What is white privilege?

Actually if You go to Africa and see the poverty and filth it can be surmised that the African Americans are the privileged ones in this country.

a reply to: Wildmanimal



I agree with you. I have seen class privilege on countless occasions. White privilege not so much. From my perspective it does not exist. From other peoples perspective it may and that's why I asked for a definition in this thread, I am trying to understand it.

originally posted by: badw0lf

originally posted by: dfnj2015
Here's a good example of white privilege:


"He would have to invent teeth!"

Yep. That guy still gives me the craps...

Invent teeth, or succeed. Guess he wants his teeth handed to him... ugh

I think he makes a very good argument:



You don't agree with his point about the difference of wealth distribution between whites and blacks? It seems pretty obvious. I'm not sure we can do anything to fix it.

I think the problem today is not white privilege but people making the median wage simply have too much debt. Debt is color blind that's for sure. People are riot easy nowadays. I think it's only going to get worse.

a reply to: FyreByrd

What your personal "late to class" story told me is that all of you who were late to class felt "privilege". If class begins at a certain time and you are late and the classroom door has been locked so as not to disturb the members of the class who actually were on time why did any of you feel you had the right to hang around and be let into the class? Just because either you or your employer paid for the class? Regardless you were not on time and it was well within the professor's right to bar you from class that day regardless of any of your feelings of "privilege".

originally posted by: FyreByrd

originally posted by: Tardacus
There`s no such thing as white privilege which is why nobody can define it or give examples of it.

any definition or example put forth to try to explain it will have to include and apply to ALL "white" people.

if it doesn`t include and apply to poor whites as well as rich whites then it isn`t white privilege.
if it doesn`t include and apply to white people who immigrated here yesterday as well as white people who`s ancestors have been here for hundreds of years, then it isn`t white privilege.
if it doesn`t include and apply to white people who live in big cities as well as rural areas, then it isn`t white privilege.
if it doesn`t include and apply to white people who are conservatives as well as liberals then it isn`t white privilege.
if other ethnic groups, such as Asians, receive 'white privilege" benefits then it isn`t white privilege.

white privilege doesn`t exist it`s just the paranoid delusions of some non white people.

White privilege does apply to ALL whites - rich and poor, young and old, male, female, other.

Then why aren't we as privileged as Asians?

a reply to: dfnj2015

There's really almost twice as many whites living in poverty in the US as there are blacks. kff.org...:%7B%22united-states%22 :%7B%7D%7D%7D&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D you don't hear them as much because they have no conveniently constructed excuse mechanism available to them and, as a result, experience shame over their situation as they have nobody to blame but themselves.

originally posted by: GeauxHomeYoureDrunk
a reply to: FyreByrd

What your personal "late to class" story told me is that all of you who were late to class felt "privilege". If class begins at a certain time and you are late and the classroom door has been locked so as not to disturb the members of the class who actually were on time why did any of you feel you had the right to hang around and be let into the class? Just because either you or your employer paid for the class? Regardless you were not on time and it was well within the professor's right to bar you from class that day regardless of any of your feelings of "privilege".

exactly!

lets look at the definition of privilege;

priv·i·lege
/ˈpriv(ə)lij/
noun
noun: privilege; plural noun: privileges
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.

in the late to class story whom demonstrated that they felt that they had a special privilege,special right to be allowed into class late and disrupt the class?

1) was it the students who arrived to class on time and who were not locked out of the classroom?
2) was it the students who arrived late and stood quietly outside the locked classroom in hopes that the professor would see them and allow them to come in late and disrupt the class?
3) was it the students who arrived late and demanded that an administrator come and open the door to allow them to enter and cause a disruption to the class?

standing quietly outside of a locked classroom isn`t white privilege, it`s called manners and paying the consequences for your actions of arriving late at the class and being locked out so that you don`t create a disruption to the students who made the effort and arrived on time.

originally posted by: Tardacus
a reply to: FyreByrd

if that`s an example of "white privilege" then you just proved that it doesn`t exist.

How so?

originally posted by: MysticPearl

originally posted by: FyreByrd

originally posted by: Tardacus
There`s no such thing as white privilege which is why nobody can define it or give examples of it.

any definition or example put forth to try to explain it will have to include and apply to ALL "white" people.

if it doesn`t include and apply to poor whites as well as rich whites then it isn`t white privilege.
if it doesn`t include and apply to white people who immigrated here yesterday as well as white people who`s ancestors have been here for hundreds of years, then it isn`t white privilege.
if it doesn`t include and apply to white people who live in big cities as well as rural areas, then it isn`t white privilege.
if it doesn`t include and apply to white people who are conservatives as well as liberals then it isn`t white privilege.
if other ethnic groups, such as Asians, receive 'white privilege" benefits then it isn`t white privilege.

white privilege doesn`t exist it`s just the paranoid delusions of some non white people.

