The user ServetusM made an excellent post on this topic....

"The whole concept of 'white privilege' is the exact type of ideological taxonomy Mao used to vilify people (Except he tended to use social status over ethnicity, but when you hear people discuss what 'whiteness' is, you realize that it's often used the same way in America). In fact, many of the terms Mao used for counter-revolutionaries roughly translate into the English concept 'privilege' or various forms or another. It is a kind of labeling system seen broadly in witch hunter scenarios, a flexible label that can single handily reduce someone's position in another person's eyes and reduce any arguments they make to being simply propaganda from people looking to protect their 'privilege' (Or ideology).

It's a very Kafka esque branding technique, if you are privileged and argue you aren't, it's only because you're afraid of admitting and losing it. Like if a Bourgeois in the cultural revolution argued against the methods, it's because he wants to keep his unjust wealth, or if he argued he wasn't a Bourgeois, it only proved he was because he was arguing against the revolutionaries! (And only a Bourgeois would do that). Or if a Communist in the U.S. argued during the McCarthy era, it's because he wanted to protect his subversive friends, and if he said he wasn't a Communist and was arguing because it was the right thing to do, it meant he obviously was a Communist because who else would argue with the very American Anti-American activities committee! It's a very old method to quickly side step rational critique by labeling the person, and having the label be set up so arguing against it proves it.

The whole recent PC movement has very troubling similarities with the cultural revolution; or at least the rhetoric which began it. Easy hatred for those perceived to be in power (Even if most of them aren't, they simply share a trait with those that are--like professors and political/business leaders both being educated, so obviously both are part of the same evil ruling class), a large label for those who seem to benefit from power (Even if most do not) and most of all (By far the most important) a scape goat for demagogues to blame difficult issues on. Something easy for the common person to digest, something easy to identify with and make out. (Really important when you're controlling a mob--you don't want to give the other person a chance to be a human, having a label that is quick to dispense and easy to ID makes it far easier for the mob to prevent the target from speaking.)

The point being that things like the cultural revolution rely on the market place of ideas being closed. "White privilege" is a concept Mao himself would have enjoyed a great deal, because it quickly distills a complex set of social issues down to 'this group is bad, don't discuss things with them' (Even if the rhetoric around it says people shouldn't feel bad about their privilege--the way it's used in conversation is almost always meant to disrupt and shut down the conversation, or make the observations of those with privileged less poignant, less empathetic). This is the problem with broad labels--in reality, some people were just bad, or willfully mislead others, 'white privilege' had nothing to do with it, it was based purely on ideological sympathies overruling empirical reality, which happens for every ideology; from Catholicism to Communism to Fascism (But this is another troubling similarity with the modern PC movement, that feelings towards things>>empirical evidence, which is a tactic Mao also liked to use, because it made it even easier to facilitate the above, where people can brush aside the empirical reality in order to defend their ideology, because it 'feels' right. And making people 'feel' good with righteous indignation is very easy, and a great way to manipulate a mob.)"