I am not a fan of the term "white privilege”

In My Humble Opinion
141

Let’s say you’re a kid. You have a younger brother. For an inexplicable reason, your parents favor him. He gets a $100 weekly allowance while you get $10. He gets to stay up as late as he wants, while you’re forced to go to bed at 9:30. He gets two desserts at dinner while you get one. He gets two minutes in the corner after mouthing off while you get a smack on the bottom.

Now some indulgent parents would say that all kids should get an allowance that’s proportionate to their parents’ income. They’d argue that a late curfew can teach kids responsibility and dealing with consequences. And of course, all kids should get time-outs instead of corporal punishment! But why should we hold this as a standard of good parenting? Do the majority of the world’s kids get an allowance, let alone a triple digit one? No. Do the majority of the world’s kids get dessert at supper, let alone two servings? No. Do the majority of the world’s kids get spanked for rude behavior? Probably. From the standpoint of most people, it’s your hypothetical parent’s treatment of your hypothetical little brother that needs to be modified. The treatment you receive is totally reasonable.

Inequalities in the criminal justice system are a great real life example. If a minority population is committing a certain crime at the same rate as the non-minority population, then the arrest and conviction rates should be similar between these groups. If the minority population is disproportionately arrested and convicted for those crimes, then clearly there’s a problem with bias. But the solution to fixing this bias isn’t to let the minority and non-minority offenders go free. The solution should be to arrest the non-minority offenders with the same intensity as the minority offenders. The privileged folks need to be made low, in other words.

The whole “privilege” thing isn’t limited to big things like this. Privilege is also about the little things. Like, while it isn’t my style to jokingly refer to someone as a “blue-eyed devil”, I would probably laugh if I heard it from someone else. But if someone told me a “nigger” joke, I would likely be bothered by it. Isn’t it a type of privilege to be able to easily laugh at a racial insult directed at your group? I think so. But I don’t think we should all be expected to laugh at racial insults just because white people in general have few hang-ups about their race. A black person is not “abnormal” just because “nigger” doesn’t elicit the same feelings in him or her as “blue-eyed devil” does in a typical white person. There is no good prescription for this problem other than just being aware that an insult hurts the minority (unprivileged) more than the majority (privileged).

TLDR: You shouldn’t always rely on how the privileged see the world to determine what’s fair or right.

142

Here’s another example of why it’s important not to automatically use the treatment of the majority population as the reference for how everyone should be treated:

Racial stereotypes may explain why America’s overdose epidemic is affecting white people primarily.

The article posits a hypothesis: The reason that white people are at the center of the opiate epidemic may be due to doctors being more reluctant to prescribe black and Latino patients with opiates out of concern that they are drug-seeking junkies. But show up at the clinic with white skin, and the doctor is more likely to trust you when you say you need help (even when you are drug-seeking).

So what’s the solution? Should doctors be more distrustful of their white patients? Or should doctors be most trusting of their black and Latino patients?

Obviously, it’s complicated. If the prescription frequency in the privileged population is treated as the acceptable norm, then we can expect the epidemic to only grow worse. But isn’t it shameful to refuse effective treatment to people who are in genuine pain? So, it is totally possible that the “privileged” need to have their doses lowered while the “non-privileged” need theirs bumped up.

143

Yes it is, unless everyone gets to enjoy this same lack of abuse. That is the standard, literal meaning of the word “privilege” – a benefit or advantage that some people or groups have but others don’t.