That’s the thing- our “mainstream” is specifically a white mainstream. Love Actually is a “mainstream” movie, while “Think Like a Man” is a specialty film. Taking on the “mainstream” means doing things that are specifically associated with US white culture.
I’ll just add on to everyone noting that most of the people complaining about the term don’t know what it means.
Yeah, I don’t get what’s supposed to be offensive about acknowledging the obvious. “All other things being equal, being white will make your life easier than being not-white.” seems like kind of a no-brainer. I will, in fact, take a stand that anyone complaining about how haaaaaard they have it as a white person is a whiny loser.
It’s not personal, and it’s certainly not about blaming you personally. Get over yourself for a goddamned second.
The bolded part is absolutely what a lot of people have trouble with. You try to describe white privilege, and they instantly start thinking of white homeless guys and rich black guys, when what they should be thinking of is white homeless guys and black homeless guys, or white rich guys and black rich guys.
Take two people in the same strata of life, and the non-white or the female of the two will have had a harder time of it than the white guy. The white homeless guy will be given the benefit of the doubt in some areas the black guy wouldn’t. The middle class white woman or black guy will have had to work harder to achieve her or his middle management position than the middle class white guy.
It is precisely the same situation, in fact, as when people get upset about Romney saying something clueless that shows how he grew up in a rich environment and clearly doesn’t understand what it means to be poor or lower middle class. Wealth, race, gender, and other factors can all contribute to privilege.
The whole concept of privilege is intended to try to make people think more consciously about the things they take for granted and how they’re being denied or restricted to others. You’re not evil for enjoying those privileges, but you might be kind of a dick for assuming everyone enjoys them the same as you.
What about White Privilege on the SDMB? I’m sure you don’t have to worry about monthly threads about how stupid, violent, and unintelligent your race is. You don’t have to worry about a single news item about white murderer, molester, or psychopath devolving into the orgy of cites on single-parent households in Appalachia compared to the rest of the United States nor does it involve discussion on whether white music or culture inevitably led to the crime. Nope, not at all. You discuss the crime on its merits and the merits alone. You get to glide through these forums as the paradigm on a pedestal to which all other culture is compared to. Pity the young, impressionable minority that come to these forums coming to get the Straight Dope on race.
Now, as for the homeless white guy. I feel sorry for him. I don’t blame his culture, his family line’s single-parent household ratio nor his family’s scoring on standardized testing. I don’t think that because someone is white that they are somehow immune to hardship. With all things being equal, I suspect a homeless white guy will likely have a better life than a homeless black guy. Your mileage may vary, however.
- Honesty
White/straight/cis/etc privilege certainly exists, but class privilege trumps all.
This “privilege” thing cuts both ways. I can get a 10% discount using my White Privilege Card at Bob Evans’, but if I show it at Church’s Chicken they add 10% onto the bill. 
if so many people are getting confused about what it means, maybe they picked the wrong term
That’s just a theory.
it’s not a theory that many people get confused about the term
I’m sorry, but that’s a silly idea. Should creationists’ confusion about the meaning of natural selection mean that biologists should change their word, or is it everyone’s responsibility to understand the terms they use?
I absolutely think there are people who like the concept and term “privilege” who misuse it, as my story demonstrates. But that’s not on the term, and that’s not on the people who use it correctly. It’s a very useful term when used correctly.
No; it suggests that talking about “white privilege” makes people sound like they are deeply racist against whites. Regardless of its academic meeting, most people who hear it are going to get the impression that you are delusional and think that white people all live in mansions. “White privilege” sounds like a threat, like a call for a race war; like you think that the white guy who is just barely scraping by or worse deserves to be punished just for being white. To any white who isn’t living in a mansion, it sounds like you want to do something like send cops or soldiers to confiscate all their property & money, kick them out of their home and hand it over to a random non-white.
Because it’s being used in arguments intended to convince people that there are social justice issues that need to be addressed, and it’s doing the opposite. It makes me think of that atheist group that called itself “the Brights”.
So, some white homeless guy who is missing his legs is a “whiny loser”? You may not have meant it that way - but that’s the way it comes across.
You want sympathy from the great majority of white people, then talk in terms of mistreatment of non-whites. Don’t sneer at the vast multitude of white people, don’t go and talk about how you have no sympathy for them; you might as well be holding up a sign that says “I Hate You And Am Your Enemy”, even if you don’t and aren’t. Don’t talk about “privilege”, unless you are pointing at people who are privileged in the sense that the vast majority of people use the term; talk about fairness.
It’s not only a useful term, it’s an extremely straightforward one. Most of the times it’s used, it’s used to mean exactly what you would expect it to mean if you just used a dictionary. All the talk about how it gets “misunderstood” really just means that a lot of people enjoy redefining it so they can be a victim of it.
Creationists deliberately distort scientific terms, they aren’t just misunderstanding them. It’s not the same thing at all. And the primary purpose about talking about “white privilege” is to convince people that social change is necessary, which means that the fact that most people misunderstand it means that it’s a bad term to use. You might as well start up a group officially dedicated to racial equality, name it the White People Are Scum Foundation, and act surprised and offended when people misunderstand you because you are using some academic definition of “scum” that is the opposite of how everyone else uses it.
And the primary purpose of the term “natural selection” on the other hand is to serve as a technical term in biology; nor is it anywhere near as easy to misunderstand.
At the point where you say that “white privilege sounds like a threat, like a call for a race war,” you’ve lost any ground from which you may criticize creationists for distortion of terms.
Only to someone determined to be a whiny loser.
Or to the white homeless guy in question.
to tell you the truth, i disagree with you, i think it is misleading and confusing and gets a lot of white people defensive when a less threatening term would work better, but, i am disagreeing with you, not arguing with you. i just wanted to find out what people’s opinions are because i am trying to make sense of it all for myself.
So we are the ones who have to be PC in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings now?
do you really think this type of decisiveness helps? You’re essentially calling me a whiny loser when I am saying I’d like to be more aware on this topic but I’m having trouble. There are people, the rush limbaugh types, but please don’t say that I am like him.