White Privilege

That could've gone better, I think.

edited 24th May '12 4:07:56 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

DG, you're strawmanning. No-one (respectable) is saying that. They're merely saying that, all other things being equal, you have an advantage because of the way our society views race. It doesn't mean your accomplishments were for naught, it just means that other people may not have had as easy a time. Privilege is nothing to be ashamed of, but is definitely something to be aware of.

This is entirely something you're reading into it; at no point have I said anything "doesn't matter".

What? No, that's silly; you were as white then as you are now.

Matter of fact I have more problem with the phrase "the only reason" in that sentence than I do with anything else in it. There's never only one reason for anything, and your and anyone else's hard work is never the only reason that you do well. If it was, you've clearly worked harder than many of the richest people in the world so you SHOULD have gigantic pools of money. But the world doesn't work like that.

Which is to say that: of the reasons that you are not digging food out of garbage cans, one of them is indeed because you're white. Another is because you don't live in a country with gigantic overpopulation, or a civil war on, or a horribly corrupt government. Another reason is that you weren't born with some kind of crippling disability. Another reason is just that you were lucky. And one of the reasons that you were ever digging food out of garbage cans in the first place is that you don't live in a country with a solid welfare system.

Which is also to say that, yes, if you WEREN'T white you might STILL be digging food out of garbage cans. At least in the US, social mobility is pretty much exclusive to people that have SOME kind of privilege to build on.

This is of course not to say your life has been easy, just that it's easier that it could've been.

You continue to read VAST AMOUNTS into what I'm saying. I'm not really sure why I'm talking with you either if you're going to misrepresent me that badly; it's like you're reading some entirely different post.

She knows what your saying is true.

What DG is saying is that being stuck in the same exact shitty situation (like digging food out of garbage cans), no matter who you are, sucks exactly the same for everyone. Being able to get out of that situation in part due to your whiteness doesn't stop it from being a shitty situation at the time, when any and all privileges are essentially meaningless.

You probably understand this, though. That's not the problem. The problem is your tone, which sounds like "stupid lucky ass white bitch, you ain't black, you don't really know haw hard life can be, so shut the fuck up and stop complaining."

Yes, you aren't actually saying that, but that's what you come off as.

What???

I don't see how anything anyone has said could be construed that way.

Look, we're not all friends here. In fact, some of us piss each other right off. But for some reason, there's a mutual respect amongst us. Respect for the struggles we've endured and the hardships we've survived. DG is not exempt from this fraternity. I can unequivocally speak for all of us when I say we admire her for what she's gone through and we're all bummed out she had to endure it at all. And we've said as much.

But we cannot lie. There is a problem in America in which the lives of too many people are tied to the amount of melanin in their skin. This is in turn tied to a bigger problem wherein this country feels the need to dole out opportunity like emergency rations in a camp full of starving people. There is opportunity to be had for all, with enough for leftovers.

We're not calling DG lazy, we're saying that when we create a fairer system; one based on character, guile, and courage rather than sex, religion, political affiliation, or some other nonsense, it'll result in more opportunities, not less.

When we fix the world so that Zeal's mother doesn't have a gun pulled on her and she doesn't have to work two jobs, and where both he and I aren't considered to be "talking white" because we use proper grammar, then perhaps we'll have a world where a girl like DG never has to dig through trash cans. Ever.

I have to say (speaking mostly to Ekuran here but kind of to the entire thread), it's very difficult to talk about the problems facing minorities if any time you do, (some) white/straight/male people take it to mean you don't care about their problems. Even when we've all been very careful NOT to say anything insulting to anyone in the thread, people complain they're being insulted.

I sort of think that's itself a sign of privilege, that you can assume that other people care about your problems to the extent that paying attention to someone else even for a second is perceived as ignoring you.

No it isn't. How is that a sign of privilege? You think whites and the rich enjoy hearing each other complain?

