NEW YORK – With the “white privilege” movement in full force on college campuses, and seeping into K-12 classrooms across the nation, it seems fair to ask a logical question:

Has the label of “victim” ever empowered anyone?

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It may elicit sympathy from others, or be the source of self-justification for the victims themselves.

They can go forward in the knowledge that their plight in life – if it’s less than what they hoped for – is not entirely their own fault. They can self-absolve through the knowledge that their skin color creates barriers that would otherwise not exist.

But does that knowledge put food on their tables, help them pay mortgages or send their children to college?

That’s a very good question recently posed by writer John McWhorter in an article published by the Daily Beast.

McWhorter, who is black, examines the “white privilege” movement with a critical eye. As the headline of his story asks, “When students are compelled to take ‘White Privilege 101’ classes, we have every right to ask: Why, and for whose benefit?”

He comes to the logical conclusion that “white privilege” is mostly about guilt-ridden white people, for the benefit of white people. They can feel better about their socio-economic advantages if they acknowledge them and seek absolution.

“In a society where racism is treated as morally equivalent to pedophilia, what whites are seeking is the sweet relief of moral absolution,” McWhorter wrote. “Inside they are pleading, ‘Please don’t hate me!’ And I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an accompanying feeling of purification (redemption, even) that comes with such consultant-given absolution.

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“I can honestly say that I would be engaging in exactly this kind of moral self-flagellation about racism if I were white in today’s America.”

White progressives, from their perch of moral and intellectual superiority, assume that if they admit and reject their unfair advantage, doors will automatically open for minorities.

“White people should stand up for what is right and what is good for all humans – not just people that share the same skin tone,” Shannon Davies wrote in an op-ed column on TxState.edu. “White people should use their privilege to help set the stage for everyone to be treated fairly and equally.”

That sort of arrogance comes with the assumption that white people hold the key to the socio-economic future of blacks, and circumstances will only change if they give the thumps-up.

“I assume, for example, that the idea is not to teach white people that White Privilege means that black people are the only group of people in human history who cannot deal with obstacles and challenges,” McWhorter wrote.

“If the idea is that black people cannot solve their problems short of white people developing an exquisite sensitivity to how privileged they are, then we in the black community are being designated as disabled poster children.”

The perception of dependence on the goodwill of whites is not healthy for the black community, according to McWhorter.

If blacks themselves subscribe to the notion that they are hopelessly oppressed, and at the mercy of the white majority, can they truly be empowered? Are they more or less likely to act on their own behalf?

In the end, humans don’t progress very far unless they decide to push forward, individually or as a group, regardless of any barriers placed in their way.

“I frankly wish so many whites weren’t interested in this, because it ends up enabling us in some bad old habits,” McWhorter wrote.

“When your people have been enslaved for centuries followed by another century of lynching, Jim Crow, and worse, the racial ego suffers. A suffering ego is ripe for using the status of the Noble Victim as a crutch; you gain a sense of worth in being a survivor of the evil one’s depredations. The Noble Victim is in control – of the conversation, as it were, of the parameters of moral judgment.

“The Noble Victim, most certainly, matters. He is, in a sense, whole. But meanwhile, no one gets a job; no one gets fed; little tangible progress is actually made. The Struggle, as it used to be called, sits on hold.”