White privilege does apply to ALL whites - rich and poor, young and old, male, female, other.

Then why aren't we as privileged as Asians?

I made a point of stating White Western Privilege. I don't know enough about asian cultures/history to begin to understand how their 'pecking' order is internalized.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: dfnj2015

There's really almost twice as many whites living in poverty in the US as there are blacks. kff.org...:%7B%22united-states%22 :%7B%7D%7D%7D&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D you don't hear them as much because they have no conveniently constructed excuse mechanism available to them and, as a result, experience shame over their situation as they have nobody to blame but themselves.

True - but non relevant to white privilege.

Take two homeless people in an ER. In most circumstances the white one will be treated sooner and with better care because of white priviledge.

Not homeless but treated differently non the less:

For example, several studies show that African-American patients are often prescribed less pain medication than white patients with the same complaints. Black patients with chest pain are referred for advanced cardiac care less often than white patients with identical symptoms.

Doctors, nurses and other health workers don't mean to treat people differently, says Howard Ross, founder of management consulting firm Cook Ross, who has worked with many groups on diversity issues. But all these professionals harbor stereotypes that they're not aware they have, he says. Everybody does.

"This is normal human behavior," Ross says. "We can no more stop having bias than we can stop breathing."

www.npr.org...

www.nap.edu...

a reply to: Tardacus

And white privilege is by definition, as you point out, priveleges accruing to all white people.

That we don't have a word for this fact of reality is telling in itself, how unconscious and insidious it is.

You can analyze my experience any way you have to in order to feel safe; but it is my experience and understanding and not yours that is important in the telling.

I find the refusal to consider the possibility of white bias equally telling. Bilndspots are real killers.

Maybe you'll like this experience ....

EXPLAINING WHITE PRIVILEGE TO A BROKE WHITE PERSON...

occupywallstreet.net...

Maybe you'll be willing to listen to a male?

If you read through the rest of the list, you can see how white people and people of color experience the world in two very different ways. BUT LISTEN: This is not said to make white people feel guilty about their privilege. It's not your fault you were born with white skin and experience these privileges. BUT, whether you realize it or not, you DO benefit from it, and it IS your fault if you don't maintain awareness of that fact.

NOT ON ABOVE: written by a woman sorry....

originally posted by: openminded2011
So here is your chance, please give examples of what you consider to be white privilege in modern society.

I'm Caucasian..all my life...so it's difficult for me to pretend to understand the plight of another race. How could I know the day to day stuff of someone other than Caucasian?

If white privilege exists could be in the form of a "second chance" or "the benefit of the doubt" in many cases through life?

If a person didn't get these seemingly small things it could radically change a life.

originally posted by: openminded2011
After reading several posts on the subject, I realized that there is always this assertion of white privilege, but no real concrete examples to back it up, the examples that are given are unusually anecdotes of discrimination, which really falls under bigotry and not implication of some sort of privilege for white people. So here is your chance, please give examples of what you consider to be white privilege in modern society. I should concede that I do not believe it exists; the vast majority of white people in 2017 are struggling to survive just like any other group or race of people. But I would like to understand the perspective that I am somehow privileged; that I get some kind of perks because of my skin color. Again, do not confuse being the victim of bigotry with the implication of white privilege. There is bigotry against white people as well, so they certainly do not have privileged status in that case. Please enlighten us with your definition of white privilege.

Class privilege happens as does;
Marijuana arrests:Four times more likely than whites- slides

Racially profiled when driving;
-"Report: Black Missouri drivers still get stopped more often" - Source
-"'Driving while black' gets you pulled over so much, one guy says, 'I use Uber'" - Source
"Black,Latino drivers fare worse in traffic stops" - Source
"Latinos more likely to get pulled than whites, new data shows" -Source

Contact with law enforcement,
For example and see some of the above; I realize from reading a lot of Posse Comitatus Act related articles, and even from law enforcement and pro law enforcement comments; That being a White female I am not stereotyped the same way if I was a Black women, and action taken against them differently than to White women due to that. I don't want to stoop to their levels in sharing these but, "ape" and "is built differently than a White women which demands more restraint" is a apparently what people love to throw around. I'm pretty sure they know how they are using it.

