A lack of a disadvantage can translate into an affirmative advatnage in many cases. You can’t blame white people for a society that is built for white people but there is way too much resistance to acknowledging that it exists. Perhaps the phrase white privilege is the cuplrit but I can’t think of a less offensive label to describe the positive effects of being white in a white normalized society.
As an Asian male, I have been pulled over several times and the cops draw their weapons and then put them away when they see me, even if I’m with a black guy.
Academically, the Asian stereotype doesn’t really help that much. Academics are still fairly test driven so academically poor Asians are at no advantage over academically poor whites. However academically exceptional whites seem to have an advantage over academically exceptional Asians. At least in college admissions.
There is some zero sum game mentality and when it comes to societal allocation of resources and opportunity, its sorta true. When it comes to police harassment, not so much. There is not a quota of police harassment that has to be doled out that will result in more harassment of whites if there is less harassment of blacks.
What phrase would you suggest?
I think the problem is that until people recognize that it exists it can never be addressed.
Something like “structural racism” or “societal unfairness”. Making it clear that the problem isn’t “that person over there” being “privileged” (especially since s/he can’t do a thing about it), but the way society is built. Even ignoring the morality of it all, laying the blame on someone who can’t do anything about the problem isn’t going to do anything constructive. And using non-racial terms like “societal unfairness”* opens up the debate to non-race based unfairness, instead of trying to make all of society’s injustices into a matter of race when they aren’t.
*Or something catchier, I admit it doesn’t roll off the tongue well
I have never been able to figure out the objection to the word “privilege.” I guess Der Trihs might be making that point with his odd claim that it is a way to allow one set of people to sneer at another set of people. That does not have any relation to the word privilege in my experience, but is that what those who object are claiming?
I did nothing to deserve it. However, I enjoy a number of benefits unless I go out of my way to lose them. I am neither proud of nor ashamed of that situation. I can wish that the world was more fair, (and work toward making the world more fair), but the benefits and immunities accrue to me based on my appearance and I cannot really change that. And it is not a zero-sum game. I need nothing taken from me to lose that privilege. If everyone is granted the same rights and immunities, I lose nothing, but the aspect of privilege disappears.
Now, the argument that we should call it institutional racism has some merit. I have pointed to explicit examples of institutional racism in previous threads on this topic. However, institutional racism generally identifies actual actions taken by some power or authority. (Driving While Black, for example.) But there is a milder, but still real, level of immunity that I enjoy that probably does not reach the level of institutional racism, as such. (Being treated with more suspicion in a retail setting.)
The way that I would fight the latter situation is to be very careful to instruct my retail employees to treat all customers in the same way. If one checks a closed bag at the register, one checks all closed bags at the register. If one greets white, (or male or female or elderly or young or rich or poor) customers in the aisle, then one greets all customers in the aisle. If (and this gets closer to institutional racism), there is a treatment program open to low-level drug offenders that avoids jail time, then there should be objective criteria for the DA to determine who is eligible rather than relying on the gut feeling of ADAs.
None of those sort of actions take anything away from white people, while removing the notion of privilege that we currently enjoy.
As is demonstrated every time this argument comes up, it immediately turns the discussion away from any discussion of the racism or unfairness of society, and into a bashing of white people. It’s a really, really poor choice of words unless that’s what the person using it wants. As has been pointed out several times by others, it immediately leads to talk about the “necessity” of making life worse for whites, instead of making it better for non-whites. And it’s a huge sneer at any white who is poor or otherwise disadvantaged; you aren’t going to gain many sympathetic ears among white people in wheelchairs or homeless with talk about how privileged they are and how they deserve to be punished because of their skin color.
That’s certainly been the way I’ve heard the term used most often. A “privileged” person is an enemy, an aristocrat or slaver, someone whom you try to tear down and destroy.
You hang out with the wrong crowd. I see claims of a “need” to harm whites from people who don’t want to even admit that they have an advantage, but I do not often encounter that view from people who are simply recognizing that whites generally get a better shot at fairness than blacks, Hispanics, Indians, or “brown” immigrants.
