It’s a stretch IMO, to say that those things are privileges. They’re more the result of stereotypes, which are as common as they are regrettable.
You could make a lot of equally stupid sayings about fat people, and they’d be stereotypes just as well, and nobody’s seriously arguing that there’s “skinny person privilege” here.
Making assumptions about people is just the way things go… if I had a job applicant named Jamal from my zip code, I’d assume he lives in the low income apartments. Not because I’m inherently racist, but because in my part of town, there’s a pretty sharp divide between the apartment residents and the people who live in the houses. It’s pretty much black people = apartments, and white people = houses.
That being said, if he is qualified for the job, I’d give him the same shot at an interview as anyone else. His name or where he lives wouldn’t make me a bit of difference.
I must be idiotic because I’d have no idea if they were watching me because I was white.
I find it preposterous that you think black people have this magical ability to determine if they are being watched because they are wearing an extra large jacket or because of their skin colour.
Because you can’t understand it makes it and me stupid?
So, what you are now saying is that if no one in the store is wearing an extra large jacket the security guard should just go on a break and not watch anyone?
If you honestly think that the guards were watching you because you were white and that they wouldn’t have been watching you so closely if you were black, then you are either delusional or wildly ignorant.
Either way, further discussion on this topic would be useless.
However, I have a brain, it functions, and I know how minorities have been historically viewed in the US, how they’re treated, and I’ve observed the way many whites(and for that matter non-whites) react.
Honest question: did you read the whole article linked, or just the teaser excerpt I posted? Because the first sentences in this quote from you are answered pretty directly in the article.
The last sentence in this quote above is ridiculous. Claiming that white people have an easier time, all else being equal, than black people isn’t a racist statement at all. It’s not a statement about characteristics of white people; it’s a statement about our society. As such, it’s no more racist than saying, “Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia” is a sexist statement.
It is a complex issue but at some point you have to move on. Whites are a massive group that is much more diverse than a skin tone. That they’ve been successful (and many un-successful) should not ondemn current generations. It won’t make things better and it will not improve the non-white lot. Indeed, white success has had profound positive benefits for the entire human race. On a go forward basis, create opportunity through open markets and open societies. That will make us all truly equal or create classes that are solely economic.
You are reacting to arguments that no one is making.
Did you actually watch the linked video in the OP?
Moreover, no one has been suggesting that whites are to be “condemned”.
It’s simply been noted that whites have certain privileges which is indisputable.
Similarly, there are many rich, pampered women and huge numbers of poor, oppressed men in Saudi Arabia but no one would start squealing in anger if I said men were “privileged” in Saudi Arabia and start shouting about how it’s vastly preferable to be a Saudi princess than a Shia male forced to work as a janitor or even worse one of the Pakistani male guest workers.
I’m enjoying reading parts of this thread, and there are some good points being made in every direction. I don’t think “white privilege” is a helpful way to talk about inequality, though, and there are a couple reasons no one has mentioned that I wanted to point out.
First, some racial disparities are zero-sum: for example, if black people are discouraged from working in a certain field, that leaves more jobs for white people. But there are what? Six times as many white people in the US than black? A little more? For a zero-sum game, that means that the average white person gets a benefit that’s a sixth as much as the cost to an average black person. That’s an enormous difference! The benefits to your average white person may be unnoticeable, and the harm to the average black person pretty extreme. It makes much more sense to talk about the discrimination against black folks than “privilege” for white folks.
Second, the most severe and obvious examples of racial discrimination are not zero-sum. A white person doesn’t benefit from the US’s discriminatory judicial system — it means paying higher taxes to feed them and getting pretty much no social/economic benefit in return. If a shopkeeper is following black customers around to keep them from shoplifting, that doesn’t improve my shopping experience. Again, talking about “privilege” doesn’t make a lot of sense —white people aren’t really getting anything from the discrimination.
Third, not being discriminated against isn’t a privilege, it’s a right. It’s not a problem that I’m getting the benefit of the doubt from shopkeepers, it’s that black folks aren’t. (Yah yah, I’m stating a probability as a certainty, but you get what I mean.) Society would actually be worse if you took away the non-zero-sum “privileges”, not better, but the language of “privilege” doesn’t reflect that reality.
Finally, this has sort of been mentioned before, but a massive, massive portion of racial inequality today has to do with longer-term histories, a lack of class mobility in the US, and other structural problems like that. “White privilege” is a pretty obnoxious way to describe that portion of the problem, and I’m never sure whether the people who talk about “white privilege” are including those things.
Oh, and ETA:
It’s not about having an “equal opportunity to shoplift”, it’s about being treated like a decent, honest person unless you’ve given people a valid reason to think you aren’t one. It’s about being treated like a person, instead of a skin colour, and not being treated like you’re not as good as the white customers.
Say you’re in a grocery store and you are over 6 feet tall. A very short woman is straining to reach something on the top shelf. She can’t quite reach it and you, at over 6 feet, can reach it easily.
Ignorance of privilege is like your walking away from that scene, whether you helped her get the item or not, thinking, “Sheesh, I don’t know what HER problem was! I could reach that!”
Pointing out that you are, in the analogy, taller doesn’t say anything about your worth and doesn’t condemn you. It’s just saying hey, don’t assume everyone is the same height. Don’t assume someone else is to blame if they can’t reach the item on the top shelf when reaching that item is so easy for you. There can be other reasons for their inability than just them being a loser/whiner/crybaby/bum/jerk/criminal/monster/idiot.
Pointing out your height is not suggesting you should be shorter. It’s suggesting that you should attempt to understand that others may be shorter. It’s suggesting that not everyone starts from the same point and other people, as individuals, may not be able to reach that item on the top shelf without having to work way harder than you, with your long legs and long arms, had to work.
That’s all the concept of “white privilege” is attempting to say. Be aware. Be humble. Think, don’t assume.
Oddly enough, I think of people as people rather than black or white. That is what needs to be consistent and promoted. T
Gezus, I was paraphrasing what the other person said. No one should have an opportunity to shoplift.
What I’m stating is that people’s filters make them see things where they may not exist. Not that they don’t exist.
When you’ve ranted on this site about how Muslims “brainwash” their children via hunger, thirst, and sleep deprivation it’s pretty hard to take that statement seriously.
I’m fairly certain that there must be plenty of poor, ugly looking , fat ,mentally challenged or physically disabled white people wondering how they can access this “white privilege”.
By being a little better off than a poor, ugly, fat, disabled black person, I guess.
For the billionth time, white privilege doesn’t mean all white people are privileged. All it means is that all else being equal, they’re typically better off than a nonwhite person.
I understand if someone doesn’t care for the term “white privilege” and prefers to use a different term instead. But if someone doubts that there’s truth to the *meaning *of it, then I have to assume they’re ignorant or idiotic.
Ah, so you are bitter that you lost that particular argument, so you bring it up here again as if someone ‘choosing’ (or being indoctrinated into) a religion is in any way related to a non-choice like skin color?
Sucks to be a black person. Luckily, future technology using stem cells will be able to correct their ‘defect’. Is that what you’re looking for? Make is easier for you to categorize me? Or have you already assumed I work for the KKK because I don’t take people’s claims at face value?
I’m sorry I can’t take it on faith when some minority tells me that they have been oppressed because they perceive some injustice. And I’m sorry you can’t figure out that I agree that there could well have been a racist motive behind the oppressor’s actions. Some arguments are just to complex for some people, I guess.
I don’t have a feud with anyone and have tried to debate this particular issue in this forum honestly. He doesn’t like my answers or my questions and wishes to take it personally. My last response was from the frustration with him and others who refuse to do the same.
Nor have I said anything here that should be controversial unless someone wished to interpret it that way.
Which just proves my argument that people’s filters determine how they perceive a particular issue. In other words, people see the same thing and interpret it in different ways. Some interpretations are more ‘correct’ than others, or may be more correct in that particular situation eg, not every time a security guard looks at a minority it is because that person is a minority.