jon stewart and bill o'reilly argue about white privelage

This might have already been discussed here on ATS but I couldn't find anything in the ATS search directory. So, here's a clip from the Jon Stewart show where he has Bill O'Reilly as a guest and they have somewhat of a heated debate concerning White Privelage.

Here's the link:
tv.yahoo.com...

Who won Stewart or O'Reilly? What says ATS?

Bill won

a reply to: lostbook

Nobody won. It's called an opinion. Nothing solved.

a reply to: lostbook

nobody won, they're both idiots. white privilege was made up by a bunch rich politicians to make themselves feel better and act like they are doing something.

a reply to: lostbook
Don't let these two fool you, they are just actors playing parts. If they really believed what either one was saying, they wouldn't get along so well. They are BOTH the worst. I use to be a huge Jon Stewart fan. Then I saw when the last election came he totally changed his tune and stumped for Obama hard. He's a joke, just like Bill.

a reply to: thishereguy

LOL. Thanks for the laugh. This is part of the liberal/progressive/satanist conspiracy to make conservatives look ignorant. I get it.

fun watch, they make a good on screen couple.
as for the white privilege thing, i dunno. i am white.
but my problem is how exactly do you define privilege?
won't the majority always have privilege in a place where they are the...majority?
i am an italo american living in the czech republic. i do not have the advantages of the locals.
i am sure if you moved a bunch of czechs to italy, it would be the same.
a russian in china has a harder time than a russian in russia.
i lived in Johannesburg for almost 4 years, and blacks have more privileges than whites, as a way to make up for their sad history i would guess.
Is any of it fair? no.
but is it natural to prefer to help those that are "more like you"? i would argue yes.
if i had to hire an italian or an american to work for me, given equal skills, hell yeah i am picking the italian.
we all do it.
Start simple. would any of you treat me the exact same way you would treat your brother/sister, whatever? would you do the same things? no, because you have a connection to them you don't have with me.
now extend that across the complex interactions in a city, we are tribal animals looking for reasons to connect and associate, and sometimes, something as simple as skin color will do the trick.

a reply to: lostbook

I'm not an O'Reilly fan and actually like John Stewart but IMO Bill made the better argument against White Privilege.

They boiled their argument down to :

o'Reilly says you can make it in America if you:
1. Work Hard
2. Get Educated
3. Honest Person

Stewart argues that Blacks have a harder time because
1. If you live in a ghetto in poverty its harder to work hard
2. Harder to get educated in poverty

First I think, without much doubt at one time their definitely was White Privilege during the Slave era. However, the argument is whether it exists today.

Looking in to those arguments.

In o'Reilly defence their are numerous cases of extremely successful prominent African Americans today.
A lot of those successful prominent African Americans do have education.Those that aren't educated but extremely successful do appear to have hard work ethics.

In regards to Stewart defence.
What he said is true, but none of those two points are isolated to only African Americans. There are plenty of white Americans that live in ghetto and in poverty.


The common defactor today with privilege is MONEY , those who have it and those that don't . Color has very little to do with it unless its green.

However, ignorance and lack of education are definitely part of the equation which again is not isolated to African Americans.

At the university I attended in Texas, I had black friends, Hispanic friends and it was perfectly apparent to me that as a WASP; I was treated much differently than my friends when we were in a place of business, like a restaurant or convenience store. We never let the black guy drive because that was just asking to get pulled over.

White privileged....damn right!

The common defactor today with privilege is MONEY , those who have it and those that don't . Color has very little to do with it.

That's BS...

originally posted by: olaru12

The common defactor today with privilege is MONEY , those who have it and those that don't . Color has very little to do with it.

That BS...

Well who can argue with that rebuttal.

"Good point" said no one that read your post .

a reply to: thishereguy

This.

White guilt only exists in the mind of idiots. If that offends you, you're probably one of the idiots I'm referring to. (Not you thishereguy, but others reading this.)

an argument between two turds.

I thought Jon "won," but I've been a Jon Stewart fan for a long time, and happily admit to being biased in that direction. I thought it was a fun and fascinating conversation with thoughtful points on both sides, and misstatements on both sides.

I'm also one of those idiots who believes that white privilege still exists (in the US at least) and needs to be addressed. Although it's clearly satire, there's still a lot of truth to Eddie Murphy's brilliant SNL sketch from thirty years ago "White Like Me."

Of course there are exceptions, and of course generalities aren't always true in every case, but generally speaking the experience of being a black person in this country is still very different in a lot of ways from the experience of being a white person in this country. There really are multi-generational effects of hundreds of years of systemic oppression and segregation. I think Jon is absolutely right on that point, and I think Bill is wrong not to acknowledge it.

