Let me put it to you this way:
Say, you have two neighbors. One a black female, one a white female. They both want to be actresses.
Let's imagine you would rate them both about an 8 in terms of physical attractiveness and maybe about 7.5 in terms of talent. Attractive, but not breathtaking, skilled but not phenoms. Now, acting is a tough profession with a really low success rate, so either of these girls would be exceedingly lucky to make it in the biz. If you are being completely and totally honest with yourself, do you honestly not see how the
white actress has a distinct advantage in possibly becoming a Hollywood success story? The variety of roles available to the black actress will be a lot smaller and the quality of those roles will be inferior. Yes,
the white actress will have to work hard, but the potential returns for her are greater.
This is a simplification, but that's the essence of white privilege. It's not that all white people will inevitably be successful. Or that white people who have success don't work hard. Or that there is no way for blacks to be successful. Or that whites never have setbacks. It's just that by simply adding in that "white" factor, you gain a distinct advantage.
I used acting just because it was such an obvious example, but it's not hard to see how it pops up throughout other aspects of society.
BINGO!!! I can tell you from personal experience that there are at least 30 - 40 auditions available for white actresses, for every 1 audition available to a Black actress. That is a pure fact. The ratio may even be 50:1
There are other considerations as well... such as casting into the prejudices of the intended audience. Many times skilled & qualified Black actors are not cast because producers fear a backlash from an audience with preconceived notions. Casting a Black person as an authority figure is disturbing to a certain demographic, and producers, and sponsors fear this. As a result, many talented actors are not cast.
Three real life examples:
1) My friend was directing an MOW starring 2 actors who shall remain nameless but are household names There was an incidental wedding scene involving the sister of the female lead. my friend wanted to cast a Black actor as the groom. The studio went absolutely apeshit because it was to air in middle America. Final result, they couldn't recast the stars sister as Black because the star was not. They couldn't find a suitable white groom, ...so they simply cut the lines of the groom, and cast a white film extra instead.
2) I had auditioned for an industrial. They had storyboarded it to be a romantic thing. They selected the best actress, and the best actor. The problem was the best actress who auditioned was me. The best actor who auditioned was a white guy, and even though it was an industrial, ...the client (a government agency) refused to cast an interracial couple. Their solution... they kept us both, ...but re-wrote the script we were to use and removed the romantic angle. It was very successful, so successful infact, that rather than simply using it as the internal industrial teaching tool for their employees, ...they re-purposed it and sold it to the general public as well. This only happened because the producer stood her ground, and refused to get rid of me. She liked me because I reminded her of a woman who had been so nice to her when she was interning at her Mom's workplace during the summers when she was at college. During our 6 or 7th session in the studio... we both discovered why I reminded her so much of the nice lady who took her under her wing... turns out that nice lady was my sister. She had no idea who I was when she first cast me because my sister and I have different last names. We only found out when she accidentally called me by my sister's name. She looked mortified. I laughed and said don't worry about it, that's my sister's name and my Mom mixes it up all the time, sometimes calls her Judi, so I'm used to answering to _____. She apologized and said I reminded her so much of a woman named _____ who she knew when she was interning at _____. That's when we made the connection. I knew there couldn't possibly be two people named with the same first & last name who worked at that particular place. Here's where the white priviledge comes in... if they can't go interacial... they will take a 2nd rate white person over going all Black.
3) Star Trek originally cast the role of the 2nd in command as a woman. The test audiences went apeshit saying "Who does that woman think she is ordering a man around like that" They recast the 2nd in command as an alien named Mr Spock. Audiences would have rather seen a space alien, and were more willing to view a space alien as having authority over them, than they were to accept the notion of a woman having authority over them.
Back in 2001 the CRTC here in Canada issued a directive to advertisers that all commercials MUST reflect a true representation of the demographics within the country. That's when we started seeing commercials with leads that reflected the various ethnicities present within this country.
Another true story... a couple of friends of mine both Black film makers, each had film at Cannes Film Festival in 1996. I think it was 1996... anyway, both films were critically acclaimed, but rather curious were the words of many of the other film makers, reporters & critics who covered Cannes that year... "We didn't even know that Canada had Blacks".
You may say that was ages ago... things are different now... but I have to argue they really aren't all that different. Yeah... you have a Black President, but look at all the brainwashing Hollywood had to do with "24" to even get people in the frame of mind to even consider it.
And my final punctuation mark on the matter... how many of you recalled the initial reaction when it was first announced that Barack Obama was the candidate being put forth by the Democrats? How many people said "He couldn't possibly win because he was Black"... that attitude in itself whether it proved to be true or not ...right there is an example of white priviledge.
