Read the Absurd Presentation the U.S. Army is Pushing About “White
Privilege” "Our
society attaches privilege to being white and male and heterosexual..."Written by Philip Hodges
Through a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request, Judicial Watch obtained training materials used by the U.S. Army in teaching soldiers about white
privilege, as well as male, heterosexual privilege. The documents pertained to
an Equal Opportunity briefing on April 2, 2015, to the 67th Signal Battalion at
Fort Gordon, Georgia.
Here are some of the topics covered
using a PowerPoint presentation in the briefing at Fort Gordon, reported by Judicial Watch:
·
Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied
to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of
anything they’ve done or failed to do.
·
Privilege has become one of those
loaded words we need to reclaim so that we can use it to name and illuminate
the truth
·
Race privilege gives whites little reason to pay a lot of attention to
African Americans or to how white privilege affects them. “To be white in
American [sic] means not having to think about it” [Quotation not attributed]
·
Our society
attaches privilege to being white and male and heterosexual regardless of your social
class. [Emphasis added]
·
Imagine a school or a workplace where all kinds of people feel comfortable showing up.
[sic] valued, accepted, supported, appreciated, respected, belonging. [sic]
Something very powerful keeps this from us.
·
The truth of this powerful forces
[sic] is everywhere, but we don’t know how to talk about it and so we act as
though it doesn’t exist
·
It creates a yawning divide in
levels of income, wealth, dignity, safety, health and quality of life.
·
It promotes fear, suspicion,
discrimination, harassment, and violence.
·
Consider the “black woman” in Africa who has not experienced white
racism and does not identify herself as a “black woman”. African, a
woman, but not black.
·
She only became “black” when she came to the U.S. where privilege is
organized according to race, where she is assigned to a social category
that bears that name and she is treated differently as a result. [Emphasis
added]
·
The trouble we’re in can’t be solved unless the “privileged” make the
problem of privilege their problem
and do something about it.
·
The fact that it’s so easy for me
and other people in dominant groups not to do this is the single most powerful
barrier to change.
A few years ago, Judicial Watch had obtained a 133-page
document used by the U.S. Air Force, which
included a “student guide” to extremist groups and hate groups.
According to the student guide,
“Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publically espousing hate messages,
many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how
to make the world a better place.”
Regarding “extremist ideologies,”
the document listed two historical examples: one, “the colonists who sought to
free themselves from British rule”; and two, “the Confederate states who sought
to secede from the Northern states.”
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