I think part of it is because some people have gotten a taste of “power through being the victim.”
If you are able to deflect any criticism of your behavior or ideas by saying that you’re being victimized, not criticized, people will be afraid to challenge you, and that gives people a sense of power.
At the same time, it will foster a sense of resentment in people who feel that they need to walk on eggshells, not because they will actually do or say something wrong, but because they may do or say something that someone might find offense with and it can blow up way out of proportion.
I agree with this, assuming you mean equality of opportunity and not equality of outcome.
As for fighting to “keep power and privilege,” what exactly do you mean?
I mean what we are seeing right now. The problem is not the nazis and klansmen marching in the streets, its the tens of millions of Americans who oppose those guys but still support the racist status quo.
I will state I have NEVER been in any type of organization or business or even neighborhood where ANYONE said “we don’t want any black people here”. Granted I had an old coworker (now retired) who openly admitted he didn’t feel comfortable around other races.
Now if your asking about lazy people or people who cannot get along with others or in the case of a neighborhood, those who wont keep up their house or have loud parties all night - yes that I can talk to you about.
Frankly what we have far too often is people see a bunch of white faces and think its that way on purpose.
On a final note, I stay in a mostly white area of South Dakota but we are seeing more black families move in all the time.
You’re new here, but are you new to the Internet? White privilegeis a well fleshed out concept. A far realer one than “power through being the victim,” which is a ugly slur. All that says is that the powerful hate the thought of the weak gaining power. That’s the issue. The history of black/white relations is America continually cycles back to this central dilemma: whites not only don’t want blacks to be equal; they fear retribution for the very real acts of oppression they’ve committed. Read southern writers before the Civil War, as an example. They were terrified of any action that might give free blacks or slaves a boost lest they realize they had power. Even non-slaveowners thought this way. They all knew what they had done collectively.
It would be nice to live in your rational utopia where emotions are set aside. I don’t see it happening in our real world. It certainly didn’t exist at any time in the 1990s. Supremacist groups were not virtually wiped out then. That’s when they had more power. It’s the threat of loss of power that makes them act out (look at the long history of the Klan). They’re getting pushed back on today, which is a wonderful thing, but they won’t go quietly.
Well, there you go. You’ve painted every white person in America as being racist if they don’t buy your theory, every white person as having advantages over all minorities (regardless of their economic situation), and took my statement of a person utilizing power through being a victim as a “slur” (by the way, please explain how that’s a slur).
You’ve taken a combative tone with me and painted me as part of, or at least an apologist for the evil, white collective, and you’re wondering why we can’t get along.
You don’t change minds by trying to shame people, and you certainly can’t gain supporters by skewering people over things they have no control over (like the problem of me being white; which is racism, right? Judging people based on skin color).
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What percentage of American adults would you guess have managed to achieve “no longer being racist assholes”? Is this a description you think comfortable applies to a majority of the country? Only a select few?
This is part of the problem. We need to stop thinking of racism as an on/off switch. It’s more like a volume dial. We are all racist to one extent or another, some just have the volume turned higher than others. To answer your question everyone is racist, not everyone is an asshole.
You are not going to change every mind, when you shame or skewer someone it is not to change their mind but to show others it is not ok to be like them.
Look, I see people raging against “privilege” a lot online but isn’t privilege a good thing to have? If you’ve got the choice between standing in the super fast express service queue and the slow moving huge general public queue, are you going to pick the slow one on purpose? Of course you aren’t.
What you’re asking people to do is voluntarily make things worse for themselves and so far no-one has come up with a compelling argument as to why they should, IMO.
I’m not asking anything, in fact I explicitly said we would need to fight for equality instead of hoping for harmony. We already know white people are not simply going to relinquish their privilege, I just pointed out we should not expect any “healing” before we have equality.
Fighting for equality would be boosting those on the lower rungs up, not dragging those on higher rungs down because “It’s not fair!”.
And this is fundamentally when so many people hear “Equality”, they don’t hear “A fair go for everyone”, they hear “Lefties trying to take stuff off me or make my life worse to benefit people I don’t know and never interact with”.
I’ll say it again: What’s the compelling reason to persuade people who are “privileged” to voluntarily give up that privilege - worsening their own lives in the process - to benefit people who aren’t them or their friends etc?
Granting equality to others doesn’t change your own privileges. However, many people have found that pushing this lie furthers their political interests. Even you seem to have fallen for it.
Here’s the thing I don’t get about talking to conservatives about the concept of “white privilege”: How do you all so consistently miss the part about “all other things being equal?” Because that’s a really core part of the concept of white privilege, but as soon as anyone brings up the topic, a conservative runs in and says, “Well, I was really poor as a kid! Where were my privileges?” Entirely missing the central point, which is that while its generally better to be “rich and black” than “poor and white,” its also a lot better to be “poor and white” than “poor and black.”
I mean, it’s fucking uncanny how often that very specific misrepresentation of white privilege comes up. You can practically set your watch by it.
If everyone is privileged then no-one is, so in a way it does. Which means that everyone’s in the super express queue, which ends up being the slow general public lane.
Obviously this is a totally different kettle of fish to actual racism or sexism, but my broader point is we have to distinguish between equality of opportunity (which I’m all in favour of) and equality of outcome.