The second point, that a broadbrush claim that whites have it better than anyone else does come up from time to time. I have, indeed, heard fairly silly claims that a white guy who grew up in poverty and worked really hard labor jobs to support his family had it “easier” than a black man who grew up in the middle class, went to college, and spent his life behind a desk. However, that error lies in the rather absurd views that some people hold of the world, not in the phrase “white privilege.” But, again, that can be avoided by not making really silly exaggerated claims regarding how white privilege actually operates.
You are really hanging out with the wrong crowd. There is a construction that carries that connotation with the word privilege, but it is context sensitive and hardly the normal meaning of the word.
I think Der Trihs is correct with using a broader term that encompasses everyone and allows all people to join the discussion. However, this does not negate the fact that white privilege exists. There are certain privileges for all classes and people. The more important question is who is receiving the most privilege. I can’t give a straight answer to this as I am no expert, but if I had to bet, it would be white people. That’s probably why the term “white privelege” is so prevalent.
In the case of race, the perception that groups of people are meaningfully distinct from one another on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, religion, descent, or other means by which people can be categorized.
Nobody who is even passably educated could possibly deny that race is a social construct. As recently as the 19th century it was quote common for people to refer to “the English race,” as a distinct race from, say, French people or German people, with all the same conviction with which people now talk about the white or black race. The Irish were, as recently as the turn of the 19th century, assumed to be a different race from white people who were not Irish.
A well read person simply cannot possibly say with a straight face that there is not a concept of “race” as a socially context-specific distinction.
That doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as cultural tone or collective behaviour. Yes, we’re all individuals here. But we behave as groups, too.
You’re still making the mistake of isolating one thing and calling it White privilege.
But not a neat list of them.
I notice you completely ignore my last line. Why don’t you address that, and then see why I’m not going to play this game of seeing where the heap ends and the grains begin.
That Theodore W. Allen, he really had it in for White folks :rolleyes: I’m sure he never worked a day as a poor White in his life.
Oh, he was a coal miner in the Great Depression? Yeah, I’m sure he spent all his time sneering at homeless White people.
Because, of course, it’s only possible to care about one injustice at a time. Being against White privilege means there’s no spare empathy cells to spare for other racism, or sexism, or homophobia, any other social issues. Of course.
That the patriarchy actually exists, doesn’t mean every element of your strawman caricature of feminists does too. But I see you used the “some” weasel-word, so that makes it all OK, then.:smack:
I must be a self-hater, then, because I’m a man and I say the patriarchy exists, and I’ve benefited from it.
It’s also very convenient for all those Whites who “aren’t racist, it’s just the way society is” too.
Of course a White person can’t shed White privilege - because White privilege isn’t on individual White people. But they can help Society shed itself of it. And that starts by acknowledging that it exists.
As does adolescence. Does it have an underlying biological component? Yes. Is it similar to races/varieties/sub-species seen in other species? Yes. (well, in fairness there are some creationists who dispute this).
Those are good terms, but they sweep under the carpet the issue of exactly where, in Western society, that racism or unfairness is favouring. And if you can’t see which way the system is unbalanced, it’s easier to ignore it. That’s what “White privilege” does - it points out exactly where the problem lies. You don’t like it because you see it as blame. I like it because it shows where to apply the fix.
It’s basically the idea that being White is the “default”, the standard, while other races are, well, “other.” In practice, it has meant that everyone else carries the baggage of their ethnicity, whether by sight, or having applications thrown out over the name, while White people are largely not considered to even have an ethnicity.
It is impossible to solve by treating other people better. There can’t be more than one “default.” There can only be one or zero. The only way to reduce this discrepancy is to take something away from White people that they don’t want to lose.
I see claims of a “need” to harm whites from people who don’t want to even admit that they have an advantage, but I do not often encounter that view from people who are simply recognizing that whites generally get a better shot at fairness than blacks, Hispanics, Indians, or “brown” immigrants.