I know, I’m just yelling out into space.
I am curious if someone could address for me, how does this alleged WMP work in a region that is almost exclusively white?
Example: My childhood was spent mostly in Great Falls, Montana. A town of around 60K, 90% of which are white, 5% of which are Native American, and the other 5% “other” of various flavors.
There are places in the US that are even whiter than that. How does WMP work there?
That’s certainly a large part of it. Prevalent attitudes of previous generations are also a main contributor to why so many people are racist today, since that kind of thing doesn’t disappear overnight.
There are countless things that can be done about. Are you suggesting that there really isn’t anything, or are you trying to encourage a discussion about what those things could be?
Someone else can probably give a better answer, but for one thing, it’s probably a nicer, wealthier town (whether it’s objectively nice and wealthy or not) than it otherwise would be, since whatever the people of that town’s situations, in general they’ve been knocked up a for notches (or *not *knocked down a few notches, if you prefer) due to being white.
There’s not much you can do about it that wouldn’t create new inequities in their place.
Suggest something and I can show you what I mean.
You can get rid of racist policies like the sentencing discrepancy for crimes related to powder cocaine (more common with white people) versus crack cocaine (more common with black people). Incidentally, I recently read about a *Republican *judge who resigned in protest of those laws.
You can strictly enforce laws requiring reasonable suspicion for all stops by law enforcement, which would be good for everyone but disproportionately for black people since they’re more likely to be targeted.
Determinate sentencing aims to decrease the incidence of black people getting harsher sentences than white people for the same crime. This is not a perfect solution because some judicial discretion is a good thing *if *it can be exercised fairly, but it’s not an all-or-nothing thing.
Individuals can make an effort to not target people for suspicion based on race.
Yes, we should definitely get rid of those.
But white privilege isn’t about racist policies. It’s about how whites have certain advantages even without racist policies.
Suppose you completely wiped out all racist policies. Would that be the end of it? Or would you want to do more?
No, those things are definitely part of white privilege. Knowing you’re unlikely to be pulled over for no cause, for example, is a privilege white people have (although I understand the issue some people take with that term in cases like that, but call it whatever you like), and there’s no written policy saying to target nonwhites like that. If you’re the chief of police or a judge or something, you can refuse to let that kind of thing fly. And you don’t have to be someone in a position of that much power either, which of course most people aren’t.
I’ll tell you a couple real examples that aren’t about official policy or someone in a position of power. Once I went with my black then-boyfriend to fill my prescription for Vicodin or something. He told me to get my ID ready, because he knew I can take a while to find it in my messy purse. I said, “What are you talking about? You don’t have to show ID to get a prescription,” because I’d never once in my life had that happen. He was like, “What are you talking about? Yes you do.” And that time, I did have to.
Another time I was with a different black dude, sitting in my car waiting for my daughter at her school bus stop. I sat there every single school day at the same time, usually alone. I saw the people that lived at the house I was parked in front of all the time, but neither of us took much notice of each other because hey, we’re all white folks, nothing to see here. That one day the guy came out to the car and asked what we were doing there. Don’t you think the accumulation of this kind of constant low-level suspicion affects people?
What individual white people can and should do is be aware of this situation and make sure they’re not contributing to it. The pharmacist and possibly the homeowner probably didn’t do it consciously. But they *should *think about it and attempt to correct their behavior, and that’s what the video in the OP is trying to say (although it may not be effective at getting its message across, it’s still right).
But a small part.
White privilege is about much more than that. People who talk about white privilege are talking about everything you have. You got a nice house? White privilege. It’s not just day to day inconveniences or petty racism. It’s about everything.
Though I looked at the PSA, and it’s more in tune with your understanding of it.
Yeah I don’t hear it used that way. Or if I did, I wouldn’t take it seriously. If that’s how a lot of people take it then maybe it would be more useful to use a different term, although I’m not sure it would make a difference. It definitely wouldn’t make a difference to the racism-deniers (and I don’t think you’re one of them).
Did you earn your height? Because, again, that’s the analogy.
It wasn’t about what you did with your height, or whether you helped the short woman, or whether you’re a nice person. It’s about whether you have an advantage that she doesn’t. That’s it. That’s all it is. Do you have an advantage that she doesn’t, in the analogy, and was it something you earned?
You keep trying to make the analogy oppress you. It can’t do that.
