White Privilege

ARGH board ate my post. Of course this would be the one time I forgot to copy it into notepad.

edited 24th Feb '12 10:41:23 PM by BlackHumor

increasing welfare and education spending, giving special funding to schools in areas with a large population of poor minorities

If we could do this,

What do you mean IF? There's no reason that any nation CAN'T do this, except that a majority of those who live well above the poverty line would prefer to spend their money on themselves rather than pay it in taxes to a government that will spend it on those living near or below it.

"Job creators" are not "wealth creators." They make opportunities for wealth, sure, but it's the job WORKERS who actually CREATE the wealth.

Anyway, staying on-topic, my point is that using the term "white privilege" encourages those with proportionally more power to their voices to use them to increase compassion and justice, and support improved opportunities for everyone.

• impish grin* yay Notepad! ;)

edited to add a return that went missin.

edited 25th Feb '12 1:13:04 AM by Clicketykeys

And may ask how we're supposed to get to that post-racial society if we're using skin color to determine motive?

Well, we need to actually have racial equality first.

@Clicketykeys: That's what I meant. If we could change the perception of those below the poverty line, then we could redirect funds their way (short of executive or legislative fiat, but that'll never happen in the United States). So we could do it, but we're not. And That's Terrible.

And it follows, since we're not doing such things, then yes, we need affirmative action.

Instead of racial equality, I say we of course prop up the education system and the social reforms for more class equality and better chance your hard work will pay off for you regardless of your skin tone, yes. But I would prefer a push to color blindness.

As I said before, even if we can get people to look past color, there is still sexuality, religion, etc. that divides us. As much as I appreciate my coworkers not caring if I'm black, white, or green, it would be nice to not be "Oh, that's the homosexual doctor". I'm not flaming down the halls, so what does it matter?

A true cross cultural education from a younger age will help in consolidating our society into just fellow citizens while still allowing for expressions of personal identity and heritage but without labeling us or restricting us to be just that both internally and externally.

To slightly necro this thread and bring back an earlier topic of conversation about what people lucky enough not to be disenfranchised can do, I bring this post from a related SA thread on privilege in gaming:

Now, I'm not straight, white, male, a native English speaker, or middle-class, so I don't know how to take this and if it presumes too much or not. I think it's a fine idea. Thoughts?

Well some of the stuff is probably a lot more effort than is really required, yes, the discussion about white privilege to me has always been about getting everyone up to par to enjoy the same social environment.

I liked it a lot. This person clearly has experience in teaching people about privilege; this list covers most of the bases. I especially appreciated the last one; we can go hundreds of years back and see how well intentioned people unwittingly reproduced their privileges through activism; the narratives of Frederick Douglass come to mind.

The one thing that didn't gel with me was: "this whole conversation is not about you - it's about the less privileged." I get what this person means here; I've heard the "it's not about you" statement in similar contexts. However, because I like to emphasize the fact that kyriarchy affects everyone, I wouldn't have used a statement that diverts attention from half of the equation.

edited 28th Apr '12 9:40:28 PM by Grain

I think that anyone trying to convince me to feel guilty about gay jokes, rape jokes, and seeing movies with female eye candy in them should find a new hobby.

That entire speech specifically stated that it was not about making straight, white, middle-class men guilty, it was not even about them at all.

Sure, but the point of that statement was not "white people are irrelevant", it was to get across that, contrary to what many white people seem to believe, helping the underpriveleged doesn't mean oppressing the (currently) priveleged, in this case white people, it just means they won't be priveleged anymore.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:10:38 PM by stripesthezebra

To repeat my comments from way back when, I think "privilege" is a very poor choice of words here. When you call something a privilege, you imply that it's something people have the right to take away from you, and probably that they should take it away from you if you haven't done anything to earn it.

I mean, I've never been raped, while many other people have, but what do you think the response would be if went on TV to say, "Not being raped isn't a right; it's a privilege"?

edited 28th Apr '12 11:47:28 PM by RavenWilder

It's difficult to believe that an idea centered completely around the social status of a particular group is in some way "not about" them. It seems that the entire piece has to do with the privilege of white males and how they need to modify their behavior to appease others. There's no sense of the word "about" I can think of in which that post isn't entirely about white males. A better way of putting it would be "don't take it personally that we resent you," because that's the sentiment the post seems to carry.

In any case, it's really a bit astigmatic to say that the post isn't a guilt trip, otherwise why would it advocate all of this political correctness? If I had nothing to feel guilty about, why wouldn't I crack whatever joke or watch whatever movie I damn well please? It makes no sense to say "we don't want to make you feel bad about your behavior, but please modify it to our liking." Well, why modify it if I have nothing to feel bad about? Unless the piece really does intend to argue that "we view white privilege and the movement against it as equally valid morally, and so we offer you these polite suggestions of behavior modification in the spirit of not condemning white privilege at all," there's at least an implicit claim of moral superiorty here. It might not be a guilt trip, but when there's smoke, there's generally fire.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:34:07 PM by Sarkastique

Meh. Hard work and cunning got my ancestors into a position where their descendents would be well off. I'm not ever going to feel guilty about that. Dear me, no; I'm going to keep working at it so that my descendents are well off. If other people don't work as hard or as well and their descendents are not as well off, does that mean mine should feel guilty for being 'privileged'? Of course not.

It just means that it sucks to be those peoples' descendents.

Work hard, fight hard and you, too, can be 'privileged'.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:41:05 PM by InverurieJones

The point is "Don't feel bad about having privilege, because you didn't choose to have it". That doesn't mean that common decency shouldn't direct you to modify your behaviour now that you know you have it.

You don't have to accept that a situation is your fault before you can decide to take action to change it.

I don't believe what I have is 'privilege'. It's my birthright, handed to me by ancestors who made it for me. I shall pass the same or better onto my kids.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:42:50 PM by InverurieJones

Oh really? I hope you're only planning to have sons, then, because it is impossible for you to pass male privilege on to your daughters.

Your privilege, in this case, comes from the color of your skin: which I highly doubt is because of your ancestors' "hard work".

Heheh. 'Male privilege'.

I sometimes forget that most of you only live on the internet.

S Kin colour? No. From being a native of a very prosperous, industrious nation where most people just happen to be white? Of course.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:49:00 PM by InverurieJones

And I sometimes forget that you live in a delusional fantasy-land. Seriously, you don't believe that men are favored by society?

Not particularly, not here at least. Can't speak for (and don't care about) things in the US, of course.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:49:56 PM by InverurieJones

And where, exactly, is this non-sexist utopia you call "here"?

The distinctly sexist, women-have-it-too-easy, nation of Scotland.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:51:29 PM by InverurieJones

Really? So there isn't a huge difference in the way men and women are treated by your films, with men in the action lead roles and the women in damsel-in-distress or prize roles?

You worry about being raped when you walk in a bad area after dark? You have to be concerned about your appearance just as much as women do?

Your leadership roles are split equally between men and women?

People try to protect you all the time, even from things you don't particularly want to be sheltered from, while they urge your siblings out into the world?

Hm, funny. I just looked up the names of the people in your government. Most of them are male. But I'm sure that's just a co-incidence, right?