"White privilege" doesn't only come from current treatment of race, but also from the lingering effects of past treatment of race. There were centuries of mistreatment which have left many families and communities with major financial and social handicaps.
The game isn't unfair because the players don't finish with the same score. It's unfair because some of the players didn't get a turn for the first two thirds of the game.
Those families donāt benevolently support entire races of people though. Itās like pointing to my tv screen and saying that person is successful therefore I am successful.
this is a very good approach to explain it imho, kudos!
there's definitely STILL a difference in systemic privilege today, but focusing on that alone misses the big picture AND results in much unnecessary resistance and offence taken by privileged people who feel blamed
so I'm a fan of viewing the topic like you describe
Itās crazy how the comments are shining bright from the privileged that canāt comprehend how theyāve been blinded and/or are willfully shutting their eyes
my mom is a lesbian and she legit told me once POC have too much hand outs and LGBTQ people should have it. The sheer selfish lack of reflecation boggles me to this day.
Ask a gay man and they'll say the same thing about your mom. Ask either and they'll say bisexuals are gross cheaters. All all three and they'll say that about trans.
thats what yrs of proganda has done to this country to keep the working class from raising up. its the black/gay/immgriant whose making your life worse, not billionares.
White privilege as an example in the US means, if you apply for a job and don't get it, you can be sure it's not about your skin color. Black, brown etc. can't be sure.
Exactly. It literally just means you don't have to think about things that are very real factors in other people's lives, and maintaining perspective that you're not the only individual in the world.
White privilege means you don't have to worry that your skin colour didn't get you the job. Straight privilege means you can be sure it wasn't because you casually mentioned your partners name to someone in the company. That sort of thing.
I am infinitely pissed that people with zero reading comprehension insist you can't talk about privilege without it meaning you hate the privileged group.
The people with the power to pass someone over for their skin color are still overwhelmingly the same demographic they were in the sixties. The exceptions you're describing exist but they're very uncommon exceptions to the rule.
Yes, but that point still stands in contrast to the original comment. White people do get passed over in recruiting for the color of their skin, and more regularly than most would like to admit
I tell you this, weāve got to come together, everything weāve done up to this point has failed and until we realize our struggles are the same and find a solution together weāll continue to be nothing but a joke to those stuffing their pockets with our money. While telling both sides keep giving us your money weāve almost have it fixed š¤Øš¤Øš¤Ø
A very recent study found that people who have white sounding names on their resumes received 50% more call backs than people with black sounding names. Thatās white privilege.
Hahaha well they have the perspective they have to feel sorry for themselves. It doesnāt mean I feel sorry for them- but they still have problems- they just have different ones than us poor people because they can pay for the ones we have to go away.
With the current government in the US they know they are making life considerably more difficult for most of the population and much worse for some of it but it isn't a bug, its a feature. In fact they wear their prejudices with pride and appeal to those like them openly. If people still think racism is largely fictional then they dont want to see because they dont have a problem with it.
"Thinking people donāt struggle is ignorant.
Thinking people donāt struggle because of the color of their skin is racist."
Agreed. Realistically every race will face discrimination based on the color of their skin at some point. But we shouldn't stop there.
In this context privilege would be more about problems one doesn't have to deal with than being born with obvious advantages.
Hence the question is: To what degree do different skin colors struggle because of the color of their skin specifically? Because that's where this whole conversation actually starts.
Perhaps we should look at the numbers on several important things including but not limited to: hiring discrimination, mortgage lending, medical treatment, policing, and hate crime to figure out to what degree the color of a person's skin directly affects important aspects of their lives?
Because chances are for some races it would hardly impact their lives at all, and for others their skin color would all but mark them for death. Perhaps the disparity would be so bad that one race in particular would statistically get hate-killed more than the others by crazies with slurs and hate symbols painted or etched into their guns.
Agree. This goes for other kinds of privilege, too.
Heterosexual people have privilege. Cisgender people have privilege. Rich people have privilege. That does not mean any of those groups are free from struggle; it just means their struggles are not caused by their inclusion in those groups. This list could go on.
If I were rich and I wanted to conquer my enemy, and they were a large enemy, what is the first place my mind goes? "Divide and conquer".
The more lines in the sand you draw or create - or are created for you by strangers on the internet whose job it is to upset you - the more you tell people they don't struggle, the more you isolate yourself with gross selfishness dressed up as moral superiority, the less you have the ability to fight back against those who control you. You traded strength in numbers for satisfaction all alone.
While I agree that it is more class than race, you can't deny that a white person is going to have less.... pushback, even among people in the same class.
ā"Focus on class, not race" is easy advice to give when it isn't your rights, bodily autonomy, or survival being actively targeted. You can't unite the working class by telling half of it that their immediate, material oppression is just an imaginary division manufactured to upset them.
I donāt think thatās what theyāre trying to say (hopefully). They agree with the initial premise, and are trying to say that the hatred that causes race-based oppression (and other types like homophobia, etc) is purposefully inflamed by the rich so that people are too busy fighting amongst themselves to look up and realize that theyāre being conned by billionaires. Doesnāt excuse the racist oppression whatsoever, but hopefully discussions like this can help some people that were born into racist households make decisions for themselves and break that cycle.
