I’m not sure how to define white privilege but I’m pretty sure that not having the cops called on you for catching forty winks in the dorm lounge would be part of it.
The term “white privilege” doesn’t contributed to either of the underlined concepts.
It’s not an accusation. It’s an acknowledgment of a situation. I’m not a bad person because I benefit from white privilege. It’s not even a attack on what I have accomplished.
Do you think messaging is important in general? If not, then you’d have a point. But if you do think messaging is important in whether something is as effective as possible, then why is it different here?
Do you think substance is important? Do you think the choice of words used have an effect on the underlying concept? If someone describes a problem in a way that you don’t like does that make the problem not exist?
The phrase “white privilege” and its cousin “check your privilege” are certainly used, at times, as accusations. It can be a simple description of a situation, but it isn’t limited to that.
Because in this case I don’t see a difference between;
'You can protest, just not like that"
and
“You can talk about it, just not like that”
I don’t think anyone is saying you can not talk like that, just that it might not be as effective as if you found another way to talk about it. You do want to be effective, don’t you?
Which is another way of telling people not to talk like that.
And is there another way of talking about something that people don’t want to talk about that would be more effective?
A reasonable point. But it’s not us who have a problem with the term.
And I personally don’t get it. The justifications for that problem that I’ve seen so far are either frivolous or flat-out wrong.
I’d also like to point out that a commonly used word alongside “white privilege” in scholarly literature is “unearned”. The “bag of goodies” you got for your white skin was “unearned.”
Now, as a white person, one can look at this two ways:
- “No, I didn’t earn it. But that’s okay, they’res nothing wrong with me not being hassled by cops. Hopefully, someday, black people don’t have to earn (however they do that, /shrug) not being hassled by cops too.”
Then, there’s also a very easily arrived-at visceral negative reaction to it, given “unearned” generally has a negative connotation in every day usage:
- “Unearned. UNEARNED? Excuse me? Are you telling me I should EARN not being hassled by cops? That I should view not having to ‘earn’ that as a PRIVILEGE? Go eat a bowl of alphabet soup and choke on the D!”
This is a stance that I think many people of any race would take if told that the “privilege” of not being hassled by cops was “unearned.”
The language of “white privilege” simply sucks. It just does. What can be done about it? Well I guess nothing, because it’s “firmly entrenched”. I just don’t expect it to win over many hearts and minds of people that don’t already view it in whatever the “correct” way to view it is.
I think scenario 2 is something that occurs entirely between the ears of those who choose to react that way, and they need to reflect a bit and figure out why they are reacting so personally and so strongly to something that is not about them personally at all. It’s also very convenient for those that are ok with the status quo to just hand wave the whole thing away because you don’t approve of how people are talking about it.
And again, it’s;
“Let’s talk about / do something about this issue”
“I’d rather talk about how you’re doing it wrong.”
BTW, personally I’m OK with the term “White Privilege”. I get what it’s trying to communicate, and when it’s used in a relatively neutral manner, it doesn’t bother me. I just don’t think it’s an effective communication tool to use when trying to talk to conservatives about racism. I think it causes them to shut down and tune you out.
*The conservative is a shy and sensitive creature, and must be approached with caution. * 
They’re going to do that anyway, because they know the problem exists and they see it as a benefit for them, not a problem to be dealt with.
You are grossly overgeneralizing. imo.
If the they that we are talking about are the ones that have a knee jerk reaction to hearing the term “white privilege”, then it’s pretty close to a one to one correlation.
I also have no problem with the term racial injustice. It captures the concept of the systemic inequalities that still exist in society without suggesting that there is something special about the way white people are treated in society. One definition of privilege is “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” But many of the people who don’t like the term “white privilege” don’t think they are being treated specially - that they way they are treated is the default, normal condition. And isn’t that what we should be aiming towards - a society where everybody has “white privilege”?
To some of these people, raising the concept of white privilege with them must seem like discussing the concept of “first world privilege” with a minimum wage worker in America - “Think about how much better off you are than starving people in 3rd-world countries!” Technically, true, but do you think that helps them reflect on the injustices in the developing world, or want to work towards remedying them?
Well, that’s certainly a severe misrepresentation of what’s actually in the video (which cites and quotes several prominent media outlets verbatim). But I’m mindful of the large body of research on “motivated reasoning” (Redirecting), so I won’t waste time trying to show you the error of your, uh, errors. For anyone not in a state of epistemic closure who wants to see the video and judge for themselves, here again is the link: https://youtu.be/FDW7PViQts0
As a bonus, I’ll direct your attention to the NPR cite in the bottom half of post #25: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20939684&postcount=25
I’ve tended to be skeptical of the utility of the rejoinder “That’s not even wrong”, but I now see where it can come in handy. Unlike Paranoid Randroid, you not only don’t seem to know what is in the video (which you presumably didn’t watch), you don’t even understand what argument I was using it to make. Thus you are “not even wrong”, just completely confused.
Okay, at least you admit it, which reveals that your posts weren’t disingenuous so much as ignorant in the literal sense.
That certainly makes sense. But when whites are a distinct minority, but on the top of the economic ladder, another dynamic can arise that complicates the directionality. I lived in Kenya in high school, and my family lived in a modest apartment with no servants and no particular security, but I never felt unsafe. All my friends from the international school I attended, though, lived in what were essentially mansions and had a coterie of servants. When they went to bed at night, they locked heavy steel gates that separated their upstairs bedrooms from the downstairs which included the servants’ quarters. The idea was to avoid being murdered in their sleep (this being a country that had experienced the Mau Mau uprising a generation earlier). That always struck me as pretty discomfiting and would not IMO go on the “privilege” side of the ledger.
This epitomizes the blunt lack of understanding (or lack of concern) about how to effectively reach voters that Lilla was satirizing in his fishing analogy.
This is a truly excellent point, and I hope (but don’t necessarily expect) that people here address it in a serious way.
I’m a fan of Maher’s show and watch it every week, while still thinking he’s a huge dumbass on some issues. One of them is liberal criticism, of which the Amy Schumer thing is a great example. Yes, some liberals criticized Shumer’s movie. And liberal criticism makes Maher sad. It doesn’t matter if they might have some reasonable points – the fact is that liberals shouldn’t ever criticize other liberals, at least according to Maher, unless it’s Maher criticizing liberals for criticizing liberals. Or something like that.
It’s okay for liberals to criticize liberals. Sometimes it’s valid, sometimes it’s not – sometimes it’s worth talking about, and very occasionally (certainly far less often than Maher complains, or even than Maher does or says something incredibly dumb like inviting bigoted trolls like Milo Yianopolous and giving them a tongue-bath of an interview with barely any challenging questions) it’s nonsense. It’s okay to talk about representation in media, an body image issues, and stuff like that. Maher’s just a true snowflake about that kind of thing.