‘White People’: MTV Explores White Privilege In New Documentary

MTV took on white privilege in their newest documentary, White People, with journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.

White People Doc Explores White Privilege For MTV

MTV attempted to start a discussion about race in America on Wednesday night with the premiere of their newest documentary. White People answers the question: What does it mean to be young and white?

In the film, journalist and immigration activist Vargas travels around the United States and attempts to have conversations about whiteness and race with young adults – mostly white, but not all. “We talk about race a lot in this country. But we don’t include you in the conversation,” Vargas tells crowds of young white people at the beginning of the film.

Over the course of the 40-minute documentary, Vargas spoke to people about how they felt their race affected college acceptances and scholarships – an area where many felt discriminated against because they are white – and what they believed were the disadvantages of being white. (A question to which one man answered, “I don’t know… It’s like asking a rich person, ‘Tell me how hard it is being rich.’”) Vargas, who made a name for himself by writing about his experience as an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines, said his experience making the documentary showed him that many young people were focused on the idea of color-blindness. “Nearly 40 percent of white millennials feel that they’re as much a victim of racism as people of color. Nearly 50 percent. For young white people, color-blindness is the ideal – to not see race at all. White millennials feel that we’re created equal, but are they willing to see just how unequal different races are treated? Yeah, we’re all created equal, but we’re all treated differently. All you have to do is look at the criminal justice system and look at the education gap. So I think that’s specific to this ‘post-racial generation,’” Vargas said in an interview with Vulture.

Twitter Reacts To #WhitePeople

As expected, the documentary sparked some heated discussion on Twitter, with some dismissing the idea of White Privilege, and others criticizing the documentary for focusing on the experience of white American youth.

For those interested in continuing the conversation, Vargas has joined forces with the LA Times to launch #EmergingUS, a “digital magazine on intersection of race, immigration and identity in a multicultural America.”

You can watch the whole documentary here: