What was that about white privilege not existing?

[Ferno]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 3115000852

[Tunnelcat]

http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-10-04

[Spidey]

My entire problem with this issue is the choice of the word privilege, instead of advantage, it almost seems like the word choice is meant to induce guilt.

I have known for a long time that it’s an advantage being white in this country, but I have never felt this so called privilege…never once.

But that being said…there is definitely privilege in this society, example:

I worked 15 years to pay off my house so I could live in a nice place, but the lady next door has the “privilege” to live here via section 8 housing, and has 4 kids in public school even though she does not pay any real estate taxes.

So yea, you can have all of the experiments, and wonder why people resent the word privilege to the cows come home.

[Lothar]

The only explanation of "privilege" I've ever heard that wasn't cringe-worthy was someone talking about how it's like playing a video game on different difficulty settings. Playing as "white" gives you fewer random encounters with police, and most of the outcomes of those encounters are better. Stuff like that.

[callmeslick]

The only explanation of "privilege" I've ever heard that wasn't cringe-worthy was someone talking about how it's like playing a video game on different difficulty settings. Playing as "white" gives you fewer random encounters with police, and most of the outcomes of those encounters are better. Stuff like that.

droll, but inaccurate. More accurate would be a mile horse race, with the white horses starting from the 7/8 pole. Sure, a rare non-white horse will catch up, but most don't have a chance.

[Lothar]

The only explanation of "privilege" I've ever heard that wasn't cringe-worthy was someone talking about how it's like playing a video game on different difficulty settings. Playing as "white" gives you fewer random encounters with police, and most of the outcomes of those encounters are better. Stuff like that.

droll, but inaccurate. More accurate would be a mile horse race, with the white horses starting from the 7/8 pole. Sure, a rare non-white horse will catch up, but most don't have a chance.

And there's one of those cringe-worthy explanations, right on cue.

There certainly are those who start with considerable extras. Bonus starting wealth, bonus employment connections, etc. It's like playing on easy mode. You can still lose if you're a total moron, but most people who start with those bonuses do pretty well. But most white people don't start with advantages that could reasonably be described as equivalent to the 7/8 pole. Those are the rare ones.

[Tunnelcat]

My entire problem with this issue is the choice of the word privilege, instead of advantage, it almost seems like the word choice is meant to induce guilt.

I have known for a long time that it’s an advantage being white in this country, but I have never felt this so called privilege…never once.

But that being said…there is definitely privilege in this society, example:

I worked 15 years to pay off my house so I could live in a nice place, but the lady next door has the “privilege” to live here via section 8 housing, and has 4 kids in public school even though she does not pay any real estate taxes.

So yea, you can have all of the experiments, and wonder why people resent the word privilege to the cows come home.

What would you rather see? This woman on the streets homeless in your neighborhood, her kids stealing from you or your neighbors to survive OR her actually living in a house and her kids going to school maybe learning something and hopefully ending up as more productive taxpaying members of society? Not everyone is as fortunate as many of us in life.

Or maybe, we should just have all poor women's tubes tied, so they don't breed and end up on the public dole with lots of fatherless kids in the first place, suckling off all your hard work.

[callmeslick]

The only explanation of "privilege" I've ever heard that wasn't cringe-worthy was someone talking about how it's like playing a video game on different difficulty settings. Playing as "white" gives you fewer random encounters with police, and most of the outcomes of those encounters are better. Stuff like that.

droll, but inaccurate. More accurate would be a mile horse race, with the white horses starting from the 7/8 pole. Sure, a rare non-white horse will catch up, but most don't have a chance.

And there's one of those cringe-worthy explanations, right on cue.

There certainly are those who start with considerable extras. Bonus starting wealth, bonus employment connections, etc. It's like playing on easy mode. You can still lose if you're a total moron, but most people who start with those bonuses do pretty well. But most white people don't start with advantages that could reasonably be described as equivalent to the 7/8 pole. Those are the rare ones.

too bad you see it that way(cringeworthy), but the fact remains that your analogy amounts to the same thing at the end of the day. I just don't view the start point as being equal which your gameplay scenario would presume.

[Spidey]

My entire problem with this issue is the choice of the word privilege, instead of advantage, it almost seems like the word choice is meant to induce guilt.

I have known for a long time that it’s an advantage being white in this country, but I have never felt this so called privilege…never once.

But that being said…there is definitely privilege in this society, example:

I worked 15 years to pay off my house so I could live in a nice place, but the lady next door has the “privilege” to live here via section 8 housing, and has 4 kids in public school even though she does not pay any real estate taxes.

