Yes. Because they're white. You're out to lunch.


Wow you're condescending. I'm not telling you otherwise, I'm telling you "also." Rabid ideology. Spare me.

Acknowledging that some groups are more likely to face certain issues than others = rabid ideology, didn't you know?

It's probably more complex than that seeing as they elected Barack Obama despite close to three quarter of the US population being white. I've never perceived such a general attitude.

I don't doubt there are lots of whites who hold all sorts of silly opinions regarding blacks (just as there's a lot of blacks who do the same for whites) but I wager a lot of them make the same mistake Grave Wyrm and Morrigan consistently make: confuse socio-economic factors and anecdotal evidence and blend all of this to come up with weird ideologies, beliefs and biases. But still, the frictions happen mostly at the base of the ladder.

The privilege that really matters in America is money.

Aaaaand this is where I begin to part ways ideologically with Riffs. Again, this is all subjective because it's based on my experiences, but I am poor. I went to a poor high-school with other poor people from my poor neighborhood. We were all given the same education, same opportunities, same transportation to school etc. But a select few students from that school including myself are attending universities, then there is a pool of students attending community colleges, and most kids have ether flunked out of their secondary education or didn't go in the first place. For the most part these groups are sorted independently of race, I know a proportional number of minorities and whites in all categories. I'm not saying that everyone who is born with nothing will make it to a CEO position by the time they die, but you certainly are given the tools to make a significant step forward with your life, and yes, even a shitty education is one of them. The amount of money you have does not hamper your ability to make that step forward, your attitude does. The United States will begin to see better scholastic statistics when more parents are there for their children, and we get better role models in the media than the daft, materialistic dildos that are glorified on MTV.

No. But insisting that skin color or gender is a factor whenever it suits silly theories is pretty close to it.

When you're done deploring the fact there are more blacks than whites in prison right now, are you also going to picket for the privilege of women not being in jail nearly as much as men?

Or is it possible that we should be careful before jumping to conclusions?

I took a look at your examples earlier in the thread and the article you linked. None of them was remotely convincing except the two examples about sexual harassment. Yes, women get sexually harassed more than men do in most instances. Maybe you want to call this a "man privilege". I personally am uncomfortable with the term (and even more with how you liberally throw those when you have a hissy fit) and feel there are more productive things to do about this.

Gender issues are different than race issues. It's a very different set of problems and dynamics at work.

How could I have been so blind? I maligned so many misunderstood whites. I am truly a mental beggar.

That was an oversimplification I made. As I said earlier, there are loads of socio-economic conditions interacting, money among them. Then you've got your whole genetic background, what you're going to do with all that (what you refer to as attitude) and even dumb luck.

Statistically, you're more likely to stay close to your step on the social ladder. It's not a guarantee. The child of a fortune 500 empire can become a toothless crack addict. The child of a crack addict could become fortune 500 leader. But it's likely you're going to stay close on the ladder, climbing up or down by small increments from where you started.

That's the privilege I speak of. I'm privileged over someone who lives in a war-torn hellhole and considers a decent meal to be a luxury. I've got a better startup. Others are more privileged than me because they had even better startups. The important thing to me is that to reduce this to color of skins would be inaccurate.

You're so right about me.

The black dude getting pulled over for no reason in a white neighborhood is pulled over because he isn't driving a Bentley. "Son, do you know how much you were earning? You were earning 13K in a multi million dollar zone."

Wow.

Btw:

You should have stopped there.

Over here the rich (I'm talking hereditary) look down on all of us, whatever our makeup. That's one of the reasons cited for the drastic social changes here, though the only group of people who are affected are.. the poor, ordinary working class people, who struggle to forgive (and embrace the changes) those who orchestrated it, as they were supposed to be for the working classes, not work against them, and all the "experiment" has done is divided people and communities more.
New rules and regulations technically make everyone equal under law, but on the street nothing has much changed, in fact tensions have only been strained, and government bodies insistence to the contrary is superficial.

So being born privileged (rich white male especially) is as relevant as ever, only now they have more workers to keep labour costs down, which I sometimes wonder if it wasn't the real reason all along, and not for the claimed reason of "fairness for all".

Pretty good article here explaining what privilege is and isn't:
http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/305643.html

Strange how that's not the definition one often sees it used for.

I don't know what you mean, because it's what we've been saying the whole thread all along. Just worded differently, in a way that will hopefully get through. But probably not.

Considering it was originally brought up to instantly undermine someone's position in the previous thread, probably not. That piece comes off as damage control more than anything else.

Then what is the definition it's used for?

