This is not to say that White people are the first group in history to think of themselves as the chosen people – far from it – but it is almost certainly the only time in history that an entirely new category was created that superseded nationality, culture, religion, and even ethnicity. Unlike choosing labels for groups outside of ours, labeling ourselves as “White” has ensured that we remain the “-chosen” people. There is simply no reason for you to be offended by the term “White,” nor has there ever been. Quite the opposite, it was meant to give you citizenship, inalienable rights, wealth, status, and power, while also ensuring that others did not have access to those very things. The term “White” was never meant to offend you. Why does it not offend you? The answer is simple. To such a gut response, I must ask you to dig deeper. Now I know what some of you might be thinking: “That is not true! I just don’t mind being called White because it doesn’t offend me!” Consequently, we have never have been offended by the term “White,” nor have we had any incentive to let go of the oppressive reigns that we’ve held onto for over 300 years. Unlike other terms that we have created to devalue others’ humanity, we created our label to elevate ourselves. Like it or not, White was a self-ordained title that was intentionally created to unfairly designate people that look like us as the intellectually superior form of our species in order to justify slavery and oppression. In other words, by the nature of its design, being called White is an automatic indication of our status. The term “White” is a self-created label that has allowed us to keep power confined among those of us who are “fortunate” enough to be identified as such. There is one simple reason why the term “White” has not been called into question, and likely will not be any time soon: Unlike every other racial term that has ever been used, being labeled as White has always been a privilege. Why is this? Doesn’t this label deserve the same level of scrutiny? Despite the fact that we have seen countless labels come and go throughout almost three centuries of redefining the terms and categories of race, the term “White” has remained a constant. In our ongoing quest to become more politically correct, White folks often spend so much time trying to keep up with the “correct” thing to call other people that most of us don’t stop and think about why we still call ourselves White.