I agree with this, but also, often they are unaware that they can move their chair closer to the garbage can. Both answers are not mutually exclusive.
Often, not without assistance.
To reduce it to the bare minimum, ‘moving the chairs’ is saying ‘If you don’t want to be poor, just get rich!’ Or, ‘If you don’t like living in a crime-ridden hell hole with poor public services, just move to the suburbs!’
If you’re a middle-class kid, you probably went to good schools. I know I did. You have more opportunity to expand your horizons; to learn about new things and different places. If you’re poor, you’ll be stuck in schools that may be overcrowded, short on resources, surrounded by other kids who are also living in desperation, etc. You’re not going to have the opportunities that I had. I could look at someone who is barely making a living, and/or living on public assistance and say, ‘Gee, you should have payed more attention in school! You should have made different choices!’ But I would be saying that from a privileged position.
By “reduce it to the bare minimum”, do you mean reduce it to absurdity?
My one and only point is that it is not simple for anyone (short of a Hilton or Walton child) to succeed in this country. It is harder for some than others due to circumstances beyond their control. We, as a society, have a responsibility to level that playing field as much as possible. And every person aiming for that garbage can also has a responsibility to practice their shot. Everyone has to work together.
Every successful person that I know worked their asses off to get there, and “check your privilege” is a good way to get me, who might otherwise agree with your opinion, to consider your point unnecessarily condescending. If the goal is to bring people over to your side to find common ground and a solution, it’s not a good way to do that.
I don’t think she is saying that every white person literally needs to give money to these organizations.
The unsaid sentence beforehand is “if you are interested in making a difference in this cause…” and the rest is “as opposed to making lots of slacktivist Facebook posts.”
Nailed by the second post, IMVHO.
Anyone who believes the US is a classless society, in theory or in practice, is deluded.
Anyone who doesn’t espouse such a thought, however, is shouted down.
“We are all exactly equal… except you. And you. And you, you, you and him. Her, too. But we have to do _______ because we’re all equal.”
So define equality.
Should everyone have exactly the same income, possessions, aesthetic beauty, family life, etc?
Of course. All liberals believe that. How is this even a question?
The main problem I have is the idea that we should have different posting numbers. The fact that we don’t is the height of injustice, and I’d like you to get right on that.
Well, it typically is liberals who decry inequality.
And the metric they typically use is wealth, so I would like to know if an absolutely square distribution of wealth is the endgame here or if “inequality” is just a way of justifying their agenda.
If it is not the endgame, then “inequality” will always exist and can always be counted upon as some sort of rallying cry for those who want change but can’t justify it on principled grounds.
The “Liberal Guilt Trip” is a lame-ass cliché that Right-Wingers barf onto the floor in an attempt to foul the conversation. It translates to “I can’t understand the dynamics of bigotry, so it must be about shame or something.” Liberals and progressives do not labor under an oppressive pall of guilt, they observe harmful imbalances in society and seek to address them. ISTM that irk is being mistaken for shame.
Oh, bullshit. If there’s any such thing the more liberal end of the social and political spectrum believes, it’s that everyone should have equal opportunities, and that conditions that limit opportunities should be removed or leveled.
I have never known a single “liberal” who thought “everyone should be exactly equal” or any form of it… and my connections run to to some folks who are embarrassingly far to the left of the leftists everyone thinks are too far left.
Define “limit opportunities.”
Nonsense. The one thing all liberals believe in is that folks they debate with should live near airports and be bothered by the sounds of low-flying aircraft overhead.
Part of white privilege is, when somebody says “I am a pompous blowhard with a chip on my shoulder but you have to listen because I am a minority” we get to laugh at you instead.
NASCAR too, but that’s not as fun.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve never heard anyone utter the phrase in real life either but starting three or four years ago I started seeing some variations of the phrase popping up frequently on some of the other board I frequent. I am actually a big fan of privilege theory as I think it’s a valuable lens through which we can examine how all sorts of social statuses intersect with one another. In fact I’ve defended the concept of white privilege on this very board. But for the most part when I see privilege invoked online it’s used as a club against the opposition. “Check your privilege” in general online discussions isn’t meant to be thought provoking it usually means “your opinion is neither valid nor wanted in this discussion.”
Happily it seems that the popularity of this phrase is winding down. I still see it on occasion but not as frequently as I did last year or the year before.
It’s actually kind of sad the way that conservatives have managed to twist the definition of “entitlement” to be a bad thing.
You see, the word is supposed to mean “the fact of having a *right *to something.” But to hear conservatives whinge about it, they think it basically means “theft”.
This thread makes me sad and I give up.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a predominantly white organization and is hardly comparable to the Urban League or NAACP.
Yes and? The point still stands. Anyone who starts an argument with “you people” is overbearing, and probably racist and sexist, as well.
It was not an argument, it was more of a rally cry. She was prettymuch preaching to the converted.
**Why are Americans so fixated on “privilege” and “entitlement?”
**
Damfino. But IMNSHO, those are two words that should be abolished from everyone’s vocabulary.