Frantz Fanon spoke about how the French left were so focused on class warfare they practically ignored racism. Many of them treated it like a capitalist trick while Fanon argued that it was a deeply embedded structural and psychological phenomenon and there was no snapping your fingers and waking up from it.
This whole class unity is a lovely idea, except a lot of working class people would see my coloured ass and decide I had nothing worth listening to before I got within ear shot. If anybody can disabuse these people of their ignorance I welcome it but im not holding my breath. Just look at current affairs.
where does accents come in white privileged? I feel like your accent too can change how your treated by people, especially if its from a different country
Let me explain white privilege to folks in a way that helped me understand it while putting the boogey man to rest. White privilege is just being seen as more safe by other white people because you will be less perceived as an outsider thus not being subjected to intense levels of unwarranted suspicion because at the end of the day we never really left the tribal stage, they just got bigger. This is a subconscious thing that happens because its a type of survival instinct built into us.
So if you lived in a town where everyone wore green shirts everyday, but someone came around wearing a purple shirt you would notice right away and depending on the person noticing it could lead to thoughts ranging anywhere from thinking oh thats neat something different, to why arnt they wearing green like the rest of us thats suspicious.
Absolutely and we do see it. But the reason it is such a hot topic around white privilege is due to the fact that western civilization largely originates from European colonization where people of white skin color held positions of power.
And so because of that subconscious bias still present in humans, people who look different are viewed as outsiders and treated with more suspicion. White people hold most positions in power within the system of western civilization; therefore, white people are treated with less suspicion. That is not to say that we don't have our own struggles. Just that we are much less likely to deal with struggles based upon our skin color in western civilization. Outliers do exist and are worth mentioning in some discussions, but general circumstances tend to favor white people.
However, the wonderful thing about being the intelligent, thinking organisms that we are is that we can consciously choose to oppose those biases. It's okay to have those biases. Everyone has them. It's in human nature. We just don't have to act on them. They can be defeated.
Ok but you can say the same thing about being white in a prodaminatley black city. I've been to black parts of towns as a white guy and everyone treats you like an outsider too. So is that black privilege?
It this scenario technically yes it would be a transitional state of privilege. Unfortunately due to years of racism in forms like red lining for example the black community has been sabotaged to the point that black on black crime created by the artificially made struggle they are forced to live in has eroded the sense of community and essentially destroyed what could be perceieved as black privilege in those settings.
Absolutely correct. The pendulum can and does swing in both directions. All people can have a tendency to look at others, not within their group with caution or skepticism.
I'll say, as a White boy growing up in the hood, being chased by 6 older Black boys shouting "We're gonna kill you White boys!" to my little brother and I as we frantically ran to our house, it did feel like me being White was the problem they had with me.
However, after exiting the hood, I've not experienced that situation again, so mostly accurate, yeah.
White people do struggleā¦itās just that White people have approximately 68% majority in the USA. The small percentage that do struggle would be almost the entirety of minorities population in the country. The majority ruleā¦thatās the privilege.
Partially disagree because it's not just that white people don't struggle due to whiteness. It's also actually privilege. White people get benefits beyond just not struggling because of our race. Not just a lack of penalty, but actual benefit you can't get without being white
The real answer is that everyone struggles, the reason why you see so many white people at the top is because they are nice and smile at you when you are looking and are cut throat and back stabbing to make rank when you aren't looking. They do this while everyone else is squabbling about fairness and equality at the bottom fighting at the lowest ranking of society. You can deep dive any rich person of any background and see all the garbage that made them what they are today. No one gets ahead without causing problems for others.
It's absolutely true and people love to "whatabout" "we were poor too". A white person's life isn't always made worse BECAUSE he's white but a minority, historically, has had a harder life because of his skin color. Being a poor white person is nowhere near the same as being a poor minority. History has more than proven that. I get it, we're in a class war right now but ignoring systemic racism is exactly why history is repeating itself and Steve Bannon and his cronies are have taken over the government with neo-Nazi Christianity. Two things can be true at once.
Dudn't matter. Been trying to tell that class for decades they should seek solidarity with folks who are in the same class boat as them, but they continue to side and vote with the class who looks like them, despite that class keeping them down. Classless.
Absolute Numbers: In the Federal Bureau of Prisons system, White inmates make up about 56.6% of the population (roughly 86,400 people), while Black inmates make up about 38.7% (roughly 59,000 people).Disproportionality and Rates: According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Black Americans comprise only about 13% of the general U.S. population yet make up over 37% of people in prison or jail.Per Capita Disparities: Native Americans and Native Alaskans face a disproportionately high imprisonment rate of roughly 763 per 100,000, compared to an overall national rate of about 350 per 100,000. Black Americans are imprisoned at roughly five times the rate of White Americans
Looks to be that white people and black people make up the majority of the prison population. Yet there are not as many black people as there are whites in prison. I think people should look into these things before they start vomiting there rasist bullshit. It also looks like the Native American and Alaskan Natives are treated worse then any one else.
