And it really is quite comicaly badly written. THis part was brilliant:
I’m guessing he hasn’t spent long in Europe.
Indeed. No sports shops selling jogging suit bottoms? They’ll fit anyone.
That list could only have been written by an academic.
Some of the things she writes about are real. It must be incredibly frustrating to be a law abiding young black man in a store, where you’re automatically treated with much more suspicion than whites. It’s also true that a white youth who dresses down is going to be viewed as a typical young person while a black kid is often perceived as a thug. I’m surprised she didn’t mention the difficulty of getting a cab, which is a major source of frustration. And getting crap from law enforcement is a huge problem. But again she doesn’t really mention that.
Most of the complaints in her list are either related to money rather than race, or are completely silly.
- If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
Yes, it’s called the internet. Blacks blog too! I don’t think any publisher is going to print some random person’s list of things. If you get yours published it’s because you’re an academic, not because you’re white.
- If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
This is a problem for lower income people of any race, including poor whites.
- I can go into a… supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions…
Go on Peggy, please tell us what the staple foods that fit Black American’s cultural traditions are. Spare no details!
Like **chiroptera **said, the list was written in 1988–before the internet was available to home users. The article author actually published it in a print publication.
Lower-income people are disproportionately non-white in America.
It’s not just about black people. It’s about non-white people. Indian folks would have been hard-pressed to find curry in the average supermarket in 1988, among many other examples. Nowadays, of course, the average Walmart carries a lot of this stuff in their world foods aisle, but things were different 23 years ago.
You’re taking the article far out of the period/context in which it was written. You also are assuming that non-white automatically equals black. Sure, the list is out of date. Does that mean the concept isn’t worth thinking about? Arguing about petty non-applicable bullshit detracts from the overall message and is counterproductive.
I have to admit I didn’t notice the date of the piece. But in 1988, a non-white academic would still have a much better chance of getting a piece like that published in a journal than a white non-academic.
Yes. And? Your ability to find an optimal place to live has to do much more with your money than your race. I don’t see anyone not selling a wealthy Black (non-white, whatever) person a nice home in 1988. And if they did, they’d be sued so fast their head would spin.
Sure but that’s true of anyone moving to a new place with a different culture. It’s hardly a matter of “injustice” or “privilege.” I think white immigrants from, say, Hungary or Serbia would have had just as many problems as people from India and Eritrea in this area. And even in 1988, there were immigrant clusters in most major citie, where enterprising immigrants imported their homeland’s foods and clothes
It was written in 1988 not 1928. It’s not that long ago. And if the list is full of petty bullshit, then that’s a problem with the list, isn’t it?
:D, that seems to be a massive issue on this whole subject, lack of experience :D.
This does bring up one critical point actually, where has the US come from and where is it going. I’d say a country that is actively trying to improve itself deserves a couple extra points than one that’s not. There may be less racist countries out there [cite still needed], but if they aren’t trying to become less racist and just stagnant, they can’t really get an “A” for effort, can they?
I have to say, I should have guessed from the article’s tone when it was written. The late 80s-early 90s were the height of PC inanity, which has mostly been laughed out of esistence.
Still surprised she didn’t mention hailing a cab, which was a lot worse then than it is now. I saw series of cabs passing well dressed black people without stopping. It was blatant and shocking.
Of course, this raises another question: how many big city cab drivers are white?
In my experience, not that many. Not any more. So, we must conclude that there are a lot of non-white cab drivers who are afraid to pick up non-white patrons.
Why do you suppose that is? Are they all racists?
I can’t speak for most other cities, but in DC most of the cabbies were and are recent African immigrants, who don’t have a lot in common culturally with Native African-Americans. I suppose technically you’d say it was bigotry rather than racism. Still it was a lot easier to hail a cab if you were white or asian than if you were black.
I seriously doubt that it’s fear, if they were passing up well-dressed black folks as well. More likely, white people in the typical cabby’s experience are, on average, better tippers than black people. Better enough that it’s worth skipping a black fare and spending a couple extra minutes to find a white one.
You can say that pointing this out is racist, if you want. But on the large scale, white Americans are more generous tippers than black Americans.
I’ve stared a new thread on 'Which is the least racist country on the planet?" in GD here http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14416618#post14416618
I am currently living in China.
Most Chinese men and women have smaller hands and feet, so just finding gloves or shoes that fit my larger hands and feet may take all day.
Most Chinese are thinner than Western people, so finding pants or shorts with a 36" waist can sometimes be very difficult. I have a 42" chest, and most shirts and jackets do not fit me.
Most Chinese people have flat butts, so finding pants that fit a Western persons rounder butt can also be difficult.
Finding clothes that are all cotton can be difficult, most clothes seem to be made of a blend or all polyester. Even buying underwear can be difficult as most of it is too small and made of a cotton/polyester blend, not 100% cotton.
