PRINCETON, N.J. – A Princeton University student’s editorial regarding “white privilege” in an obscure student newspaper has unleashed a media backlash that will undoubtedly convince others to think twice before criticizing the concept.
Princeton freshman Tal Fortgang recently penned the editorial, “Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege” for The Princeton Tory, a small conservative student newspaper, after a fellow classmate told him to “check your privilege.”
The phrase is based on the radical concept of white privilege – that society is stacked in favor of white males and against minorities and women. In his editorial, Fortgang argued the popular “check your privilege” comment is being used to silence those who have a different perspective.
“I do not accuse those who ‘check’ me and my perspective of overt racism, although the phrase, which assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it, toes that line,” he wrote. “But I do condemn them for diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all of the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of male whiteness who places it out for me before I even arrive.”
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