Shodan wanted me to prove that racism was a factor in police brutality against minorities, my links pointed to wide discrepanies in sentencing. I’ll admit its not the exact same thing, but I think sentencing ties very closely to arrests, police beatings, and other types of actions law enforcement performs against minorities that I included it.
How about the fact that guys like Arpaio is on record stating that he’ll pull over anyone he deems suspicious? That whole Arizona law that they passed but was blocked by a higher court allowed action against a person based solely on police discretion. The reason why it was blocked was partly because they were horribly abusing it on mainly brown-looking people. New York’s Stop and Frisk program operates on the same principle, the claim that black people commit more crimes. You can sit there naively and think that it has nothing to do with race, that its only because blacks are more likely to be criminals. Those of us who know better will point to the obvious and know that if you have the police focusing on a group more, of course they are going to be disproportionately deemed criminals.
Buzzfeed’s list, while simplistic, does in fact illustrate a grievous example of white privilege
Those two statements do not mean the same thing. Particularly when we are talking about how such things present themselves in real life. You are missing the point that the concept of White privilege exists to highlight discrimination against Blacks/minorities/etc.
That difference highlights why you example is incorrect. Being White is not what would get this person the job; what gets him the job is not being Black. It’s not the presence of an alleged positive (being White), but the absence of a negative (being Black). It may be phrased the way you said it as shorthand, but the implication is that there is anti-Black prejudice which affect the decision, not pro-White sentiment. This becomes more evident when you expand your hypo to include lots of people as you might see in a real interview process.
The flaw in your argument is your use of a red herring; it’s not making a claim about an assumption of racism, it’s making the claim of assuming someone is a terrorist.
This is true. When a white person does an act of terror, he’s a lone wolf, and the race/ethnic group (group being, white people) is NEVER demonized or socially damaged as a whole. Whites are NOT judged as a collective. If a Middle Eastern guy blew something up, for some strange reason, there’s this sociological urge to find a guy from his ethnic group to go on T.V. and do damage control, condemning the actions of the one, reminding people that THAT one guy doesn’t represent the whole. White people do not have to worry about that. Ever.
If the terrorist was white, excuses may even be given. He’s been hurt, he was never liked in school, mommy-daddy issues, etc. But you wouldn’t ever see anything that attacks the group, the mass, or the culture at large (like what Muslims suffer).
In the terms of America’s designated boogey-man – the black guy – if he does something crazy, THE GROUP TAKES THE HIT. The music will be judged, the culture will be judged, etc.
In this one, the exemption is that fact that the white guy doesn’t have to worry about one random joe ruining for the rest of the whites.
Blacks have to worry about other blacks ruining for the rest of the blacks, and every other minority the same.
There is no such implication. That might be an inference that a few people will choose to take away from it, (Der Trihs, for example), but it has never been a claim associated with anyone who actually studied the phenomenon of white privilege. White privilege simply means that a recruiter or boss will not simply discount a white’s application as soon as they recognize that the applicant is white. The white guy still has to provide the requisite qualifications and demonstrate that he has the skills matching the job. In contrast, it does happen, (thankfully less and less frequently), that a black will be dropped from consideration because he is black.
Not really. There are rarely situations where only two candidates apply. The blacks can be eliminated by skin color without any specific white guy getting the job. Eliminating the black applicants simply leaves the field open for the white applicants to compete with each other without having to compete against the blacks. The white guy does not get the job for being white, he gets the job by meeting the selection criteria after the black competition has been eliminated.
They do not mean the same thing, as I have just demonstrated. That you wish to pretend they do is only a matter of you ignoring reality.
Yes, there is such an implication; that’s the kind of thing that the word “privilege” means for most people. And it’s not a “few” people; it’s most people. Just look at threads like this, and how people respond to it.
And few people have “studied the phenomenon of white privilege”. Most people don’t use the word privilege like you are trying to use it, and aren’t going to hear it like that. It’s simply a poorly chosen word for its claimed purpose.
I am really curious what odd spin you are putting on the word privilege. While I am not a big fan of dueling dictionaries, I find the following from the on-line Merriam-Webster pretty neutral:
Three separate usages, each with its own connotation. You want to pretend that only the third definition is useful or even in use, when that is clearly not so. A benefit given to some people and not to others is a straightforward meaning. The third definition derives from it, but is hardly the whole of the meaning.
Being white confers the benefit of being less hassled, not coming under undue suspicion as often, and a host of other benefits.
When someone points at some person and accuses them of being privileged, they are going to be perceived as using the third meaning, even if they don’t mean it that way (but they usually do) even if the target isn’t actually wealthy and powerful. It’s nearly always used as a way of saying “you have no right to speak, and are a parasite on society undeserving of consideration, sympathy or respect”.
About the only time I see it defined the way you are trying to, is by people trying to defend its usage in conversations like this one. Then when that conversation is over, everyone goes back to using it as a rhetorical club to shut people up.
And again, the reactions to the term seen in threads like this one simply underline my point. Where you like it or not, whether it’s right or not, it’s taken by its targets the way I define it, not the way you define it. As an insult and a dismissal.
Then you should stop pointing at people and telling them that they are privileged. That seems easy enough.
I rarely see that construction. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone not rich being accused of “being privileged.” (I don’t tend to read a lot of Far Left rhetoric.) It is much more common to see the phrase, without the participle and never in the second person, offered up as a discussion point. The next most common usage is for someone to use it to identify their own status in society.
