White Privilege

If "White Privilege" is the right thing to call it.

Eh, I've grumbled about the implications of the phrase, but honestly trying to get everyone to agree with on a commonly accepted politically neutral language is exercises in futility.

DG suggested "Institutionalized Racism" as the sub for "White Privilege."

And see my reply to it.

Nah white privilege will do well, it just shits me when it's used as an ad hominem attack in lieu of actual arguments by the likes on tumblr.

edited 23rd May '12 10:25:54 PM by joeyjojo

Those weren't ignorant people who might've been convinced, those were outright bigots from the start.

And besides that I'm inclined to take that as a cautionary tale of "minorities have to be active in taking their rights" instead of a "you must have the majority on your side". As long as it was (mostly) white people vs. other white people, nobody had enough skin in the game to prevent the bad guys from winning.

EDIT:

This is like saying to Occupy Wall Street, "the problem you're trying to fight is the poverty of the 99%, not the advantage of the 1%". Saying that misses half the problem; you can't stop the poor from becoming poorer without at least being aware the rich are getting richer.

edited 23rd May '12 9:48:20 PM by BlackHumor

Actually, that is what OWS was all about...they were only angry at the rich folks for getting in the way (or actively creating the problem by their actions), not because they were rich per se. *

Now, to respond to the point of your metaphor...

I fail to see how dragging people down is more effective than raising people up. If the problem is that some people are disadvantaged, lets advantage 'em. We can do that without taking much of anything away from anybody.

And this is the problem you run into with the "let's advantage 'em" statement, because minorities aren't inherently talking about the white people who earned their positions fair and square, either. They're talking about things like three strikes laws, racial profiling, nepotism, ethnic stereotypes, unequal representation in media, and gentrification, along with dozens of other forms of clearly unfair treatment. "White Privilege", or whatever you want to call it, isn't about white people being in an inherently better position than minorities. It's about things that whites simply won't have anymore even if you do "uplift" minorities. For example, if you heterogenize a white neighborhood or town, then they are losing the advantage of living in a neighborhood of all whites. The very people who WANT this advantage are going care very little what you call a movement that removes it.

So you want to call it "Institutionalized Racism"? Those same people will at first argue it's not racist, then they'll argue that even if it is, that's just life, then they'll argue that changing things will have practical problems and use stats and figures to back them up, and then they'll argue that it's "reverse racist".

edited 24th May '12 3:24:55 AM by KingZeal

Well, Zeal, you named a lot of things that are the heart of the problem. How do you propose we attack them? Racial profiling...good lord this one would be hard to prove without having put in quotas. It needs to go, but unless you tell cops "60% of the people you stop have to be white, 20% black, 15% hispanic, 3% Asian, 2% other," (disclaimer: I made those percentages up) I don't know how you stop it.

Or rather, I don't know how you stop it directly. The long-term solution is to eliminate the racial stereotypes you mentioned, then cops wouldn't profile. Elimination of racial stereotypes is something I really don't know how to do. Some stereotypes are self-fulfilling: You think of black people as less law-abiding, they find it harder to get accepted in law-abiding social circles, they wind up being less law-abiding, such that the stereotype is at least somewhat "accurate." So if we purged all stereotypes from our minds today, then came back 30 years from now, they'd be back (weaker, perhaps) simply because some of them are partially accurate, and they would re-accrue.

Stopping nepotism is as hard as stopping racial profiling. I imagine it's pretty difficult to prove when it's happened. I'm not sure I want it completely stopped though, at least in a business sense. If I start up a business and want my best friend to ride to the top with me (and it's privately owned), I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be allowed to make the poor business decision of giving him a position not related to his merit.

Unequal media rep goes back to racial stereotyping ("a black man is inherently different from me, so I can't relate to a black character" which leads to "let's make media that people will relate to so we can make money"). Breaking down that barrier is the key, but again, dunno how.

Three strikes laws should be repealed, a simple (if not easy) enough solution.

Gentrification...uh...that's sort of the reverse of the whole "black people move into our neighborhoods and bring the property value down," line of thought. Not sure we should do something about it. It also affects poor white people the same as it affects poor black people, so it really is an economic problem. The focus then, should be on the economic situation minorities find themselves in.

As for "institutionalized racism" of course it has its problems too. But I think it's less personal. When you say "White Privilege" whites will feel like you are attacking their successes in life that they feel they've earned (many of which they have). That's a lot more personal, and a lot more likely to back them into a corner than "other races are at a severe disadvantage due to society's tendency to stereotype them."

With the addendum that no member of a majority (even rich people, especially nowadays) really earned their position fair and square. If you're rich, even if you're very honest and a good person and give most of your money away to charity, you've still profited from a government that has been rigged to give you extra money. (This was what Warren Buffet was talking about when he complained about how low his taxes were.) Like with Buffet, you might not actually WANT the government to be rigged to give you money, but it still IS.

