Opinion: Research shows white privilege is real
By Ian Ayres, New York Times
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).
The more people concentrate on race, the more who will lose the race for success. Students there should demand a refund of all tuition wasted for an education. These inventions of a great “concern” about an invented nothing issue and even using a wealthy actor as an example of something that doesn’t fit, like they suffered somehow? By becoming wealthy? These invented terms that must be studies are useless fictional creations and are a great example of why people aren’t getting an education in anything important these days. A trade school, where a marketable skill is learned, is a much better choice now.
well two comments – one I hope the comment above is about some other article?
(2)although “opinion” pieces frequently get passed off as what might appear to be news, it’s kind of hard to figure out why the NY times choose to print a report on research results on the op/ed page?
The comment by justanass makes absolutly no sense…
A vast majority of blacks have created the prejudice there is about them. Plain and simple.
@Injustice-it wouldn’t be an ‘invented concern about an invented nothing issue’ were you on the other side of the privilege tracks. You really are an ignorant, narrow minded little creature. Proud of it too.
@ Gaspen…Race issues in this country are neither plain nor simple. People who want to stick their head in the sand will say it is, politicians who want to profit from fear and divisiveness will say it is. It is not.
You should be telling your president this. AND the race baiters he has frequenting the white house. You can take the racists pres. out of the ‘hood’ but not the hood out of him. Plain and simple.
“…racists pres. out of the ‘hood’…” is an unintelligible phrase. Stop it. It appears you have not seriously examined your own bias and prejudice and what elements in our culture have implanted them in your psyche. Question assumptions. Go look in the mirror. Read a little from non-mainstream media.
I’m waiting for someone here to declare that the President of the United States is uppity.
This study wasted money from people seeking an education and this whole “white privilege” myth is a liberal creation for angry liberals who want to get “even” and make people who made bad choices to be even more angry by their choices. The few free countries of the world compared to the other 90% offer the best standard of living there is and yet there is an undercurrent of it is never enough as someone else has something they don’t and there should be constant stirring up of those who will be new victims and it is coming out of DC and led by non other than the Kenyan citizen, King Hussein, the tax felon, Sharp-Tongue, and the one who never left, stir it up- Holder. These are some of the leaders of it here.
“The few free countries of the world compared to the other 90% offer the best standard of living there is….”
@Justanass-Rank us the U.S. in access to Health Care, Infrastructure, Education, Income Inequality, Workers Rights and Vacation Time, Percentage of Population Incarcerated, Life Expectancy. Cite your sources please.
@Copper…agreed. It is regularly implied on this blog that President Obama ‘does not know his place’.
Disgusting!
My comment was deleted because I said I support my white brothers? What the heck is wrong with this moderator?
The racist bigots posting above have done nothing to contribute to this country except to spew their nastiness. Hmmm, you said it…disgusting. I bet their families are so proud to have raised such ignorant jerks as sons….
Nature, you and Hmmm are poster children for the “head in the sand”. I base my opinions on life experiences with them. If you can’t see that OBummer is surrounded by racists and he himself has shown his racism by getting involved in local city matters where his input is not needed. We never heard a thing from him when an unarmed white was shot by a black cop….yet with Ferguson he was drooling at the mouth….along with Sharp-tongue and others. I won’t attempt to fix your opinion, you are the one who lives with it. Blind, blind and can’t see.
Obviously, based on the usual suspect(s) comment’s on this thread, we still have a problem with racism in America.
racism:
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usu. involving the idea that one’s own race is superior.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based on such a doctrine.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
PS: “Hands up- don’t shoot”. Every racist black was following the crowd like a bunch of sheep. They continue to show just how really ‘ignant’ they are. The physical evidence showed otherwise. Physical evidence knows no color….yet the morons of our country follow those idiots like sharp-tongue. On the day of his last breath, this country will improve 100%.
Sometimes I’m right and I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the banker, the drummer and then
Makes no difference what group I’m in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah
There is a blue one who can’t accept the green one
For living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo
Oh sha sha we got to live together
I am no better and neither are you
We are the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me you know me and then
You can’t figure out the bag I’m in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah
There is a long hair that doesn’t like the short hair
For bein’ such a rich one that will not help the poor one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo
Oh sha sha we got to live together
There is a yellow one that won’t accept the black one
That won’t accept the red one that won’t accept the white one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo
I am everyday people
By Sylvester Stewart
(Sly & The Family Stone)
Rock: It is based on evidence, not your twisted warm and fuzzy liberal pin headed mind. I really don’t care you think I am racist. YOU are a pond on a board of liberal media chess. I realize not all blacks are bad, but the majority are……just look at ANY statistics.
Oh, and they chant, “BLACK LIVES MATTER”….tell that to the Crips and Bloods.
Gaspen. The Third Reich would be so proud of you. Have you thought of moving to South Africa… oh, they eliminated Apartheid in 1994.
@Gaspen-what the hell is a ‘pond’ on the board? This is why people think you are an uneducated troll.
@Bluewire…you are a classless, miserable excuse for a human, along with your racist buddies Gaspen and Injustice. I’m sure there will be more joining the thread, weakminded people who let politicians and Fox define the parameters of their thought.
Tahoebluewire,
None of your comments has been deleted.
LTN staff
@gaspen can you do us all a favor and move to the Deep South? There are still uneducated rednecks down there and you’d be welcomed with open arms. I find it ironic that the people who think like this are usually fat toothless welfare cases. Accurate description of you gaspen?
Kae, at a certain point can you just shut down the ability to comment? you know–the point where everyone is just attacking each other and it has nothing to do with the article at all (like now). Maybe we could have a town hall type meeting with Rock,Hmmm,nature, duke and others on one side and Justice, bluewire, Gaspen and others on the opposite side. OLS could be the moderater. They could share their thoughts, opinions, knowledge (without looking things up)face to face. Maybe OLS could give them water balloons to throw at each other when they disagree! It would be way more fun than reading the same old stuff after every article! My apologies to those I forgot to mention.
‘Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland’…Paul Simon
mustache ride: You are not even close.
Here’s a thought; Why don’t YOU move to Oakland or Sacramento ghettos and then come back and dribble your liberal crap.
Hmmm….ha, you don’t even count.
Rock: The blacks in South Africa are people I respect. The ones where Mustache should go are ghetto rats preying on the innocent. OH, and be advised…they prey on other blacks. Just in case your liberal media edited that part out.
Tom: LOL Thanks for putting me on “the list”. EEEhhhehheeeeeeee
Mental Health is obviously a much larger issue in this area than previously thought. :)
Huge shout out to LEVEL! That song is a relevant today as it was 46 years ago.
Check out the lyrics to Hello Bojour by Michael Franti and Spearhead as well.