Kristen Gillibrand Gives a Powerful Explanation of White Privilege

[Anonymous]

Wow. I didn't know she had this in her. What a thoughtful answer to an important question.

At Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)’s roundtable at Youngstown, Ohio, on Thursday, a white woman holding a baby in her arms asked how Democrats could throw around the term “white privilege” when her community was struggling.

Question: I hear you saying there is a lot of divisive language coming from Republicans, coming from Trump and that we are looking for ways to blame each other. But the Democratic Party loves to throw around terms like white privilege. Now this is an area that across all demographics has been depressed because of the loss of its industry and the opioids crisis. So what do you have to say to people in this area about so-called white privilege?

Gillibrand: So, I understand that families in this community are suffering deeply. I am fully hear from you and folks that I’ve talked to just in a few minutes that I’ve been here, that is devastating when you’ve lost your job, you’ve lost your ability to provide for your kids, that when you put 20, 30 years into a company that all of the sudden doesn’t care about you or won’t call you back and gives you a day to move. That is not acceptable and not okay. So no one in that circumstance is privileged on any level, but that’s not what that conversation is about.

Question: What is it about?

Gillibrand: I’m going to explain.

What the conversation is about is when a community has been left behind for generations because of the color of their skin. When you’ve been denied job, after job, after job because you’re black or because you’re brown. Or when you go to the emergency room to have your baby. The fact that we have the highest maternal mortality rate and if you are a black woman you are four times more likely to die in childbirth because that healthcare provider doesn’t believe you when you say I don’t feel right. Because he doesn’t value you. Or because she doesn’t value you.

So institutional racism is real. It doesn’t take away your pain or suffering. It’s just a different issue. Your suffering is just as important as a black or brown persons suffering but to fix the problems that are happening in a black community you need far more transformational efforts that targeted for real racism that exists every day.

So if your son, is 15 years old and smokes pot. He smokes pot just as much as black boy in his neighborhood and the Latino boy in his neighborhood. But that black and brown boy is four times more likely to get arrested. When he’s arrested that criminal justice system might require him to pay bail. 500 bucks. That kid does not have 500 bucks he might not be able to make bail. As an adult with a child at home and he’s a single parent, if he is thrown in jail no one is with his child. It doesn’t matter what he says, I have to go home, I have a child at home, he’s only 12. What am I going to do. It doesn’t matter.


Imagine as a parent how you would feel so helpless. That’s institutional racism. Your son will likely not have to deal with that because he is white. So when someone says white privilege, that is all they are talking about. That his whiteness will mean that a police officer might give him a second chance. It might mean that he doesn’t get incarcerated because he had just smoked a joint with his girlfriend. It might mean that he won’t have to post bail. It means he might be able to show up to work the next day and lose his job and not be in the cycle of poverty that never ends. That’s all it is.

But it doesn’t mean that [doesn’t] deserve my voice, lifting up your challenge. It also doesn’t mean that black and brown people are left to fight these challenges on their own. A white woman like me who is a senator and running for president of the United States. Has to list up their voice just as much as I would lift up yours. That’s all it means. It doesn’t take away from you at all. It just means we have to recognize suffering in all its forms and solve it in each place intentionally and with knowledge about what we are up against.

[Anonymous]

TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

[Anonymous]

That is a great explanation!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

^^ solipsism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

What a nuanced response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

I agree. I hope her audience actually listened. I’m certain the mom she was addressing didn’t; IMO it’s close to impossible to reason with people who believe they, as whites, suffer disproportionately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

I agree. I hope her audience actually listened. I’m certain the mom she was addressing didn’t; IMO it’s close to impossible to reason with people who believe they, as whites, suffer disproportionately.

Article says the audience applauded. And it was Youngstown Ohio which has a lot of poor whites.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/12/20691717/white-working-class-kirsten-gillibrand-white-privilege-institutional-racism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

+1 I agree!

[Anonymous]

This was a really good, reasoned answer. I’m glad she said it and I hope it gets some more air, because the number of white people I know who think they have it harder than any minority group is troubling (I’m white).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

How did s that a good answer to the woman’s question. She said it is a totally different issue and, just because it is a different issue, it is more important to address that white families living in a poverty.

In her example about bailing out a white kid, she falsely assumed that this white family have money to bail out - these people barely can pay their day to day bills, and struggling to feed their kids. How are s that a good answer if it does not address concerns of the large group of voters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

How did s that a good answer to the woman’s question. She said it is a totally different issue and, just because it is a different issue, it is more important to address that white families living in a poverty.

In her example about bailing out a white kid, she falsely assumed that this white family have money to bail out - these people barely can pay their day to day bills, and struggling to feed their kids. How are s that a good answer if it does not address concerns of the large group of voters?

Don't bother, some of the poorest communities in this country are white but because they're "white trash" they obviously aren't as well liked by these politicians and their ilk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was a really good, reasoned answer. I’m glad she said it and I hope it gets some more air, because the number of white people I know who think they have it harder than any minority group is troubling (I’m white).

You are going to be sunk in 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TL;DR

She is irrelevant and is actually hurting her chance to remain in office the longer she stays in the race.

+1

old news

She just needs to stop.

OP here. I don't think she should be running for President but that doesn't mean her answer to that question wasn't spot on. It was really good.

How did s that a good answer to the woman’s question. She said it is a totally different issue and, just because it is a different issue, it is more important to address that white families living in a poverty.

In her example about bailing out a white kid, she falsely assumed that this white family have money to bail out - these people barely can pay their day to day bills, and struggling to feed their kids. How are s that a good answer if it does not address concerns of the large group of voters?

Don't bother, some of the poorest communities in this country are white but because they're "white trash" they obviously aren't as well liked by these politicians and their ilk.

12:22 here. I want to clarify something. I do think her answer was a very good one but also think that poor whites have it very rough. It's just that even poor whites have been able to use facilities, attend schools, and buy property, etc in a way that black men and women couldn't.