While I agree with you for the most part, I think this particularly bit could be.....adjusted a little.

@Starship: Oh, it could be, but I won't. It's not quite polite, but it's not rude either, and I'm already frustrated enough at having to put on kid gloves this whole thread.

Uh. Wow.

Though there may be some overlap, entitlement complexes and privilege are not the same thing.

Then again there is always a problem that someone who got themselves out of a shitty situation are usually less sympathetic to those in the same shitty situation than those who were never in the shitty situation to begin with. It's human nature to attribute good things that happen to you to be your doing while bad things that happen to you to be someone else's fault — so someone who managed to claw their way out will attribute it to all their hard work where there may have been other factors, like good luck and perhaps privilege, while someone in a shitty situation may still be working hard and just have shit luck or a lack of privilege, but it's still difficult to assess the causes accurately, especially in anecdotes.

I think because of this quirk of psychology we should still not focus on blame and instead focus on what's actually the problem, improving everyone's living situation and their access to opportunities. Blame in either direction will get us nowhere because it is too emotionally charged.

edited 24th May '12 9:14:24 PM by ohsointocats

All of this is the exact reason we should just call it something else - because whether or not you agree with DG's pov here, you see the kind of reaction the term provokes.

Again I ask, why do we have to frame it in terms of privilege when what we all want is to remove the disadvantages faced by minorities? I don't want white people to be poorer, I want minorities to be richer. I don't want people to stop treating white people with dignity and respect, I want people to treat minorities with that same dignity and respect. Framing it as an advantage that needs to be gone instead of a necessity in human life isn't just counterproductive, it's inaccurate.

And all that crap you said right there is exactly why what we're discussing is so evil.

Once again, there are advantages that we are trying to make fucking GONE. Like I said, racial stereotypes, nepotism, segregation, and all of those fun things. We don't want to "bring minorities up to the white level" on that shit because it would basically mean "Separate But Equal", and arguing that White Privilege is about about anything except strictly unfair, biased or discriminatory advantages is completely missing the point. When people talk about White Privilege, they're not talking about marching into a white person's home and handing out their property to the first minority until things are even. Insisting that that's even close to what we're talking about is racist in itself.

And DG's main problem is that she's assuming that anything we talk about is directly about her. Though she's insisted that it isn't, every single time this subject has gotten into the ways minorities have it worse than white people in general, her first thing is to point at herself and say "what about me"? Again, that sort of Anecdotal Fallacy is pretty much like someone saying "I want to eat something because I'm hungry" and someone else saying "well my uncle choked on food and died, so food must be bad". Not only is DG's personal problems, by themselves, not relevant to institutionalized racism as a whole, but when she attacks the problem by directly citing herself as a rebuttal, she forces US to attack her and look like jackasses. That sort of tactic is EXACTLY what the people who support the racist status quo invoke in order to make any sort of change seem unfair. It's not about Drunken Girlfriend's Problems vs Carlita Lopez living on cents an hour. Yes, we want to fix DG's problems, too.

So let's put the semantic crap out of the ay for good. As I said, give me some sort of practical answer. What name do you want to call it, and give me some hard numbers to back up that a name makes any difference in how people will react to this. Or cite an independent source that shows hard evidence of it.

edited 25th May '12 5:04:46 AM by KingZeal

I'm not saying DG is right, but starving does tend to make even the best of us a bit....on edge.

Zeal, this isn't even mostly about which label is most accurate. It is about which is most helpful. I don't see any hard numbers to back up that "White Privilege" is a good label. I have seen pages upon pages of people arguing that it puts people's backs to a wall and cheapens their accomplishments.

I've seen no such response toward phrases like "Institutionalized Racism." In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find someone in these forums who disagrees that it exists. So I would argue the phrase that does the least to alienate people who you might need to help your cause would be the best one.

