White US citizens, why do you agree/disagree with the notion of white privilege?

PM_ME_LEGAL_PAPERS · 12時間前

It's not a question of whether white privilege exists. Sure it does...to a degree. One of the main issues I have is how useful it is. How do you quantify privilege? How can you measure it? Who is more privileged: an autistic, agnostic-atheist, lower-class Caucasian Jew (ie me, for example), or a neurotypical, Islamic, black MtF-trans lesbian? How do you determine what should be done to the privileged? Who gets "more" privilege points, and so freaking what? You hear all the time on TiA about "checking your privilege!" but...so what? That's not going to invalidate my personal problems in some way. And I'd need evidence to see if it would actually impact how I view the world/less-privileged.

Prometheus46715 · 11時間前

I suppose my main objection to it is that it's just intellectualized bigotry for stupid people.

In its basic form it really only means "white people have it de facto easier than non whites" and this serves as a heuristic. Applying said heuristic, those who believe in it tend to believe whites are de facto treated better than non whites, which is "unjust". Thus the argument at its core is "can't you just admit you don't deserve what you have?"

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it can be applied to literally every single person on the planet and with rare exception it would inevitably be found that everyone does not deserve what they have and at bottom this is due to two fundamental aspects of reality that the "privilege narrative" both relies upon and avoids dealing with directly.

First, the universe is largely deterministic. Everything happens for a reason, every cause has an effect. Human beings are in no more control of this than anything else.

Second, desert is even in our overly moral age, a poorly defined concept that relies upon a myriad of cultural and social values and norms.

Consider for a moment an encounter: you find yourself walking down the street, coming home from a bar on a friday night. As you're walking, merry and filled with cheer(and beer) you encounter a homeless man who looks like he hasn't had a meal in days. He asks you to spare him anything you have.

Now let's assume your good mood leads you to be naturally disposed to giving him something. Would your answer change if you found out he was a drug addict? Would it change if you found out he had murdered someone and the guilt of this had driven him to live on the street? Would it change if you knew his family, and had grown up in the same town as him? Would it change if he was racist? Would it change if he wasn't actually a man, but a transwoman? Would it change if he had spent his childhood being serially raped by his step mother? Would it change if you found out he had a college degree?

Now I want you to ask yourself if you assumed the man was white. It would be natural to do so, most homeless men are white due to whites being the majourity population. But did that really factor into your thought process when you considered all of the other factors I listed? Would you have withdrawn the handout from a black homeless man?

People are people. Reducing the human experience to a single inalterable and uncontrollable attribute is bigoted, small minded and ludicrously unintelligent. The privilege narrative is and will always be nothing more than the legitimized resentment of the perceived betters. Would you have withdrawn the handout from a black drug addict but not a white one? Would you have pitied childhood sexual abuse in direct proportion to melanin levels?

And while I appreciate the good intentions behind the idea and your probably genuine desire for a more just world, I appreciate the irony of the argument more "you're too white to actually deserve that, in a just world you'd have much less"

Justice is bullshit.

Xcelentei · 11時間前

Like anything dealing with race, it's complicated. I know I am treated a certain way, or am more likely to be treated certain ways, than other people based on arbitrary things that nobody can control. I don't like that that's the way it is, but people are different, and that's life.

I would be considered notably privileged by many. As a (white) kid, both parents worked to keep us stable. We lived in a poor neighborhood next to a prison (which we never had any trouble with,) I had two parents who loved me, and who fought a lot but stuck around. I had adult role models galore, not through my race or anything arbitrary but by luck and seeking them out. We could never afford many nice things. We didn't go on vacations, but during the holidays or when emergencies would come up we'd be able to scrape together a little extra. We didn't pull in a lot of money, but we made it work. I'm happy with my Lot.

However, I understand that a lot of people can't make it work. It's impossible for them to. I get that the system is partially to blame, and is rigged against them. I don't think that's my fault.

I don't think I was privileged. I think The upbringing I had, stable but not luxurious, should be the standard. I believe people when they tell me they had it rough, and I want to fix the fact that everyone had shit to deal with. I don't want to be told that growing up with cying parents and mountains of debt is the norm. It shouldn't be. I want to make things fair by bringing everyone up to where I was, not meet them down there.