Similarly with white/straight/male people: you might be individually a good and honest person but society is devoted to giving you stuff you would not otherwise have earned, because other white/straight/male people in times past who were not so honest have rigged it that way. And again like with Warren Buffet, you might not WANT it to give you this stuff, but it still WILL give you this stuff whether or not you want it.

How were they not honest? Until recently(relatively speaking, of course) it was essentially all out in the open. Or at least that's how I've been taught history...

And you can't see how incredibly insulting that is, to say that all the hard work you've put in to do something doesn't matter if you're white/straight/male?

edited 24th May '12 3:19:22 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

So only minorities can have accomplishments. Okay.

I know, right? I guess that I shouldn't be trying so hard to find a job, because eventually one is just going to fall into my lap.

edited 24th May '12 3:26:10 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

Doesn't matter'? No. 'Was easier'? Yes.

''White privilege' means that you have inherent advantages over anyone else. Any person identical to you except for the colour of their skin would have a tougher time than you at... well, just about anything. This does not mean that you will automatically succeed at everything - it does, however, mean that things that are difficult for you are probably close to impossible for others. Again, try thinking of it like the lowest difficulty setting on a Nintendo Hard game.

edited 24th May '12 3:29:21 PM by Iaculus

Man, if growing up in a family that had to dig food out of garbage cans to survive is "easy mode" then I don't know how nonwhite people survive at all.

edited 24th May '12 3:31:52 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

I....okay, I've got nothing to say to that.

Same goes for how I failed out of college because I was working nights to help my family make ends meet. Same goes for how I still cannot find a job, and I'm skipping meals during the day to cut down on our food budget.

Man, I'm so privileged, you guys are right. Stuff is so much easier for me because I'm white.

edited 24th May '12 3:34:20 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

Remember, 'white privilege' is how white people have the advantage all other things being equal. For instance, a rich white man has an advantage over a rich black man, a poor white woman has an advantage over a poor black woman, and so on. You think there are no black people who've had to eat out of trash cans or drop out of college due to overwork?

The term is intersectionality - it's not a matter of how one disadvantage trumps another, but how disadvantages can combine to make someone's life extra-shitty. So, for instance, a poor black lesbian has to deal with racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia all at the same time.

edited 24th May '12 3:48:08 PM by Iaculus

DG, I'm so, so sorry you had to endure those things. And I admire your strength of spirit to survive it.

But I think what many people are trying to say is that as bad as you have it, the statistics make it plain that if you weren't white, you'd have it so much WORSE.

This IN NO WAY lessens what you've had to go through. It simply means there's something wrong and awful that one dedicated and bright woman is having such an uphill climb in what is supposed to be the most prosperous nation in existence.....AND THAT'S NOT EVEN ROCK BOTTOM.

@Iaculus: No, I know that there are black people in that situation. From what Black Humor is saying, the only reason why I'm not still digging food out of garbage cans is because I'm white, not because I worked my ass off. That's what I find insulting, and that's the sort of attitude about the whole White Privilege argument that really turns me off about it.

edited 24th May '12 3:51:09 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

I see you that and raise you living next to two crack houses, having your father pull a gun on your mother, living on church giveaways and public assistance while your mom works two jobs to make ends meet, unable to walk down the street with white women eyeing you with fear, unable to walk in your own neighborhood without being bullied cause you act "too white", paying for school while working a full time job and taking care of a cancer-patient mother, then graduating and not being able to pass any higher than a glorified delivery boy, then being fired and jobless for two years while writing porn to make a living.

Like I said, worrying about who has it worse than you is like complaining to a blind man that the lights are out.

Correction - being white makes it easier to get out of the whole eating-out-of-garbage-cans thing. An advantage is not a guarantee. That's what we've been talking about for pretty much the whole thread.

edited 24th May '12 3:53:09 PM by Iaculus

Okay, the mood here is pretty downbeat but that was funny.

@DG - I'm reasonably sure that's NOT what BH is saying. His only point is, how frustrated would you be if you worked your ass off only to be thwarted by the color of your skin??

In other words, he, and the rest of us, want a world where any woman with the same guts as you can likewise pull herself out of that same situation.

edited 24th May '12 3:56:57 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

@Zeal: I'd tell you my whole story, but nobody really wants to hear it, and I'm already too upset to tell it anyways.

@Iaculus: Except that's not how it's been coming across at all. It's still coming across as "Nobody cares about white people who have it tough, but a black person in the exact same situation? That's different."

And you know what? That's exactly what everyone's told me for pretty much my entire life. White people are advantaged, and those who can't make that advantage work are just worthless and lazy. White people have it so much better, even when they don't.

Edit: Anyways, I'm dropping out of this now, because nobody's going to listen anyways.

edited 24th May '12 4:00:24 PM by DrunkGirlfriend