And I completely agree that the "privilege" is on the margins. That is, that someone who is exactly the same as a white person, just not white, is statistically in a worse position because of it. It's just that when you're a disadvantaged white person, it's difficult to see, and it can come off as very insulting to hear that you are privileged. Even if that label is completely accurate.

Well, Vericat, they said they don't need any white people on their side, so who cares how many white people they upset?

edited 25th May '12 3:16:55 PM by ohsointocats

Your personal experience/hypotheses don't matter. Nor does the sample size of a single liberal-slanted forum. I've personally seen the opposite reaction to "institutionalized racism" many, many time. If you believe that the term is better, show hard numbers, focus tests or feasibility studies. Show something other than gut feeling or emotional appeal.

And also, this data would have to show demonstrated numbers of people who didn't just nod their heads and say "Yes, I agree that's bad" but people who actually did something about it. Anybody can nod their head and say that misogynistic and racist media is bad and then buy the first comic book with Psylocke on the cover or go fap to "Asian Street Hookers #32".

No kidding. As a man, it's also difficult for me to see how things like, hypothetically speaking, having a personal liking for The Lad-ette or Action Girl over Proper Lady or The Ingenue are inherently sexist. However, I can see why now, and I can totally agree with that assessment.*

Nobody said any such thing. We don't need houses built of straw here.

edited 25th May '12 4:48:18 PM by KingZeal

Actually, Zeal, Black Humor said as much back in post 1522. I was likewise uninterested in arguing with that point, but it is there.

Then I see no point in having any discussions at all in OTC without each post citing to relevant authority. I am giving my own hypotheses for anyone who wants to hear them. Whether you do or not isn't particularly important to me, no offense intended. I have yet to see any relevant authority suggesting that the term "White Privilege" is going to serve any movement to end it any better than "Institutionalized Racism." If I see it, I will definitely consider it with due respect to its methods and source - and there is an excellent chance it will change my mind.

If I thought there were authorities out there who had studied and reported the emotional differences between those terms, I would absolutely seek them out and form an opinion based on them. Please link them if they exist.

This is the same sort of personal anecdote you were saying doesn't matter. So until you show me the same sort of hard statistics you keep demanding, I guess we'll have to continue discussing based on, not gut feeling/emotional appeal, but common sense and personal observation.

Which, while not the most effective way to do so, is not always worthless. I would be happy to hear more about this particular instance.

edited 25th May '12 5:33:14 PM by Vericrat

@Black Humor: I'm not arguing against what you're saying. I agree with it.

Its just, you're basically saying to DG "your not at rock bottom in part due to your whiteness and therefore your accomplishments are lessened". The shitty thing is that it may be true in her case, and almost definitely is in most cases, so we can't actually speak the truth (that white people can more easily get to be better off than poc, which means that a white person's accomplishments are outright less than a comparable poc's accomplishments) without insulting her.

I'm not defending her reaction, merely stating why she has it.

The name isn't the problem, Zeal. The very concept of "white people are able to get ahead more easily than poc/poc have it far harder in trying to get ahead in life than white people" is whats insulting to both groups. White people (particularly (formerly) poor white people) will be insulted for the same reason DG is, while poc will be insulted because it treats them more as pitiable things than people.

Which is why arguing about this is pointless, since it'll inevitably piss off everyone who cares about it, so those who do care should probably just focus on removing the reasons for it rather than arguing over what to call it. Sparing the feelings of the people involved for some half-assed PC bullshit is for politicians, not problem solvers.

edited 25th May '12 6:07:25 PM by Ekuran

He said he didn't care if the people we're calling to help felt "alienated", not we didn't want or welcome their help. And even if he did, he's kind of right.

No, that is bullshit. The problem here is people getting upset about the term being used and using that as a smokescreen to attack the concept in and of itself. We know that "privileged" and "underprivileged" are terms to describe have and have-nots respectively. Being a "have" does not mean you don't have problems and that those problems may or may not be worse than the problems faced by some of the "have-nots". We know what these terms mean.

