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Religion is a Better Sign of Privilege than Race
Identitarians think race and gender are the best signs of privilege, so they only mention religion when there’s been a religious hate crime. They don’t realize that just as you must know about Sunni and Shi’a Muslims to understand privilege in Muslim countries, you must know the differences in all religions in multicultural countries. Hearing that someone is white in the US won’t tell you if that person is an Appalachian American, a predominantly white ethnic group that’s poorer than African Americans, or an Australian American, the US’s richest predominantly white group (which is not as rich as the US’s two richest ethnic groups, Taiwanese and Indian Americans).
The US’s most privileged ethnoreligious groups today are Jewish, Hindu, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Atheist.
While about 30% of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, the religion of their parents and grandparents is a strong clue to where they sit on our economic pyramid. This is especially true for people born into wealth. In the 20th century, the most privileged Americans were called WASPs — White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The middle part of their name pointed to the likelihood that their ancestors were…