Chinese women have smaller bodies and breasts, so buying bras can be very difficult for Western women.
Chinese shopkeepers tend to laugh and mock you when you ask for larger sizes.
All in all, for many Western people it can be difficult buying clothes in China.
This is awesome, you do realize that this is break-off from a break-off thread, right? Pure epic epicness!!!
We really are that exceptional, intellectually dishonest attempts to cherry-pick a few specific locales that aren’t representative of the big picture notwithstanding. In fact, since the census does ask about race/ethnicity I can tell you exactly how exceptional we are: 34.9% of the population reports identification with a minority race/ethnic group (Cite: U.S. Census). Now we can argue about what defines race all day, but however you want to slice it, I defy you to show me another country on Earth that can claim that kind of ethnic diversity.
China. And I wear, I swear to God, a size 4. I was looking for a pair of jeans- jogging pants are not really acceptable outside of the sports field for women in small-city China and wouldn’t have gotten me through the rest of my vacation (dinners, clubbing, museums, etc.) I’ve spent a long time wondering where the hell large Chinese women get their clothes- they must have to go to specialities stores in the big city or order online or something.
One of my favorite moments was going to a hot springs that offered cheap disposable swimsuits. I went up to the counter (remember- I’m about this size) and the lady at the counter looked paniced for a moment and screwed up her face in thought. Then, she had a revelation and went rummaging through a long forgotten drawer in the back of the counter. She triumphantly pulled out my swimsuit…an XXXL.
It fit perfectly, although the torso was a bit short.
Well, according to this study, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium have us beat, and that’s just in the West. It appears much of Eastern Europe, as well as India, Papua New Guinea, the United Arab Emirates, Bolivia, and some sub-Saharan African countries are more diverse, as well.
People seem to forget about the Deep South when making these far-reaching claims about racial tolerance in the US. Multiculturality is a reality in a lot of places, but it’s not nearly universal. The US is a big fuckin’ country!
And even in places that seem well-integrated, there are still some insulated pockets of whiteness. Hell, I grew up between Chicago and Gary, and there were only three black kids in my entire high school. And they were all siblings.
I think one reason why many people are uncomfortable with “privilege” arguments is that they really aren’t falsifiable. If a member of Group Y tries to dispute Group Y privilege or offers counterfactual examples, their attempt may be dismissed as racism, sexism, willful ignorance or insensitivity. The veracity of their claims regarding Group Y privilege, then, aren’t based on how verifiable the claims are but on the disputer’s membership in Group Y.
To be sure, “non-falsifiable” doesn’t mean “false”. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that white privilege does exist in varying degrees in different places. But it’s very difficult to talk about intersubjectively.
In the original list of 50 daily effects, I was a little put off by the writer’s assumption of rigid and pre-determined boundaries between “races”. Her statement “I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented” is problematic, because what does she consider the music of her race? Music performed by someone of her race? Songs written by someone of her race?
If this was a game thread, lew_cody may have just won. That’s the most intelligent thing I’ve ever seen on this subject, while seemingly obvious that it’s different everywhere and every person will feel a certain way based on their experience in their area or places they’ve been, people do forget that somewhere else it’s completely the opposite. It’s extremely hard to define anything unless you have all the facts, somebody who’s lived in a multicultural area all their life will have trouble believing that racism is even an issue anymore, while someone who has lived in a place that has more people of a certain race will feel that it’s still a problem (depending on their veiws on it as well, all factors must be examined).
I grew up in an all white neighborhood, yet simply because I didn’t know anything about racism, I had no idea that it even existed until I was told about it. I just veiwed other races as people, I never saw their skin color as anything strange, it was different, I knew that, but I never cared one way or the other. I think the first time I was even educated about racism is someone I knew told me some ludacris thing about blacks. Being a child I didn’t know any better, so I took their word on it, little did I know that this person was a racist. I strongly believe if the parents would stop spreading their racist hang-ups to their children, it would go a long way to ending the problem as a whole (of course, once again, if you’ve never seen someone of a different race, there’s still a strong chance that your first encounter will be the deciding point on whether you shun them or not). Variables must be considered always, and human nature is not to be counted on, we’re unmeasurable. If humanity would merely look at itself as just that, humanity, and accept that everyone’s different and there’s nothing wrong with it, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. It’s truly amazing to me that people can’t just get along, it’s disturbing actually, I promise, if you open us up, we all look the same (not accounting for size and weight of course :D).
I just want to point out here that, in my observation, the spelling “ludacris” has actually usurped the word’s proper spelling (“ludicrous”), thanks to Ludacris himself. I can’t even begin to recount the number of times I have seen the adjective spelled the same way as the rapper.