On airplanes;
"Told to shave before take off: Man with 'Arabic and scary'-looking beard is kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight 'after another passenger complained'" Source-

originally posted by: Sublimecraft
like chicken teeth (...) doesn't actually exist in reality

Careful now!

We must be discerning in our analogy implementation

White privilege is one of those concepts that emerges from a victim mentality mindset. "Class privilege" has some merit, but it seems a bit obvious. Nevertheless, that type of privilege has spanned the globe and all colors, creeds, etc. for many, many generations. See "affluenza" for further reading.

Its a sad topic, really, since the disadvantages that many of us may have are constantly minimized by so many missing the source entirely. Frequently even enabling the same behavior that is criticized in those that are bringing the situation to light.

The tactic at the core of it all is ages old, and simply changes context over time. It usually involves issues that are recent enough to still reside in peoples memory, but not so contemporary as to be an issue that could actually be addressed. Keeping people one step behind, in this way, assures perpetuity of control through confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.

Meaning, as long as say, a minority blames the nebulous "white people" for their poverty, the situation which actually causes the issue will never be examined with any efficacy. Alongside that, paradigm-threatening behaviors like personal responsibility and unification will be largely negated.

originally posted by: kinglizard

originally posted by: openminded2011
So here is your chance, please give examples of what you consider to be white privilege in modern society.

I'm Caucasian..all my life...so it's difficult for me to pretend to understand the plight of another race. How could I know the day to day stuff of someone other than Caucasian?

If white privilege exists could be in the form of a "second chance" or "the benefit of the doubt" in many cases through life?

If a person didn't get these seemingly small things it could radically change a life.

The problem is, as white people maybe we are just unable to understand it. There is a saying in Zen philosophy that "the eyes cannot see themselves". Maybe as a white person its impossible to see things from the perspective of a person of color seeing it. Until you have lived in someone elses shoes its hard to understand their point of view.

originally posted by: FyreByrd

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: dfnj2015

There's really almost twice as many whites living in poverty in the US as there are blacks. kff.org...:%7B%22united-states%22 :%7B%7D%7D%7D&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D you don't hear them as much because they have no conveniently constructed excuse mechanism available to them and, as a result, experience shame over their situation as they have nobody to blame but themselves.

True - but non relevant to white privilege.

Take two homeless people in an ER. In most circumstances the white one will be treated sooner and with better care because of white priviledge.

Not homeless but treated differently non the less:

For example, several studies show that African-American patients are often prescribed less pain medication than white patients with the same complaints. Black patients with chest pain are referred for advanced cardiac care less often than white patients with identical symptoms.

Doctors, nurses and other health workers don't mean to treat people differently, says Howard Ross, founder of management consulting firm Cook Ross, who has worked with many groups on diversity issues. But all these professionals harbor stereotypes that they're not aware they have, he says. Everybody does.

"This is normal human behavior," Ross says. "We can no more stop having bias than we can stop breathing."

www.npr.org...

www.nap.edu...

Wow, you have no clue, do you. LOL !

The past year, I had to go to the er a few times, for myself and to with my significant other. Before we were married. I have excellent insurance and she had crappy insurance.

She had to wait on a stretcher in the hall before being seen by the doctor, even though they had empty rooms. I, on the other hand , got a room immediately. I saw people in stretchers in the hallway, both black and white with empty rooms.

Your insurance coverage is how you are treated in the hospital er.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Right. That whole argument is as fallaciously racist an argument as is even possible, because it asserts that just because se 'all' the CEO's happen to be white, that somehow all whites are part of that 'power'.

Unless all whites are issued stocks in all of such corporations at birth, then NO, this CRT/SJW argument is catastrophically off the sound logic mark.

PS: This is the same thing the Nazi's pushed against the Jews.

yes, and also the problem with the white privilege argument is that it appears to rely on an analysis wherein the "curves" of privilege for whites versus other races are categorical and not overlapping. To the identity politics people, somehow a poor white kid from a trailer park in Appalachia has more privilege than Corey Booker, who is black and his parents were high level IBM employees. He's now a senator.

The SJWs would have a lot more credibility if they recognized that the bell curves overlap, and the most privileged (economically, educationally, politically) minorities are more privileged than the less privileged whites, even if they have a point that the average white might have more advantage than the average minority.

But they can't do that, and still retain the narrative that all whites can be judged. It's also difficult to retain certain aspects of affirmative action if this is true. True affirmative action shouldn't be based on race or this amorphous privilege, but be based instead on verifiable poverty and lack of life access to opportunities, on a case by case and individual basis. This would then help actually disadvantaged people in need of all races.

