The victory represented by the election of Barack Obama was also a tragedy, as it turns out. The sellout was predictable, perhaps inevitable but was surprising in its swiftness and completeness. From day one it was clear that we'd been had. The 1% neocon/neoliberal cabal wasted no time asserting itself through their new spokesperson. President Obama, as presidents do, made his loyalty to the empire evident. Overnight, it seems, proud revolutionaries, dissidents and radicals (not all of them of course) became simpering sycophants who suddenly couldn't find anything wrong with the system they once claimed to oppose.
As an anti-racist for all of my adult life and then some, I know about white privilege. I've written about it myself. I've observed it, experienced it and benefited unfairly from it. It's existence is beyond question and it is certainly an important matter that deserves our full attention as a society. Racism is wrong. All forms of racism are wrong. But for white privilege to be used as an argument against criticizing government surveillance is absurd. Not only is it absurd, it's underhanded. Black people have been historically abused by government so now for white people to complain about government abuses is white privilege. As if historical abuses get grandfathered in. They are to be endured without complaint. Not resisted, overturned or changed. Just STFU and take your medicine. It's illogical, inaccurate, harmful and self-destructive. It's a new way of tainting critics of the Obama administration with the charge of racism.