White privilege is about the fact that for Americans life is very different depending on skin color. The differences can be seen through all aspects of life, but the most stark is the fact that white people are much, much more likely to die of old age than are black people. In fact, data guru Nate Silver says that to be black in America is just about as bad as living in war torn Rwanda.Gun arguments aside if you re white in America, you re pretty damned safe. Your chance of being murdered in any given year is 2.5 out of 10,000. That s about equal to Finland, Israel and Chile. To be black, though, is very different. Your odds of being murdered about about eight times higher, or 19.4 out of every 10,000. That compares to Myanmar, Rwanda, Mexico, Brazil and Nigeria.Silver rarely expresses his political opinions (other than statistical predictions) but he did editorialize a bit on police brutality: So I m an editor now as well as a writer so we think when a story occurs is this a quote unquote  random act of violence  or is this representative of some broader trend and I think these stories about police brutality, it s uncovering things that have been going on for a long time and that are very common experiences Now that we do have video cameras everywhere it s not a coincidence that all of a sudden now that we have means to record these things all of a sudden these things crop up all the time.  Source: Raw StoryHere s the entire Katie Halper show:[soundcloud url= https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/214633454  params= auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true  width= 100%  height= 450  iframe= true  /]This is something that white Americans will never understand, no matter how hard we try. While white women might be harassed or worse on the street, we re fairly confident we ll make it home alive. White men are even more confident of that fact. To be black on the other hand, means always being on guard and always on your best behavior. Don t loiter, but don t walk (or drive) fast. Don t put your hands in your pockets. Don t make eye contact with police. Don t not look at police when you re being spoken to. The list could go on. The rules for being black are simply different than the rules for being white. For them, it s a matter of life and death.Featured image via Slaven Vlasic at Getty Images