White Privilege

If clarification is necessary, fine, but I don't even see what else you plan on using to refer to it otherwise.

Point is, dude, you can clarify what you mean without resorting to snide retorts and borderline insults. By not remaining civil, you automatically alienate your opponent and instigate a knee-jerk reaction of "fuck you and the horse you rode in on", which is not helpful in the slightest.

I'm usually in the camp that a layman shouldn't be expected to immediately grasp the more esoteric concepts and terminology that come packaged with any complex subject matter, as... well, a layman myself.

But if you don't mind me oversimplifying, the definition of minority we'd be using boils down to to this:

"A group that is disenfranchised based on racial/ethnic/religious/sexual/gender lines", as opposed to:

"A group that makes up a proportionately smaller part of a population."

I'm sure there's more to it and I sure as hell am not well-read on these sorts of matters, but on its own it's not terribly hard to understand.

I don't see how people are getting "whites deserve to be punished" out of "whites are disproportionately advantaged". Could you clarify more?

It's the wording.

Since white men are getting extra money, and that's a privilege, then we need to deny them that privilege to make things equal. From my perspective as a white person who's living below the poverty bracket, this looks a lot like someone wanting to "punish" me by docking my pay in the name of equality.

I know, and you know what, I'm sorry Karka, but it irritates the piss out of me when people decide that the terminology of sociology isn't important and act like it isn't an actual science where such things do matter, simply because it doesn't use some words the same way as the general population does.

Edit:

&

The (ideally) false presumption being that the goal is to drag everyone down to the bottom, rather than to pull everyone up to the top.

Though realistically what would end up happening is that some would go down and others would go up and most everyone would meet at the middle, but...

edited 20th Feb '12 2:20:42 PM by Flyboy

And such illustrates the disadvantage to calling it White Privilege, no matter how correct it may be in sociological terms. To the average person, privilege is something extra, and something that can be taken away. By framing it as privilege, it automatically makes the entire argument scan as "this needs to be taken away".

No, having your pay docked wouldn't help anything because that's not really how institutionalized, widespread disadvantage works, and I don't really think that's what that poster was implying.

While there's the whole issue of intersecting/overlapping disadvantages on racial/gender/class lines, it's helpful to me to know that, no matter what dire financial straits I find myself in, I would statistically be much, much, much worse off if I weren't white. The solution isn't "bar entry to schooling and/or work", it's generally "give preference to groups who rarely find themselves in this situation to begin with", if that makes sense. Nothing's really being "taken away" from me; it's an attempt to level the playing field.

edited 20th Feb '12 2:25:45 PM by msnoodles

Well, in a manner of speaking, it would be taken away. But, as the concept is a relative one, you don't have to move downwards to do it.

[Mid-Head-Cold Delurk]

I think I can see what DG is referring to a few posts up about clarifying terminology. With the following caveat: it depends on the audience.

Let's take an example complete unrelated to the topic at hand (in order to avoid, nitpicking). When I'm speaking with other civil engineers about a given project, I can use civil engineering terms with little fear that I will be misunderstood. However, I have no such assurances when speaking with the public. Thus, I take care to explain myself when I do feel that I may be misunderstood (or when I'm asked what the hell I'm talking about).

Bringing it back on-topic: Using sociology terms is fine when everybody in the discussion is in aware of the terminology (or has ready access to wikipedia ). However, when taking on the task of dealing with things like white privilege in the off-line (i.e. real) world) with people who may have no knowledge of sociology whatsoever, it's important to try to be as clear as possible.

On the other hand, if your goal your off-line conversations about this topic is to piss off as many people as possible, then use whatever language and terminology you want. (Actually, that works for any topic.)

EDIT: I can see why flyboy would be irritated. Unfortunately, dealing with people can be extremely irritating... [/Mid-Head-Cold Delurk]

edited 20th Feb '12 2:35:33 PM by OscarWildecat

So I did some research on the whole Beyonce thing. Turns out that I couldn't find her in the top 40 US singles for this week (which I presume Doma was referring to), but I did find a collaborative effort from Chris Brown there. I think that we can all agree that being a convicted wife-beater (well, technically girlfriend-beater) is a bit more serious than daring to point out that male privilege gives guys excessive leeway in their interactions with women, right?