And yet, because it's used specifically in THIS context, people don't even talk about the thing itself, but what it's called. They specifically argue that what it's called is a problem. Then, when I say "Okay, prove it", all of a sudden, the retort is "well, why don't we prove everything". Yes. Why don't we? There are actually stats and figures backing up that whites, in aggregate, are "haves" in respect to other minorities, particularly in America. So, we know that they are privileged, and so far, most people haven't argued that they aren't. Even DG hasn't. She's only argued about how it makes her feel to realize this. The one argument I've heard in refutation was that writing supposedly didn't have the problem, but that seemed to have fizzled out when I suggested putting an obviously-black name like "Shaniqua" or "Jamal" or "Latifah" or something in that regard.

So now, if you're switching the issue from the thing itself to its name, where is YOUR data to support it? The point isn't that I'm saying "the current name is perfect", I'm saying, "move along until you can prove there's a definite solution". Otherwise, we're wasting time and energy.

Oh, I don't doubt that an emotional difference exists. I'm doubting if it matters. Again, it's possible for me to shake my head and say what a shame there's some kid starving in Indonesia somewhere and then go right back to eating my Super Duper Size Meal because I paid for it with my hard-earned paycheck and I'm hungry goddammit. I can dismiss it because it's not MY problem and I'm too poor and black to be part of the problem, right?

No, because you missed my point. My anecdotes aren't any more important than your anecdotes. I can cite them, just like you can, but they mean fuck all in terms of the conversation. You say "I've never seen this", I say "Well I have". Where does that get us? It proves that somewhere, at some time, somebody did something that supported what we had to say.

EXACTLY MY POINT.

edited 25th May '12 6:49:09 PM by KingZeal

I'm a little insulted here. If you think I'm attacking the concept that there is an unacceptable difference in the amounts of effort required or even possibility of advancement in our society, you are completely wrong. There's no other way to say it. I simply believe that people are very defensive about their achievements, and that, rightly or wrongly (generally the latter), they perceive being told that their achievements were partly from their race as being told that their achievements are not through their own personal effort. Because I believe this, I believe it would be more profitable for the movement to change a name that gives that implication - even though that perception is not generally valid.

You know, I hadn't even considered this. But I still don't see why the emotional reaction that one name provokes requires a study where the other name is simply assumed to be acceptable. Please enlighten me.

Exactly. I totally agree with this.

My parents both had it weird I suppose, my step dad as well.

My mom grew up poor, just her mom supporting her and a few other children. Birthdays back then meant "Hey we're ordering a pizza!" and my grandma worked to the bone as a hospital nurse to support the family. Eventually remarried a computer programmer, and my mom moved out west to california to live with my great grandma when she was 17, which took slack off the family. Married my dad and he paid the bills while my mom went to college for nursing. When they were dating she was pretty much on the DG diet, so to speak. When they got married she had stability because of his good job. Now she's the senior case manager for So Cal of a large medical insurance company.

My dad lost his own dad at maybe 8 years old. He was a machinist for Caterpillar. His two older brothers got minimum wage jobs to support him, his sister, and their mother, who didn't work(Lazy woman sat on the couch smoking cigarettes till the day she died). Eventually my dad took up the mantle of working under the table to support the family along with his sister and the middle brother, after the eldest brother went to the Army. Eventually all the kids left until it was just my uncle hanging around working at a convenience store and living with my grandma. When she died he was free, and went on to become a trucker. My dad had a high paying union job as a teamster up until the point when he died. Got lucky enough to land it, those jobs are few and far between.

My step-dads family, who are black, were a military family. His father retired as a Master Sergeant in the Air Force, and his mom tended to the kids. They lived off his pension and his side jobs as a handyman. My step-dad enlisted in the Army at 18, and eventually retired from the National Guard as a master sergeant, and is currently an LAPD veteran of some 24 years.

