To the Editor:

Re: “Sucker Punched: Exploring Race and Privilege,” Opinion, Nov. 19

Race expose in my college newspaper? I was skeptical, but intrigued. The author begins her column with a promise to explore the complexities of “white privilege,” but succeeds only in showing and exercising that privilege in a thin and racially-informed (I won’t say racist, because I fear fairer readers will bristle) piece detailing all the ways in which black people can and do behave badly.

The author provides her readers with two examples of black people behaving badly: the first, a widely publicized incident in which a black Columbia professor punched a white, female staff member in the face; the second, a more personal incident, where she herself was the victim of an attempted robbery perpetrated by a black male. These incidents, the author tells us, do much to undermine the explanatory power of the concept of “white privilege.” In the Columbia case, a much higher paid Professor (who was black) punched a lower ranking staff member (who was white). The author asks the reader how “white privilege” can account for this. While she acknowledges structural and institutional forms of racism in a one-sentence — throwaway line — she fails to recognize the complex social world in which the racial dynamics she describes appear. That a black man can make more money than a white woman doesn’t make that white woman any less privileged by her race. Is the black man more economically privileged? Perhaps, but this seems to be tangential to the argument the author is trying to make.

When trying to discuss her own incident, she writes that she wished her assailant would have been white. If so, she could escape her racist feelings when reporting the details of her attack to the Ithaca Police. This is where the author loses me (though not for the first time): Why does she feel racist in reporting the details of an event that is in no way directly informed by race? Sure, we could talk about complex social theory and how identity and social status are always at play in any action a given individual takes, but that’s not what’s at stake here, and certainly not the type of analysis the author adopts for her piece.

If she feels racist in reporting the details of her attack and her attacker, then the author is probably correct in naming the sentiments she feels. The author seems to think that “white privilege” means she should be free of black attackers, and free too of moments which require her to speak negatively of black people. There are obvious problems here. First, the author grounds her analysis in the experiences of individuals. Instead of seeing herself as one white lady, she writes as the exemplar White Lady who is unfortunately subject to a “white privilege” that seems to only be damning. With the author cast as White Lady, she casts her assailant as Black Man … and from there makes a number of conclusions which are if not racist, definitely racial.

The author’s attempt to connect two disparate events solely by the race and gender of their subjects is problematic. The Columbia incident and her own experience share only one commonality: that the actors in both are of different races. Rather than actually explore how race informs these two complex events, the author is satisfied with making still easier conclusions: that black men behaved badly towards white women, and that consequently the concept of “white privilege” is limited. The only thing that seems limited after reading this column, however, is the author’s analysis and her degree of understanding.

Brittney Edmonds ’10