Whiteless Privilege

Books have been written, movies made and college courses taught about white privilege. Denouncing the evils of whiteness indiscriminately allows people of all races, even white people like Robin DiAngelo and Tracie McMillan, to earn a very good living from hunting for white privilege.

Less discussed is ‘whiteless privilege’. Even when one of the biggest beneficiaries of whiteless privilege, Vice President Kamala Harris, has made that her identity. What race is Kamala? Kamala is at once black and Indian, and none of the above because what matters most is not what race she is, but what race she is not. By not being white, she is a person of color and thus whiteless.

Kamala has white ancestry by way of her father, but in a world where men can be women and women can be androgynous and can then march in pride parades as Androgynes for Gaza while wearing half-burkas, what you are matters much less than what you identify as and what you don’t identify as.

One of the most powerful women in the country, raised by a globe-trotting cancer doctor of Brahmin ancestry currently identifies as black because it allows her to cash in on unearned white guilt by way of a made up story of having been subjected to white supremacy as a little girl in Berkeley, California.

Whitelessness is defined by whiteness in the same way that all parasitic identities depend on a host identity. To be whiteless is to be anything but white. People of color, BIPOC and other ways of describing whitelessness are not truly races, but forms of opposition to whiteness. That is why minorities with actual histories of oppression can still be condemned as adjacent to whiteness.

These two poles reveal that in the critical race theory paradigm there are really only two races: whiteness and whitelessness, forever pitted in conflict and defined in opposition to one another. Black, Hispanic or Asian, already dubious categories, are subsumed into one of these political categories.

And it is politics, above all else, that defines whitelessness.

Hispanics with the wrong political views become white Hispanics. Asians who step out of line can turn white adjacent, and black conservatives, like Larry Elder, are labeled as the black face of white supremacy. The sorting between white and whiteless has nothing to do with DNA or complexion. Neither the one drop rule nor the paper bag test matter. All that matters is their political genome.

The Old Left similarly defined working class not by income or social status, but by politics. Rich radicals were said to be fighting for the working class while conservative workers were aligned with the bourgeoisie. Modern identity politics similarly operates as a front group for the Left that allows its activists to posture as victims, speak on behalf of an entire group and demand power in its name. Those who will not go along are not part of the group whether they are workers or people of color.

Leftist political identities are binary, political and fluid. This was bad enough when applied to social and economic classes, but when applied to races produces manifest absurdities like black white supremacist and wealthy oppressed victims of undefined race but extremely defined politics.

And that is Kamala.

Identity politics defines opposing identities, the privileged strawman and his oppressed antithesis, but while the privileged identity is a closely drawn caricature, the antithesis is whatever is its opposite.

Kamala’s privilege, like that of Obama’s and of many other successful and wealthy figures who come from wealthy and successful parents, is that they are whiteless. Being whiteless confers instant political privilege on them and all they have to do is sustain it by claiming to be the victims of white people.

Whiteless privilege carries with it the presumption of victimhood. The details are unseeded and the claims, like Kamala’s busing story, are rarely scrutinized. That is whiteless privilege too. For the whiteless, all women are to be believed and verdicts on claims of racism are rendered before the inquiry. This is not the way things work for women who are white or minorities who are white adjacent. Especially if they accuse a public figure with whiteless privilege. There is never any excuse for whiteness (except constant apology and self-examination) and none needed for whitelessness.

That is also whiteless privilege.

Anything that the whiteless do is seen as wonderful simply because they do it. Whiteless privilege means having any ambition described as ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ and worthwhile because it is historic. Everything a whiteless person does is an act of resistance and resilience akin to marching with MLK at Selma. Talking is unpaid emotional labor, going to work is thriving in the face of systemic racism, watching TV is self-care and listening to music is channeling BIPOC joy.

Whiteless privilege is being rewarded for the most basic activities with lavish praise.

And so the media celebrates every mundane thing that Kamala does, like getting off a plane, wearing a pantsuit, or buying a record, as an epochal event the way a parent gushes over a toddler learning to walk. This is the same whiteless privilege that Barack Obama benefited from in public life.

Being the center of every conversation is also whiteless privilege. A white person is warned not to center themselves while whiteless people are encouraged to always be the center of attention. Whiteless privilege also shields rudeness and angry tantrums. Expecting manners of those with whiteless privilege is considered tone policing which is far worse than the rudeness and bad manners.

Whiteless privilege insulates the bearer from criticism. It rewards and encourages mediocrity, rudeness, and racism. And it is hard to think of a public figure more stuffed with whiteless privilege than Kamala.

After a political career of being coddled for her identity, she is now enjoying a political campaign during which she is being coddled for her identity, but rather than making her better, it made her worse.

Kamala Harris made it to the vice presidency without learning such simple tasks as how to run a political campaign, how to give a speech or how to answer questions from the press. Rather than suggest that she learn to do these things, we are instead told that they suddenly no longer matter. Not when Kamala leaks joy through her pores and is thriving just by being the incredible being that she is.

Such coddling never did her any favors and it isn’t doing her any favors now. The media seems to have forgotten that its coup against Biden was triggered by years of coddling and denial. Pretending that Biden was fine didn’t make the problem go away. But Biden was white while Kamala has whiteless privilege. Coddling her isn’t just political calculation, it’s the foundational binary of progressive politics which is defined by pitting people against each other around artificially manufactured badges.

Whiteless privilege is like most antithesis a form of projection. Everything that white privilege is said to be, whiteless privilege actually is. And like most forms of antithesis, whiteless privilege exists only to negate. Kamala is the perfect beneficiary of whiteless privilege because she stands for nothing, has achieved nothing and has nothing to call on except her whitelessness.

Whitelessness is Kamala’s only achievement. Unlike race, it’s not an unearned one.

Kamala worked for her whitelessness. Given a choice between merit and identity politics, she chose to identify by identity, she chose whitelessness which was the perfect choice for the witless. Kamala has nothing to run on except her whitelessness and no reason to run except whiteless privilege.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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