Bad analogy. Height is actually useful. Tall people SHOULD be the ones who grab stuff from shelves.
Being white isn’t a rational reason for favoring someone for something.
Lots of people have all kinds of advantages and disadvantages. There are thousands of them. (Height, for instance). Focusing on just one, and pretending the others don’t exist, is completely unfair.
It can if abused. It can be used, for instance, to claim that a dirt-poor redneck who can’t read is privileged more than a black millionaire. By focusing on one (possible) source of privilege and assuming there are no others, it can greatly skew reality.
Pretty much my experience with my wife who is black, it became a sort of joke how different her assumptions were(and those of her family). I’ve told repeatedly I no longer listen to her experience because it reflects nothing resembling reality.
“Ok first you’ll need ID proving blah blah, then you will need physical proof and blah blah, then try not to curse back when she curses you out,”
“Nah just strolled in and had a pleasant chat, no documents needed”
“…”
White privledge doesn’t mean someone gives you a million dollars, it just means life is easier. Less assholes, less catch twenty twos, less pointless shit caught from cops and other officials, more breaks, more times being given the benefit of the doubt. Thats all.
Right, this thread came up in conversation with native American friends today, and the consensus was that it is the small things that go on, and seem normal. It gets to be our problem if we resent it or let it get us down, because it also seems so normal to white people.
I get really frustrated when white people refuse to admit the existence of white privilege and act like they are above it, or say that it is just how we are filtering it, as if we could filter it in a way to make history different and awareness of skin color disappear.
And I get frustrated when people act like fair treatment is a privilege instead of an entitlement.
Yeah–reading up on some of the theory, I think there’s an underlying belief that the things considered privilege are available only at the expense of minority groups. For some things, that’s plausible: maybe good schools with small class sizes for wealthy kids are only possible because of an oppressed and underpaid working class, I dunno.
But for other things it’s implausible, at least at first glance. Consider the story about getting hassled for parking in front of someone’s house. I don’t get hassled under such circumstances*, but that privilege wasn’t dependent on other folks getting hassled. The obvious solution is to not hassle people who are minding their own business. Or else to hassle everyone.
Note that hassling everyone would be almost as good. Blackberry, correct me if I’m wrong, but what grated about that incident wasn’t so much the fact that the guy hassled you as that he hassled you because there was a black man in the car. Is that right? It’s the unjust, differential treatment that’s so soul-crushing.
- Well, there was the time when I was a long-haired hippie driving cross country, and I and my driving partner pulled off the highway onto a back road and had a picnic in a field, and someone came out of a shack hidden in the woods and fired a shotgun in the air, but that’s different.
I used to be like you. I heard other people complain about wild, ridiculous claims like I am, but I didn’t think people actually said that stuff. Then I heard it myself.
Yes, there is definitely a contingent out there who define “white privilege” as meaning that anything and everything whites have is because they are white. They’re out there.
I’m certainly not a racism denier. But why not simply talk about racism? Talking about “white privilege” takes that to a whole new level. It’s way too vague. It allows people, like those I mentioned above, to define just about anything as the product of racism. Not specific racism, like a white man getting a job because his boss hates blacks and rejected a black man who applied, but general racism, as in whites have alot of what they have because of past racism or generalized, nonspecific racism. This is partly true, of course. But it’s a very general fact that can be abused. And “white privilege” is how some people abuse it. It’s an excuse for all kinds of policies that may go far beyond simply stopping racism.
Louis C.K said it best “…i’m not saying white people are better, but I am saying that BEING white is clearly better…”
Being about as white as a stereotype can be, I have to agree that being white is a lucky thing in this country (USA). I dont know that other whites (I dont at least) show more privilege to other whites or not… but just by virtue of this country being mostly white, how could it not be an advantage by having a majority look like you??
But I disagree that because being white is an advantage that it automatically means that not being white is a disadvantage. If that was the case we wouldn’t have “white trash” aka “Jersey Shore”. It helps, but it aint everything.
Okay.
But being white is but one of the many many day to day privileges people may have (or being black is one of many disadvantages). To this we must add male or female privilege (there are both), blonde privilege, tall privilege, thin privilege, attractive privilege, good-dresser privilege, good-taste-in-hair style privilege, young/old privilege, nice car privilege, speaks without a weird accent privilege…
Sure. You can go start a thread about any of those if you like.
Should I make a PSA too?