My three families all took vastly different routes to get where they are, but essentially, my white parents both came from extremely poor and struggling families. My step-dads family came from the military, so they were covered, because the military doesn't give a shit if you're black or white, especially not now. Everyone catches bullets just the same.

But now? All of them are prosperous. And damn fucking right they got there on their own merits. This thread is rife with people trying to use race as an excuse, to say that minorities have a staggeringly huge deck stacked against them, and an offensive tone that many upper middle class whites got where they are more because of race than merit, and that poor whites don't deserve sympathy because of some magical inherent advantages.

I'm not sure what the point of all this rant was, but I suppose it just pisses me off to hear this kind of stuff. Life is rough no matter how you slice it, some people get lucky, some people get unlucky, and some people make choices in life that lead to success or failure. I don't think race is a majority factor in why these things happen. While I agree that it is a factor, I don't think anyone here should be acting like it's the biggest factor.

I mean shit, my family is well to do now, and it doesn't mean I had the silver spoon in my mouth. My parents adamantly make me work for anything I get, mostly because I'm too proud to ever actually ask them for help, and they aren't going to volunteer it unless I ask. I just got laid off from a job I'd only had for about 10 weeks because of my guard/reserve service, after being unemployed for several months. Guardsmen and Reservists 20-28 have a 30 percent unemployment rate, the highest in the entire United States of America, more than any race or gender disparity. When it comes to jobs, my white "privilege" is pretty much axed because of my veterans status. Being white sure doesn't feel like it's helping me a lot. I mean, my roomate is a black guy who makes 26 dollars an hour at a bitchin computer company in the nice part of town. The only reason he stays in this cess pit is because it's cheap as hell and he knows I'd be left out in the cold if he jumped ship.

So take the privilege crap, and shove it up your asses. It sounds pretty fucking weak from over here in the unemployed veterans line.

edited 25th May '12 6:54:03 PM by Barkey

If you want me to be brutally honest, I was mostly talking about DG. Many of her posts have been mocking the idea of White Privilege through semantics. The entire point of White Privilege is "white people in general have it better, excluding outliers". Like, you don't argue that soap doesn't preserve health just because theres a minority of people who were unfortunate enough to get sick anyway. But, in most of her posts, she has scoffed at the idea of minorities having it bad because she has it (or had it) bad. This is ignoring the problem that her response is EXACTLY THE PROBLEM. No matter how bad she has it at the moment, there's probably SOMEONE who has it worse and by her admission, she's even said that this is probably true, but it's hard to see because she's had to struggle.

But that's the problem—MOST people are going to see themselves as that exception and DG is just a very extreme example of it. And the worst part of it is, it's not prudent to accept her as an exception, because there's no way to know for sure that some minority, somewhere DOESN'T have it worse. The REASON it's such a Red Herring to talk about the name here is because the feeling of "well I'm an exception because my problems/accomplishments have validity" is precisely what we want to fight. So we have to look like dicks to her because we have to tell her that her problems do not dismiss this other problem.

I edited in a reason above: it's because we (and even the experts/politicians on the subject) are wasting time trying to figure out how to let people feel like exceptions to this rather than agreeing that it's everybody's problem. Despite DG's situation, she's still exacerbating the issue because instead of trying to figure out the problem itself, we're trying to figure out how to make her and people like her stop bringing a completely separate problem into a discussion about THIS problem. It'd be like asking your wife if she smells gas in the kitchen and her snapping back that you're insinuating that she doesn't know how to use a stove. By the time you argue that point out, gas could be filling the room.

And Barkey just did the same thing.

edited 25th May '12 7:12:38 PM by KingZeal

Would all this have been avoided if someone had simply said "Damn DG, you did have it pretty fucked up, we're sorry you went through it, we're glad you're out of it. Unfortunately some folks are still stuck there since they're not white, and perhaps if we help them, by ripple-effect we'll prevent the same thing happening to anybody of any color"??