Before the social justice people here jump on me, I recognize that there is intersectionality with poverty and race.

originally posted by: FyreByrd
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

You are conflating two separate things. Racism is not synonymous with White Privilege. They are two separate things.

Granted a lot of 'racism' and/or 'bigotry' develops due to white privilege.

Racism/Bigotry can be seen as an understandable response to systemic white privilege over centuries of colonization (and dare I say genocides) of white expansion. The unconscious, in-born idea that western white society is the alpha and omega of human development. It is in our very languages, build into modern culture, science and art.

Do I benefit from it? Damn right I do - and I didn't even realize that other people lived in a different world outside of my white bubble until the experience in that classroom. I too - thought all things (American in my case) were the best and the brightest and we were bringing civilization to the world - that greed was the only valid motivator in the world - yadda, yadda, yadda. That I (actually we) had a right and a duty to bring other people into the modern/civilized/western worldview. The arrogance of that shames me.

I've never been a racist (I do admit to some bigotry and non-understanding of some groups) and I do try to judge people by the content of their character to paraphrase Dr. King, Jr. But that doesn't erase my white privilege.

I'm not actually conflating the two. The post I responded to was regarding the assertion that white people cannot experience racism.

Yes, there is bigotry, racism, exceptionalism in everything from Christianity to many enlightenment and industrial era ideas of superiority. Same with American Exceptionalism. And, you are right that these prejudicial ideas should be deconstructed and seen for the damage they have done historically. I'm not sure, however, this demonstrates a unique "white privilege." I think here you are conflating in-group out-group bias and basic bigotry with what identity politics people frame as privilege.

However, I hope you have studied and gotten out of the West enough to realize that there are numerous countries and cultures that are/were non-white that also taught that they were superior. Also numerous ones engaged in brutality, oppression, and colonialism/imperialism as well. That's not to excuse white societies doing that, it's just to show many of these in-group out-group issues are quite normative across human societies in history.

In the identity politics world, white privilege isn't this stuff and beliefs but this idea that even today, ALL whites somehow accrue unseen benefits from the system, more than other groups. Even if the white person is poor, didn't get an education, parents were effed up, etc. I think it's too simplistic and doesn't really capture the nuances.

The most important kind of privileges are economic and political privilege. The first dictates often your educational and health status, as well as social mobility. At a higher level this is interconnected with political privilege and/or connections.

The only people I routinely see get ahead at a level far above their age/education level/merit are those that have powerful connections, whether economic or political. And many of them are of different races.

As a personal anecdote, I work in a political office. One reason I hate it is that I see everyday unexperienced people (like 23-25 year olds) get put in high level jobs (above people 10 years older and with much more experience and formal advanced education relevant to the jobs), all apparently because either they worked on a few high level political campaigns or their parents are high level donors to the party. THAT, is privilege.

Excellent! The theory of being unable to understand something simply because of genetics. No racism involved in that.

Or maybe it's the theory that someone cannot understand exactly what it's like not to be themselves. No way to lose that argument! No facts needed other than "you are you and not someone else therefore I am right".

I got it. It's the theory of "I can avoid personal responsibility by claiming you are responsible for me and you are doing a bad job. Or others like you are doing a bad job. Or somebody somewhere in time did a bad job. Whatever, your problem." Never mind this totally contradicts the idea you having to do less to achieve the same as me.

Hold on. Maybe it's the theory of "The History-of-Now Narcissism". You know, lot's of phrases like "Isn't it about time..." or "It's 2017 so...". Meaning "now" is the most enlightened time ever and I am a prophet of that enlightenment sitting at the epicenter of said enlightening. Never mind history rife with example after example of who has the "privilege" du jour. Forget that all. Except when I say "We cannot ignore history". Then it means we will ignore history except for the bits and pieces myopically cobbled together which support the "enlightenment".

originally posted by: openminded2011

originally posted by: kinglizard

originally posted by: openminded2011
So here is your chance, please give examples of what you consider to be white privilege in modern society.

I'm Caucasian..all my life...so it's difficult for me to pretend to understand the plight of another race. How could I know the day to day stuff of someone other than Caucasian?

If white privilege exists could be in the form of a "second chance" or "the benefit of the doubt" in many cases through life?

If a person didn't get these seemingly small things it could radically change a life.

Very nicely and simply put. Thank you.


The problem is, as white people maybe we are just unable to understand it. There is a saying in Zen philosophy that "the eyes cannot see themselves". Maybe as a white person its impossible to see things from the perspective of a person of color seeing it. Until you have lived in someone elses shoes its hard to understand their point of view.