@Noodles: Ah, but as a layman who doesn't exactly have the luxury of studying this stuff, that looks like giving preferential treatment to those who look different than me.

However, nobody liked my solution of giving help to everyone below the poverty line, because it would still benefit more whites than minorities, and apparently that's bad.

Which really only feeds back into the negative perception of people arguing "white privilege" want to take away my stuff in the name of "equality".

Actually, such would probably be reasonably effective, to a certain extent, since racism, by and large, is born of classism.

It wouldn't solve the problem, but it would be... temporarily acceptable.

@Laculus:What are you saying? Wailing on girlfriend is worst then making snotty remarks about double standards?

I think we are comparing apples to oranges here...

edited 20th Feb '12 2:34:47 PM by joeyjojo

Ah, but as a layman who doesn't exactly have the luxury of studying this stuff, that looks like giving preferential treatment to those who look different than me.

To compensate for the preferential treatment given to those who look the same as you. It's been well-established that the free market doesn't give minorities a fair shake (see also, measurable salary differences). Some measure of intervention is therefore necessary, no?

Doma asked for a man in the Top 40 who apparently hates women more than Beyonce apparently hates men. And I'm having a hard time seeing 'If I Was A Boy' as 'snotty'.

edited 20th Feb '12 2:39:17 PM by Iaculus

"Look different" is a little disingenuous; they come from more commonly disadvantaged, disproportionately poorer backgrounds and face an entirely different set of challenges that come with "looking different". (Hell, even having a "black-sounding name" can screw you over when you're applying to a job or college.)

So it could be considered "preferential treatment" as a means to counteract "preferential treatment" that whites have been receiving their whole lives.

I mean, if we could eradicate poverty, that would be nice in itself, but I don't think that'd mark the End to All Racism.

While this might hold true for the most part, I really do believe that it breaks down when entering the poverty level of income. Salary differences among the middle-class really doesn't make any difference to Joe Whitey when he's wondering how he's going to make the money to pay for food next week, and sees Jamal Notwhite getting additional money, even though they're both in the same situation.

edited 20th Feb '12 2:41:18 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

Do you object to taking a few zeros off of Mitt Romney's income? Because I'll bet good money people like him are most of what's pushing it up.

Besides that you're making a strawman so straw that even Andrea Dworkin wouldn't agree with it:

...but we've ALREADY EXPLAINED why that's a bad idea at LEAST five times across all the various "white privilege" threads.

If you don't listen to "Racism isn't the same as classism" the first five times you can't complain that we're ignoring what you say. And I think I'll throw in a bonus explanation of "just because a plan would benefit you personally the most doesn't mean it's the best idea for everyone".

edited 20th Feb '12 4:16:17 PM by BlackHumor

Mm. They aren't the same, no. But they're bound at the hip.

edited 20th Feb '12 4:31:41 PM by BestOf

Hey!

edited 21st Feb '12 8:51:31 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

Okay, I have NO idea what I missed, but....

Why is this an either/or thing. Why can't we acknowledge the macro disadvantages of minorities AND the micro disadvantages of some whites??

I agree. As I said earlier, some people seem to think that because people can be racist to whites that racism to minorities doesn't exist.

&I've been lurking on this thread, and I don't think anyone's actually said those things. The point seems to be that minorities are much more likely to be discriminated against than whites, which I'd wager is true.

Anyway, coming from the (biased) perspective of a female Asian-American troper with immigrant parents in the working class: This issue of white privilege/black disadvantage/institutional racism/whatever you want to call it goes hand in hand with sexism, homophobia, class issues, etc. Exposing yourself to as many different people as possible is really the only way to do something personally about it, as it allows you a different perspective into things.

All I remember is people saying that its bad.

No one's trying to say it is, at least I'm not. but classism's the larger issue, and if the dipshit liberal community would climb out of its ivory tower once in a while they'd actually get that. But they won't, because they are too busy patting themselves and each other on the back.

Not exactly sure what that's supposed to be, other than insulting.

When this thread stops being an echo-y hug-box, Starship...let me know, okay? I liked it better when people were kicking around solutions instead of each other for daring to disagree.