So yea, you can have all of the experiments, and wonder why people resent the word privilege to the cows come home.

What would you rather see? This woman on the streets homeless in your neighborhood, her kids stealing from you or your neighbors to survive OR her actually living in a house and her kids going to school maybe learning something and hopefully ending up as more productive taxpaying members of society? Not everyone is as fortunate as many of us in life.

Or maybe, we should just have all poor women's tubes tied, so they don't breed and end up on the public dole with lots of fatherless kids in the first place, suckling off all your hard work.

Wow, you sure are reading a lot into what I said. All I did was point out an example of actual privilege…nothing more.

[Lothar]

What the video game scenario shows is that privilege can take many forms. You can start with better gear or boosted stats, which makes it easier to get more better gear, which pretty much puts you ahead of the curve for the whole game -- there's no presumption of an equal start point. There's also no presumption of an unequal start point, as you can start with the same crappy gear, but certain encounters are nerfed because you're a dwarf so the dwarves and gnomes in the mines are all peaceful. Sometimes privilege manifests in the difficulty of certain paths, not in how far along the starting point is. Anybody can get lucky and find Grayswandir lying on the ground on level 3, but only some classes have the background training to be proficient in its use, and others will have to go through a resource-consuming process just to get to the basic level. Some people have a list of all the secret locations, so they always have extra ammo and armor relative to someone who has to figure out the secrets for themselves and misses a lot of them. Some people might have a whole bunch of advantages, but none of them happen to be relevant for the level 7 boss fight, so when it's just as hard for them as for someone "disadvantaged" they're likely to question the whole concept of "privilege" because it's been so badly explained to them through so many cringe-worthy analogies.

People can have advantages or disadvantages due to parental wealth, race and perceived race (5:45 video 3), physical traits including gender, mental traits including mental illnesses or disabilities, and so on. Some of those advantages or disadvantages will come in to play constantly; others will only show up on rare occasions. Bad analogies (like the 7/8 pole) make it sound like advantages can only take the form of "starting way ahead", and such analogies make conversation very difficult with those who for example started in deep poverty but who have advantages in social interactions.

Communicating the concept of "privilege" badly is counterproductive. It sabotages conversation. When you treat a poor white guy like he has the privilege of a rich white guy, the conversation is going to turn defensive and argumentative. When you treat an autistic white guy like all of his social interactions with cops are going to go smoothly, when he's actually been beaten and arrested for "acting suspicious", he's going to react negatively to comments about privilege in the future. When Spidey points out a form of privilege granted to his next-door neighbor and people act like he just made a personal attack and they need to defend his neighbor, this makes it appear as though the concept of "privilege" is just a way to attack people, and not an actual worthwhile topic of conversation. The net result of communicating badly is that people "react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon" to inaccurate, accusatory, non-insightful statements about privilege, and the only way to fix that is to communicate better, which may require you to get a better handle on the issue yourself.

We need an approach that "won't cause blame, shame, any of those things, [but] will just allow us to move forward as human beings". That is so often missing in conversations about "privilege", because people so often intend the word as an attack, as a way to blame, and do not empathize with those they are accusing. If we hope to accomplish anything of value in these conversations, we have to move beyond that. We have to understand privilege, not as a way to devalue straight white males, but as a complex series of factors that lead to advantages in specific areas. We have to respond, not by blaming or shaming or attacking those with privilege, but by striving for equity -- giving extra help to those who need it now, so that as they continue in life they have the opportunity to be successful. Spidey's neighbor provides a great example -- she has four kids who have some disadvantages, through no fault of their own. Those kids will need different resources to help them get through school than my son, as we're financially stable but he has certain social disadvantages connected to autism. This means granting her kids, or my son, privileges others don't have in order to offset certain disadvantages. If that sentence implies shame, blame, attacking, or negativity to you, you need to reconsider your own thought process as it relates to privilege. It shouldn't be about shame, blame, attacking, or negativity, but about recognizing disadvantages, empathizing, and creating equitable situations by directing help where it's needed.

[Foil]

What I find utterly interesting about this thread is that in some ways, it's reflective of the study linked in the original post.

[ For those who didn't look at the study: Despite the thread title, the linked study was not about the existence of white privilege. The study was primarily about how white folk react to evidence of it, and how they try to explain it. ]

...So, carry on.

[woodchip]

What I have a problem with is the term "white privilege ". I think some people think if you are white you automatically privileged. Hardly the case. There are millions of whites who are just as impoverished as black people. Are there more whites that have a leg up on blacks? Sure are. Are there lots of blacks that have a leg up on whites? Yup. Do I need to show the advantages that being black gives you? Or should I start a thread about black privilage?

