Two people of the same socioeconomic standing but of different races. One has a lower bar to entry into college because of affirmative action and a easier time getting a high paying job because of diversity needs. Who has the privilege here?
The poorest people I know are whites and I've lived and worked around the world. Yet, the same whites cannot roll into a university and be let in almost for nothing, yet the blacks and Hispanics do.
The concept of white privilege makes a lot of white people uncomfortable, including myself for a long while. It's not simple: white privilege is a result of centuries of structural oppression against non-whites. It doesn't guarantee that all white folks are better off than some POC, but the overall differences are stark. Nor does it guarantee that your life was easy.
Saying "I had a hard life and I'm white" is a single-data point of a very, very large structural problem. Maybe affirmative action isn't the answer, and I'm not certain that it is. But to say that all other things equal, a white person and a black person of the same economic status is equal in our society is blatantly false.
The uncomfortable truth we need to be talking about is that POC commit a disproportionate amount of the crime in the US, and so nothing you said should come as a surprise. The fact that we can't have an open and frank conversation about this is part of the problem. Promulgating white guilt and a perpetuating a victimhood complex in everybody else does nothing to move things forward. It keeps people from empowering themselves and fosters divisiveness. In fact thinking that these other cultures need our help because they are incapable of lifting themselves up without us is actually pretty condescending. It sounds a bit bigoted if you ask me.
But to say that all other things equal, a white person and a black person of the same economic status is equal in our society is blatantly false.
I never said they were equal. In this specific hypothetical I'm saying doors open more easily for the black person.
Notice I said "for similar, non-violent crimes" and "disproportionate" [1]. It's true, poverty and crime are heavily correlated [2], and I live in a community where such crime exists at high rates (Downtown Oakland).
In fact thinking that these other cultures need our help because they are incapable of lifting themselves up without us is actually pretty condescending. It sounds a bit bigoted if you ask me.
The War on Drugs was created to incarcerate black people and hippies [3]. For crimes that more than 50% of my classmates and myself, have committed (possession of marijuana, dealing marijuana, various other drugs), extreme disproportionate incarceration has occurred in the US to POC at disproportionate rates[1]. Once incarcerated, getting back into society is an extremely difficult process, with voting rights being stripped away, with job opportunities scarce, with the mark of a felony on their criminal record. This contributes to a vicious cycle where these realities feed off of each other. It's no wonder then, that all these facts contribute to a never-ending snowball effect on these communities.
I really highly recommend the book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander [4]. It does an amazing job describing this cycle. It's not that "other cultures need our help to stop committing crimes", it's that we all need to be aware of the effects our criminal justice system has on everyone.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/30/white...
[2] http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137
[3] http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richa...
[4] http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindn...
The article you linked said blacks were being disproportionately arrested because they were selling outdoors, whereas whites were selling indoors. Assuming it is true though, are we really going to pretend that it's simply the difference in skin color and has nothing to do with a culture that glorifies criminal behavior, disregards the rule of law and preys on larger society. If these antisocial subcultures were distributed evenly between the races then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. The unfortunate and uncomfortable fact is that they are more prevalent in specific minorities. But the fact that we can't even talk about this in a straight forward and rational way exacerbates the problem.
I'll give you that historical prejudice has played a huge role though. Historical being the key word. I am completely with you on ending the War on Drugs. If we spent a fraction of our energy on that as opposed to promoting these toxic identity politics, then maybe we would have actually made some progress by now. Despite all of our best intentions, race relations are getting worse and nobody seems to know why. Hmm.