I think the word āprivilegeā is the problem. If you have to keep explaining what should be a very simple idea, you need to find new words with which to express it.
While racial oppression seems obvious to me, I always wondered if the āwhite privilegeā position was intended to divide us and keep the working class fighting among ourselves. It doesnāt seem to offer a solution. The solution is obviously for all of us to join together in the things we have in common (jobs, family issues, reducing crime) but I donāt notice join together speeches, like you might expect from an MLK, but only how we are different arguments, like you would hear from a segregationist. Just an observation, I donāt know if itās valid.
I do agree, but I think it's also why the use of the word 'privilege' was always the most moronic and inappropriate word to use.
For 2 main reasons:
For centuries privilege was synonymous with wealth. So people got super confused when it was now used for poor people
We don't mean privilege in any sense. When we say something is a privilege in almost all cases we're not saying it's something you ought not to have, but something everyone out to have. Privilege isn't an advantage, it's the absence of a disadvantage... so framing it as something extra a person has is wildly misleading... it implies you should not have it as opposed to the idea everyone should.
Dominant group privilege is the broader idea that people can receive advantages because they belong to the group with the greatest social, political, economic, or institutional power in a particular society.
It does not necessarily mean that group is white, and it does not even always mean the group is the numerical majority. The dominant group is the group whose language, customs, identity, or interests are most embedded in institutions and treated as the social default.
So in the U.S., discussions often use the term white privilege because whites historically held most institutional power. In other societies, the advantage might be Han majority privilege in China, ethnic Japanese advantage in Japan, Sinhalese dominance in Sri Lanka, caste privilege in India, or Bumiputera preferences in Malaysia.
The important distinction is that privilege does not mean every individual in the dominant group is wealthy, successful, or free from hardship. This is far more relatable world wide.
Letās also not forget about the 50 million currently in slavery.
In many years past, white privileged was a thing. In the 40s it changed. In the 50s it got to be more rounded with all races. It was almost perfect through to the 2000s. Black, white, Asian, we all got along better back then. We had equal rights and it was working. Now we have so called white privilege and DEI. The words are used to divide us because the powers that want to control you are dividing us. Name one thing that a white person can do better than any other race. When you get down to the nitty gritty and think on your own you will notice that we are all Americans regardless of skin color.
I'd agree if you can show quantifiable evidence and comparing to % populations does not equal evidence. It can't be thoughts and feelings or what about 60 years ago.
I am white and privilidged and i dont care anymore. I am tired of having to justify that my ancestors build something that am i trying to pass on to my children so my family keeps reaping the benefits of the hard work we put in
Police interactions are peak example of privilege. You could have the exact same shitty life as a black dude, chances are you're still going to be treated differently by authority figures. Your treatment only gets better or worse depending perceived wealth or by deviance from normalcy. But for non white people this sliding scale starts at the bottom and only gets worse the more poor or abnormal you are.
The way police get away with that indicates it's a societal issue and not just bad apples.
Expand this to society at large when it comes to people who have authority or power over others in any small way and you see how much it can affect people
As usual this sort of thing gets muddied by phrasing and framing
The problem is that "white privilege" does not have a meaning. PEOPLE have different meanings when they say "white privilege".Ā This is just one of those meanings.Ā What's frustrating is when ANY phrase just means whatever people want it to.Ā I'm not saying that some version of "white privilege" isn't absolutely true.Ā I'm saying that no productive discussion can be had when it isn't even clear what's being discussed.
I struggle and I'm white have to deal with all the other races that are trying to judge us for being white plus I've seen as many black men and women who are wealthy are they black priveledge
Do you ever get tired of playing in the āoppressionā Olympics? š itās 2026, not 2021, how about you realize how fucking stale this has become?
I am white and I have anything but privilege. I have to pay bills each month, go to work each day and still struggling paycheck to paycheck. Now, I also do not break the law or do things to get in trouble with the law. This privilege thing is so old and worn out. It is the idea that if you are white, you just wake up each day and life is perfect for you. That could not be further from the truth. I still have to live in debt at this time due to Trump. I still am barely scraping by each month because of Trump. If white privilege is not having issues with the law, then don't do thing to get you in trouble with the law. It is a know fact that if you have money and get in trouble with the law, you can get out of trouble faster and better than if you have no money at all and have to have a public defender. Just work, stay at home and pay your bills and other stuff. Everyone controls their own destiny, everyone.
'White privilege' is horrible branding (like so many things on the left) because it frames the issue as white 'advantage' when the real issue is POC 'disadvantage.' Is that semantics? You betcha. And it matters if you want to build a political coalition.Ā
Case in point... my cousin fucked up and got a nonviolent domestic on his record. Spent time in jail. Had to claw his way back.
He did. And he should be very proud of that fact. But I am fully aware of the fact his path forward was far easier than a black man in the same situation. Was his path easy? Absolutely not. Am I belittling his accomplishment? Hell no, I am very proud of him. Its just taking that moment to acknowledge he had connections made and doors opened for him that millions of men who do not look like him do not have, then committing yourself to changing that inequity.Ā
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