privilege"?

I would say so, yes. It just happens that in English speaking countries the predominate power group is whites, but if you to a different society then it changes based on their cultural factors... be it religious, tribal, racial, or any other factor that separates the "elite" or privileged from the "less-elite" and under-privileged.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I dunno about that one, either.  Often, it's an extremely small minority that holds disproportionate wealth/influence/power.  The first and second estates, for example.

Yeah, I was about to say... part of the requirement for being rich is being a minority among money-holders.

I saw this article on KiA, I believe, and it's as ridiculous as the title makes it out to be. That said, it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who willingly entered a country that will arrest you for looking at pictures of its leaders incorrectly, and then allegedly did something as monumentally stupid as taking down one of that country's propaganda posters.

[Shiranu]

Yeah, I was about to say... part of the requirement for being rich is being a minority among money-holders.

I saw this article on KiA, I believe, and it's as ridiculous as the title makes it out to be. That said, it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who willingly entered a country that will arrest you for looking at pictures of its leaders incorrectly, and then allegedly did something as monumentally stupid as taking down one of that country's propaganda posters.

Majority in power and not necessarily in number.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Majority in power and not necessarily in number.

Sorry about that, you ninja'd me as I was posting.

[mauricio]

Yeah, I was about to say... part of the requirement for being rich is being a minority among money-holders.

I saw this article on KiA, I believe, and it's as ridiculous as the title makes it out to be. That said, it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who willingly entered a country that will arrest you for looking at pictures of its leaders incorrectly, and then allegedly did something as monumentally stupid as taking down one of that country's propaganda posters.

Here is when the distinction between causal responsibility and moral responsibility comes in. He willfully manipulated factors in his control which made it more likely that he got in trouble with the facist regime of NK. But as a person getting super drunk and getting raped it is not his moral responsibility that this happened to him. You gotta be very careful making that clear if you are gonna make those sorts of points. The writer of this article seemed to not give a fuck about making that distinction in his opening paragraph by echoing the words of her mother.

[Hydra009]

Majority in power and not necessarily in number.

Seems like a fairly unusual way of using that term.  I noticed you using "predominate power group" and "elite".  Imo, those are a little bit clearer and less ambiguous terms.

[mauricio]

Seems like a fairly unusual way of using that term.  I noticed you using "predominate power group" and "elite".  Imo, those are a little bit clearer and less ambiguous terms.

This white male privilage thing is because criticizing aristocracy and classism is no longer hip in this socjus circles. It's all about the race and sex now. Even when wealth is still the best measure of power the times you find the word classism used vs racism on this type of liberal news sites like huffpost shows the zeitgeist has changed. The irony is that many prominent people in this political movement have considerable wealth. My commie friend calls this identity politics of the petit burgeois a cancer for the left that divides the working class in racial and sexual groups. I do not buy into the whole marxism thing, but i tend to agree with him on that point.

[Shiranu]

Seems like a fairly unusual way of using that term.  I noticed you using "predominate power group" and "elite".  Imo, those are a little bit clearer and less ambiguous terms.

Yeah, majority isn't the term I would use for the over-arching theme. It only makes sense with an obsolete definition for it.


And trust me mauricio, I spend the majority of my time around academics, intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals... class is still very much en vogue. It's just the role race and sex play in these things is becoming much more recognized.

I think the main problem is people get caught up in it MUST be factor A or factor B that is causing the problems rather than looking at it as factor A, B, C through Z all contribute in different amounts.

[mauricio]

Yeah, majority isn't the term I would use for the over-arching theme. It only makes sense with an obsolete definition for it.

Aristocracy is the word you are looking for.