When Whites Get a Free Pass

[boston bean]

Research Shows White Privilege Is Real

NEW HAVEN — THE recent reunion show for the 40th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” re-aired a portion of Eddie Murphy’s 1984 classic “White Like Me” skit, in which he disguised himself to appear Caucasian and quickly learned that “when white people are alone, they give things to each other for free.”

The joke still has relevance. A field experiment about who gets free bus rides in Brisbane, a city on the eastern coast of Australia, shows that even today, whites get special privileges, particularly when other people aren’t around to notice.

As they describe in two working papers, Redzo Mujcic and Paul Frijters, economists at the University of Queensland, trained and assigned 29 young adult testers (from both genders and different ethnic groups) to board public buses in Brisbane and insert an empty fare card into the bus scanner. After the scanner made a loud sound informing the driver that the card did not have enough value, the testers said, “I do not have any money, but I need to get to” a station about 1.2 miles away. (The station varied according to where the testers boarded.)

With more than 1,500 observations, the study uncovered substantial, statistically significant race discrimination. Bus drivers were twice as willing to let white testers ride free as black testers (72 percent versus 36 percent of the time). Bus drivers showed some relative favoritism toward testers who shared their own race, but even black drivers still favored white testers over black testers (allowing free rides 83 percent versus 68 percent of the time).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/research-shows-white-privilege-is-real.html?_r=0

[marym625]

1. I'm shocked I tell you! Shocked!

It seems that equality is impossible. I don't understand it. No matter what happens with laws, social equality just remains elusive. That's not just true for people of color but for women, LGB, most certainly transgender people and anyone else that is seen as "different."

It's so disheartening.

[el_bryanto]

2. Thinking about this - part of this is almost certainly white people assuming the privilege

Black people are more used to the idea that the rules are going to be enforced and then some; white people are used to the idea that a little bending of the rules in their favor is normal. So when a bus driver looks at a white person asking to bend the rules, he has to calculate the odds that that person is going to come unglued if the rules are enforced.

I guess it brings to mind that there's too sides to white privilege if you are a white person (as I am) - there's the offering of it and there's the accepting of it. Probably not a bad idea to be mindful of it, and avoid accepting it.

Bryant

[boston bean]

3. No, the message isn't "avoiding accepting it'.

Don't treat people differently based on the color of their skin, is the real lesson and message.

[el_bryanto]

4. I'm sorry - to me that goes without saying.

That's a minimum of what people should do. But if you accept or, more damningly, expect special privileges as a white person than that also continues the cycle of white privilege.

Bryant

[boston bean]

5. Giving a break to people is a nice thing to do.

Not doing it for them based on the color of their skin is a racist thing to do.

[marym625]

6. Yes, no doubt

But that doesn't invalidate the point he's making.

The biggest thing is people need to stop being racist and bigoted. But to ask for, or accept privilege is not cool either. Accepting a nicety because of a personal relationship or if you are aware that the privilege would be extended to everyone is ok. Accepting a privilege when you know it's extended because of your race, not cool. That's obviously not something you would always know. But if you do know, or you strongly suspect, do the right thing and decline. And if you are absolutely sure, say why you decline.

[gollygee]

7. In other words, water is wet, the Pope is Catholic, and we all know what a bear does in the woods.

(That's a response to the tag line "Research shows white privilege is real."

K&R

[Baitball Blogger]

8. And the beat goes on.

[Nye Bevan]

10. Friends of mine who have visited Australia

have told me that it's more racist than the US.

[uponit7771]

11. It's common human behavior to be bias TOWARDS people who we can relate to