Whiteness, with all its sins and privilege, has become a main talking point on college campuses and in the left-wing and alt-right media. Filmmaker Whitney Dow decided to film white millennials discussing how they feel about their race and its societal baggage.
The Whiteness Project trailer, released on April 12, showed brief clips of millennials expressing how their race does or does not affect them.
“In America now, being a white Christian is the hardest thing, and that’s exactly what I am. I’m a white Christian male,” said a young man named Nathan.
While Nathan feels that he faces undeserved criticism or persecution, not all of the white millennials interviewed felt that way. Some were overloaded with guilt about their fair skin tone, while others said they were “colorblind” and don’t feel remorse for the sins of their collective ancestors.
“It feels bad to know that I am better off because I was born this way,” said one caucasian millennial man.
“I would be in jail if I wasn’t white,” said another concurring male.
While the men felt the weight of their privilege, the females were less sympathetic to the collective sense of racism.
“I didn’t do anything to you guys so step off,” said a millennial girl with a nose ring.
It is troubling that most millennials feel slavery, war, and social isolation were conditions that only whites inflicted on non-whites. Slavery, racism, and displacement have affected every continent around the world, whether it be North Africans who enslaved southern Europeans, or Mongolians who displaced the Chinese.
None of those sins are exclusive to whites, and a privileged system that rewards whites with a high life expectancy, large incomes, stable marriages, low levels of incarceration, and higher levels of academic achievement is a larger and more pervasive myth than unicorns and leprechauns.
Watch the full interview clip below:
(h/t NBC News)