I will concede Bill's point that it is now much more possible than it was fifty years ago for anyone of any color to succeed in spite of the social and systemic challenges that still exist.

*sigh*

Anyone who subscribes to the "white privilege" (which, according to Jon Stewart only applies to white successful men) really should read the book, "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era" by Shelby Steele.

What Stewart was satisfied with at the end is that O'Reilly said that race, sex, etc. is a factor in modern society--well, no s**t, Sherlock. It's a factor everywhere, but O'Reilly's point that he made is the best one--if you work hard, get an education and are a decent human being, you can be successful in America. Stewart accepting this assertion as being an admittance to the existance of "white privilege" is a thinly veiled attempt to make it seem like O'Reilly conceded--he did not.

Stewart's (and others with the same belief) assertion that just because it's harder for a black kid who grew up in the ghetto to attain the same level of success as, say, a Kennedy offspring is a valid point, but it is not the definition of [insert race here] privilege. It's just as hard as some poor hillbilly in rural Kentucky to overcome the hard-work, get-an-education hurdle that Stewart mentions, yet he only directs those hurdles at black people. It's disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to do that, as well as to dismiss O'Reilly's statistical points concerning Asian-Americans (a.k.a. just Americans). And the way many "Chinamen," as they used to be called, were treated while building railroads and whatnot rivals the way many slaves were treated, although the circumstances do differ overall quite a bit.

My point is that I think Stewart is arguing for something that is brought upon by a collective 'white guilt' by many people who unnecessarily look for arbitrary reasonings for social inequalities, but often miss the source of the problem due to racial tunnel vision.

a reply to: interupt42
Nice clipping of his post to try and make it look like that was all he said.
As spotted by anyone reading both posts.

white guilt is different from white privilege, feeling guilty that you got what you have from being a first class citizen while others got scraps for being 2nd or 3rd class has nothing to do with the fact that you have that privilege while others have to work for it.

originally posted by: magicrat
...There really are multi-generational effects of hundreds of years of systemic oppression and segregation. I think Jon is absolutely right on that point, and I think Bill is wrong not to acknowledge it.

I think it's wrong for Stewart to pretend that it only happens in one direction. While I don't disagree that slavery and racism in the history of America is a terrible chapter, that doesn't mean that, in current America, it's all the white people's fault that this divide still exists. In fact, I would argue that black "leaders" and heads of churches and families and communities are just as guilty as their white counterparts...or hispanic, or asian, or whatever.

In fact, I seem to hear people like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson (both of whom I think are a disgrace to the title "reverend," so I don't give them that)--even our president and attorney general--being the loudest mouthpieces in keeping the racial divide alive and well in America. I think if it weren't for the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was so opposed to violence, he'd be rolling over in his grave, climbing out of it, and slapping the s**t out of these so-called Leaders of the Black Community. At least, I hope he would, because those four seem to be consistently guilty of judging on everything BUT the content of their character.

Sorry but I'm not following you? Whos post and what was said?

If you are refering to olaru12 reply to mine then:

1. HIs first comments in his post did not appear directly toward me so I did not reply to it.

2. However, If you like I will:

At the university I attended in Texas, I had black friends, Hispanic friends and it was perfectly apparent to me that as a WASP; I was treated much differently than my friends when we were in a place of business, like a restaurant or convenience store. We never let the black guy drive because that was just asking to get pulled over. White privileged....damn right!

Sounds like he is either racist or stereotyping to me as he never lets the Black guy drive. Why doesn't he let the black guy drive? Or why didn't he let the Hispanic guy drive?

a reply to: chishuppu

I know it's different--my argument is that the popular, politically correct meme of "white privilege" that exists today is a product of white guilt that many people feel. I used to feel a bit of white guilt--probably because I grew up in California--but when I matured and actually thought for myself, I shouldn't feel any more guilty about what happened to black people 200 years ago than modern black people should hold me responsible for it. Neither of us existed or were part of it.

Without white guilt, I'm confident that this popularized, racially dividing notion of "white privilege" would just be some fringe belief discussed in small groups of hipsters and race-baiting politicians, but it certainly wouldn't be some mainstream issue being discussed on fake news shows (well...maybe on a Jon Stewart show).

Bottom line: White guilt begats the notion of white privilege. It's the logical next step, but both are illogical versions of modern reality.

a reply to: magicrat

I agree. Jon won because Bill did admit that it's harder for black people than white to be successful.

I'm a white girl who dated a black guy for a year and a half, and I was treated SO MUCH differently when I was with him. In stores, bars, etc.

I really don't care what people think. I've seen it first hand.