[Tunnelcat]

I worked 15 years to pay off my house so I could live in a nice place, but the lady next door has the “privilege” to live here via section 8 housing, and has 4 kids in public school even though she does not pay any real estate taxes.

Wow, you sure are reading a lot into what I said. All I did was point out an example of actual privilege…nothing more.

Uh huh. I read "resentment" in that first statement. Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it sounds like you resent that poor woman, who's been given a break when you never needed one yourself because you worked hard, indicates that you don't think she deserves it from the sound of things. I'd like you to tell me how being poor and being supplied a house on the public dole to live in is "privilege". If it were me in that situation, I'd say it royally sucks to have to receive public housing assistance, but I'd thank the government for helping me out when I stumbled financially and needed help getting back on my feet. It's sure as hell better than the alternative, living on the streets and stealing to survive.

[Spidey]

You may have read resentment in that statement, but that doesn’t mean I would respond in the way you implied.

You must figure me as some kind of monster.

[Tunnelcat]

You may have read resentment in that statement, but that doesn’t mean I would respond in the way you implied.

You must figure me as some kind of monster.

Good grief no. I'd just like to know why you think the woman you've been referring to in your posts has "privilege" because she's having to live in section 8 housing?

[Spidey]

A synonym for privilege is entitlement…is it not? Anyway…

Just to make it clear, I don’t resent people for taking advantage of what’s available, I resent the system that creates so many people that need help.

[Tunnelcat]

Technically, you resent capitalism then, because if people don't work hard enough, or are unable to work, or lastly, refuse to work, they become burdens of the state, since private enterprise is not so charitable with it's money towards people who do not put out 100% or more into the system. So say someone refuses to work and leaches off the state, which is what rankles most people and does happen quite a bit, what would you suggest a government do about those people? Throwing them out on the street only creates a huge problem for those who DO work hard, like you, in the form of theft, panhandling, prostitution or drug dealing. For the record, I have no ideas myself either.

[Spidey]

I don’t resent capitalism or government social programs, I resent the abuse of said systems, and the total mismanagement of said.

I once told the story of how corrupt landlords and corrupt government enabled the "great migrations" and the end result was to destroy entire areas using a device called block busting...

[Tunnelcat]

Well, you're right there, but how do we stop the abuse? It's no different than any other crime or graft that been committed by people in high places despite laws and rules to the contrary, for all eternity. We're our own worst enemy. But not everyone is crooked. Some people truly do fall through the cracks and need help. It's the crooks that screw it up for them too.

[Top Gun]

What I have a problem with is the term "white privilege ". I think some people think if you are white you automatically privileged. Hardly the case. There are millions of whites who are just as impoverished as black people. Are there more whites that have a leg up on blacks? Sure are. Are there lots of blacks that have a leg up on whites? Yup. Do I need to show the advantages that being black gives you? Or should I start a thread about black privilage?

I look forward to your cogent research with unbridled anticipation.

[Lothar]

nice of you all to address my thoughtful post

[woodchip]

What I have a problem with is the term "white privilege ". I think some people think if you are white you automatically privileged. Hardly the case. There are millions of whites who are just as impoverished as black people. Are there more whites that have a leg up on blacks? Sure are. Are there lots of blacks that have a leg up on whites? Yup. Do I need to show the advantages that being black gives you? Or should I start a thread about black privilage?

I look forward to your cogent research with unbridled anticipation.

Well here's 2 areas I don't even have to research...college admissions and civil service exams.

[callmeslick]

Well here's 2 areas I don't even have to research...college admissions and civil service exams.

so, after a childhood of relataive poverty, relatively poor education and higher overall instability of living situations, and with the tests proven to be less than demographically neutral, giving someone a break at the point of adulthood on an exam is 'privilege'? Maybe you SHOULD have bothered doing some research, as that assertion is laughable.

[woodchip]

It wasn't laughable to the white kids and adults that got screwed by a less capable person.

[Lothar]

nice of you all to address my thoughtful post

[callmeslick]

It wasn't laughable to the white kids and adults that got screwed by a less capable person.

the testing and hiring is a projection of how capable that person will be over a career, or a 4-year college education, the exact levels at the outset are irrelevant, for the reasons I laid out. So, no one is getting 'screwed'. It's just that folks with a racist or other agenda that runs afoul of attempts at fairness(note, the word attempts, no one is promising perfection) want to TELL people they were screwed.

[Ferno]

nice of you all to address my thoughtful post

feeling a little snarky, are we?