Acting as though the reality should never be discussed because a minority of fringe political writers have used it a few times in polemics is silly.
Never use Merriam-Webster in an argument. The dictionary that adds incorrect definitions like “in effect” for “literally” isn’t much better than “my post is my cite”.
I read a sympathetic article about Timothy McVeigh by Gore Vidal. But I don’t remember too many excuses being tossed around. What I remember about him was that he was classified as a right wing, pro-gun, militia supporter, white supremacist.
What non-White urban terrorists like the guy who committed the Virginia Tech massacre? I remember reading plenty excuses about him, just like what you described.
And when it comes to Islamic terrorists I have not read too many about individuals, except for the guy who killed a soldier in the UK and was videotaped. Supposedly he was tortured in the country where he was born, and he was a good person etc. However, I have heard plenty excuses of why Islamic terrorists commit murder. Conservatives like Dinesh D’Souza says it’s because OUR society is depraved that it’s viewed as a threat and pushes moderate Muslims to become extremists. I’ve also heard liberal thinkers say it’s because we interfere too much in the Middle East or because we support Israel.
I remember music and entertainment being judged for many shootings committed by whites.
Is that what people see when looking at that singer? Because he seems like every other young pop star who wants to shed their previous wholesome image.
It doesn’t look like “thug” to me. He looks more like he just wants to look more like the bad boy image, slightly. Just like Miley wants to push the bad girl image.
Who really thinks of “black” as a stereotype still? I think it’s only the older crowd who thinks like this. When I see those Justin Bieber photos I think maybe I would say his style is Hip-Hop fashion, and even then the whole youthful fashion style has been a big mix of everything: hip-hop, preppy, hipster, weird 80s shit. Everybody is dressing like everybody else these days. But you have people on TV like Sharon Osbourne criticizing Justin Bieber saying, “I think he doesn’t realize he’s white and not black, that’s a huge problem.” Just look at the article itself saying that he’s “acting black” reinforcing the stereotype they’re criticizing.
I’m not sure I understand the point of focusing on the concept of white privilege. It seems to be a way of directing anger at anyone with white skin, rather than just actual racist a-holes. Of course, this post will, most likely, be dismissed because I’m a SWM, and my opinion must be lumped in with all other SWMs, despite item #12 on the list (White privilege means not being affected by negative stereotypes that have been perpetuated and ingrained so much into American society that people believe them to be fact.)
Racism is racism. Assuming a teenager in a hoody is a thug because of the color of his skin is wrong, but so is marginalizing the opinions or individual accomplishments of a group of people based on their white skin.
Actually, it is not. The whole point of noting white privilege is to refrain from being angry at white people or claiming that all white people are racist. It is intended to point out ways in which the overall society continues to perpetuate a number of unconscious beliefs or choices so that, calling attention to them, we can choose to do away with them.
It may have been an unfortunate choice of words, given the response of people who confuse the meaning “you get away with stuff because you are rich” with the actual meaning of “some people receive benefits by reason of their ethnicity,” but no one has come up with an alternative phrase. The point is that all of society–including every ethnic group–has developed a number of beliefs about the dominant ethnic group that colors most people’s perceptions of the behavior of others. The point of discussing “white privilege” is not to cast blame on anyone, but to ask everyone to consider a number of unconsidered beliefs and reactions so as to give everyone in society the same benefits.
Spoken just like what a SWM would be expected to say! Don’t you understand that the only way to defeat racism is to embrace it? To deny racism in yourself is to promulgate it.
The point is that all of society–including every ethnic group–has developed a number of beliefs about the dominant ethnic group that colors most people’s perceptions of the behavior of others. /QUOTE]
But isn’t that the definition of racism? In most societies, the dominant ethnic group develops beliefs about minority groups as well. That doesn’t make such assumptions correct.
It was my understanding that the person who wrote the Buzzfeed article was complaining about being identified not as an individual, but as a member of a group with all of the generalizations associated with that group automatically attributed to that individual. I can associate with that. I just can’t see the benefit of accepting that way of thinking when it applies to the majority ethnic group in a society. In my mind, it’s still racism.
No, you’re missing the point. We are not talking about discrimination against Blacks/minorities/etc/.
There were 17 items noted in that list. Others no doubt deal with discrimination. The one being discussed here and to which I addressed my comments was about frustration when people assume your achievements may have been assisted by affirmative action. I juxtaposed that with a poster’s statement that he had no clue as to why anyone should be upset at the suggestion of white privilege.
In that particular context, your distinction is moot and the two statements mean the same thing.
This is at best a weaselly statement. You’re claiming that only “a few people” choose to make this inference and that these are not people who “have actually studied the phenomenon”. How could anyone argue with that? How few is “few”? What does “studied the phenomenon” mean?
I say there are a lot of people who say that, and that whether these people have “studied the phenomenon” is completely irrelevant to whether people should be upset at this inference.
I was the one who pointed this out earlier, in the very post you were responding to, so I’m not sure what your point is. Yes, that’s more frequently the case, but not always, which is why you more frequently hear it expressed that way, but it’s the same thing.
Put another way, more broadly, “I had to work harder because I’m black” is the exact same thing as “you did not have to work as hard because you’re white”. Both statements are relative to each other. The first means “I had to work harder [than whites]”. The second means “you did not have to work as hard [as blacks]”. They are different ways of expressing the same thing.
Anyone who says otherwise is being willfully obtuse.