Sorry I don't have any of the objective stuff you were looking for, the above is just context for where my view comes from. Look at the TL;DR if you want, that's the idea I'm trying to get across.

TL;DR - I'm not privileged, they're disenfranchised. It's not my fault, but it DOES suck, and we should fix it. Together.

atheistlol · 11時間前

Sure race privilege may exist, but it varies by community, part of the US. Socio-economic privilege is what really separates people significantly. An upper class black woman is more likely to be more successful in their life than a lower class white male, even though the white male has the notion of white privilege.

MetroidHyperBeam · 11時間前

Oh sure being white in America has its advantages. My problem is with the word, "privilege". It indicates some sort of luxury, when in reality the way white people have it is how everyone should have it.

whatahorriblestory · 11時間前

I remember reading an interview with the feminist who coined the term privilege. She disagreed with how it was being used now and discussed what it was for when she first coined it.

The concept of privilege was coined as a useful tool to challenge oneself to think about the plight of people in new ways - ways not immediately considered due to thing we have come to take for granted because we didn't earn them. The taking for granted of those...well, privileges may have led to a loss of compassion for people who have a different set of struggles because they can think about the same situation without those concerns (for example to a white person, often times the police aren't as hated. Looking at it fr that perspective only it can be hard to understand some other races' aversion to them). Used in this way, by laying out and examining the types of things we take for granted based on, say, race, we can examine the issues from different perspectives. We can come to understand different responses to seemingly similar situations.

That makes sense. It is useful as a tool to learn and understand.

But that's not what it's become. These days, it's used much more frequently as a tool to silence people who are deemed too privileged, end conversation and shut down communication. It's used as a basis to shame and to exclude. It reduces compassion. It produces guilt in people who have done nothing wrong. It stops new perspectives and stops all critical thought. It's used exactly the opposite of how it was meant to be used.

I don't disagree that it exists. But how it's used and discussed is utterly ridiculous.

I'll try to find the interview, I'm on mobile right now.

headless_bourgeoisie · 11時間前

I agree that I enjoy certain privileges in a predominantly white society as a result of my skin color, but I reject the original-sin-stand-in of "white privilege".

I've been to other places. There's no "white privilege" in fucking Colombia.

Lowbacca1977 · 11時間前

I think the concept is dangerous because it relegates rights to special perks. In other words.... being treated fairly by the police, for example, isn't a privilege, its a right, and I think calling it a privilege undermines its importance. The phasing of it sets it as though certain groups need to be reduced in what they're allowed, rather than the groups that are unfairly treated should be brought up.

I also think its overly simplistic, because it usually is used in a very binary way. There's some issues that I think are very clearly focused on certain groups NOT having rights they should, rather than on only one group being allowed them. It also seems to take the stance that if one has 'privilege' on an axis, then all situations will go in favor over the other group, when I think that oversimplifies nuance.

pyr666 · 10時間前

check your privilege

stop assuming things about my thoughts, asshole.

seriously, it insinuates offensive things about anyone it is directed at. worse, it is entirely unproductive to the discussion. if you think something would be impacted differently based on their race/sex/orientation/whatever then we can talk about that. the fuck is anyone supposed to say to being told to check their privilege?

and that's just in theory. in practice, it is used to silence people for their race, sex, orientation, or what have you. we see it on TiA and TaR constantly, it justifies bigotry. fuck that with a railroad spike.

Andorian_Gray · 11時間前

It exists but to the degree everyone is insisting on what privilege even is anymore kind of ruins it.

Yeah, being white has its 'perks' and greatly decreases your chances of getting a speeding ticket or pulled over.

But it doesn't save you from going hungry, becoming homeless or getting sick. I had some idiot try and explain to me a mutual friend of ours, who had gone to bed hungry as a child, was still privileged because of his skin color.

Don't know about you but that's...real cold and narrow minded on her part.

So I disagree with it to the extent it gets used. People seem to have put whiteness on a pedestal and, with how they keep saying white privilege this, privilege that, it's apparently some magical shield that will keep you safe from EVERYTHING. Not only that they seem to, for whatever reason, think whites are the only ones with privilege.

Wanna know what'll really keep you safe from going hungry, suffering from illness, going homeless (or hell, as seen in Texas, troubles with the police)? Money.

Being white does have its benefits, I don't deny it. But people wanna use that as a way to just go LALALALALA and not address other problems that exist in this country. A rich non-white person has a sackton more privilege than I do.

awksomepenguin · 11時間前

It exists. The question is, is it a good framework for trying to understand "race relations" and as a lens through which we need to see everything. On both of those accounts, I would day no. Getting people to come to a position where everyone you encounter is a person worthy of respect simply because they are a person should be the goal. I try to keep my interpersonal interactions that way.

dermanus · 12時間前

I'm a Canadian citizen, but I think that still qualifies.

I agree with the academic concept of white privilege. There is a long history of racism that still effects us today. One part of that is that generally white people are seen as the 'default' race, with everyone else being a variation from that.

I have some quibbles with the words people use and some of the solutions offered to eliminate it, but the idea itself seems reasonable.

When I poke fun at it, it's at the incarnation used by silly keyboard warriors as a silencing tactic. It's funny to me because the people hurling it at others are completely blind to their own privileges.

yep45 · 11時間前

Depends on how you define privilege I guess.

MosDaf · 11時間前

In brief: there's no "white privilege. Rather, there are various kinds of discrimination, and one way that people are sometimes discriminated against is for being black or Asian or hispanic or whatever. In fact, people are sometimes--though less often--discriminated against for being white.
"White privilege" is a way of trying to take attention off of discrimination against e.g. blacks. But the real problems aren't "privilege" by non-blacks (note: not only whites.) If a problem is an illicit privilege, the problem can be solved by taking the privilege away. But e.g. the problem of disenfranchisement of black voters in the U.S. can't be solved by disenfranchising whites too. Cops hassling blacks is not solved by getting them to hassle whites at the same rate.
So "white privilege" is inaccurate, it misdescribes the real problem, and does this for the sole purpose of making whites feel guiltier than they already feel--that's the point of emphasizing some mythical white "privilege" instead of discrimination against non-whites.
Furthermore, it's just a stupid term. That nonsense about the "invisible backpack" and all that shit...jesus...what is this, kindergarten?
Finally, even though it's inaccurate, it's not completely and totally wrong... But it is tied up with a bunch of dopey and false theories. The term "white privilege" is, for example, strongly associated with the false theory that white gain from every act of discrimination against non-whites. But I gain nothing when innocent black people are hassled by the cops, or fail to get jobs they deserve, or can't vote. The term "white privilege" does't HAVE to be associated with this theory--but as a matter of fact it IS associated with that theory. And the theory is simply false.

Wylanderuk · 2時間前

Call it majority advantage or minority disadvantage or even just class advantage then I can get behind it to a degree, call it white privilege and I just zone the fuck out.

Granted I do not live in the USA, but I have always found the concept of "white privilege" to be stick that is used to beat people to make them feel bad.

abk006 · 2時間前

If people are being oppressed, then focus on raising them up. Don't use terms that implicitly shift the conversation to people who aren't oppressed. Beyond that, the entire reason that racial discrimination is bad is because race is something that you can't change that shouldn't make a difference. When you tell someone off because they haven't checked their (white) privilege, you're saying that they should feel bad for a trait that they can't change that shouldn't make a difference.

tl;dr: The concept of privilege is incompatible with an honest desire to end racism.

phaseMonkey · 1時間前

Whether it exists or not, the folks who complain or want to regulate "white privilege" want some extremely racist laws enacted to undo "white privilege."

All persons are equal. Enough said. Not more equal than others.

sneakygingertroll · 25分前

To a degree, yes.

It's not like a magical ticket to the good life, but it certainly has a few privileges.

A good example is the convince store owner following a black teenager around the store, but not the white teenager.

TotesMessenger · 1分前

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[/r/badsocialscience] TL;DR privilege doesn't exist, it's not my fault, stop blaming me!

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