It's not so much a different definition as it is the way it is typically used. In conversational usage (not necessarily this conversation) it is almost always accusatory. That's not to say the phenomenon doesn't exist in society, but the manner in which is is brought up is normally pretty heated.


Denying it exists as a general phenomenon does strike me as very strange.

As someone who is neither white nor male, I was going to stay out of this, but my thought-experiment fetish got the better of me.

So here is another way to think of [white/male/Western/heteronormative/etc.] privilege:

Imagine that, before you were born, you had the chance to observe society (for the simplicity of this discussion, let's restrict the notion of society to Western society, since that's what's being described in most of the thread anyway). You get to see who is represented in the arts, entertainment, and the media, and in what ways. You observe who the politicians and other people in authority are, both now and historically. You are able to see populations of university campuses, of corporate investors, of homeless people, and of prison inmates. You get to read some of the history of Western civilization, of the wars that were fought and who won them and what happened afterwards. Basically, you are presented with a basic but reasonably sufficient cultural overview of the society you are about to be born into.

Now, after reflecting on these observations, you are given the chance to choose your race, sex, and sexual orientation when you are born. You're going to be born into the same socioeconomic status no matter what you choose to do. So, given today's cultural climate, what gender, sex, and orientation do you want to be?

Assuming you are not masochistic and have the sufficient cognitive ability to understand what you observed, why would anyone who had the option willingly choose to be a minority, female, or gay over white, male, and straight? (For the record, I am not suggesting women, minorities, or queer people should not be proud of who they are or live their lives envious of others, only that so many doors would open for them if they weren't women/minorities/gay.) I mean, think about it: if you're white, male, and straight, you get to turn on the TV, or play a video game, or a read a book, and expect to encounter characters of the same demographic. You can attend college without people thinking that a government policy got you there. You can not attend college without people making assumptions about your entire race's mental prowess or inclinations toward laziness. You can pursue a career in acting without being restricted to token roles and “all-female/black/Hispanic/you get it” shows. You can kiss your lover in public without people thinking that you're pushing an agenda on them. You can join the military without having to hide anything. You can be fat without being asked "why you keep eating more food instead of choosing to be pretty." The list goes on and on.

Sure, there are a few instances where the tables are reversed—just for Riff, yes, a female will probably incur less suspicion than a male for criminal activity. But truly, would you really choose to be a minority, a female, or gay on the chance that you'll gain some advantages in some situations instead of a general advantages in default situations? That's like wanting to be in a wheelchair so you can park in the handicapped spaces instead of recognizing the huge advantage just being able to walk would provide.

Good post rotwang, made me think about what I take for granted someone else can have an entirely different experience. Things are slowly changing toward everyone being treated equally, like everyone being able to sit on the same bus

But forcing change as I've detailed above by a meddling few in charge hasn't helped here, and people tend to live in their own areas. Important issues cannot be solved over night by heavy handed tactics, people need to be shown and taught in schools by teachers and media who aren't politcally motivated.

Though how can you change attitudes in those who are very well off, and those who are born into wealthy families? I think it's always going to be an unfair world in one way or another.

In 2013, I think being a healthy baby from a good socioeconomic background is pretty much all that's gonna matter.

The thought experiment is not about chosing socioeconomic status though, and you're wrong.

A lot of what you say is pretty much true, but wanting to be born a certain gender/race/sexuality isn't as black and white as who is the most privileged. I would not want to be black in a lot of white areas, yes, due to racism, or gay due to homophobia, but I also wouldn't want to be black in a black country, and if I was... I'd move to a western one, as so many are still doing (apparently racism is marginally less worse than being shot for being in the wrong tribe). As for being a women, my perspective is skewed by all the hormones that makes me enjoy male-orientated stuff, just like a woman or gay male is in their own way. If I was gay, I'd rather not be straight because I'd enjoy doing gay things, having sex with men, drinking cocktails, dressing well, etc. As I exist now, none of the things I enjoy are a result of male privilege, but are typically male, so no I wouldn't want to be anything else.

I will say that the last remark about being fat is just plain false. It's very typical of men to receive nasty comments about their (over)weight as well, and since fat is something you bring onto yourself, being not fat isn't really a privilege, especially since a lot of people work hard for it.





If you actually look at how it's used in context in most arguments, is pretty obviously a tactic for segregation, undermining, shutting down opposition in debate, while labeling him as someone completely unable to understand an issue, due solely to inherent issues he apparently has little control over. It's not exactly a new tactic; I'd wager people have been using this probably since man could first talk in some form or another, though most of us would be more familiar with it in it's more racist guises.
"But oh, you thought "nigger" meant something bad? Oh no, it just means black people were born a certain way, see, us white people have our own problems too, but you don't really get to have an opinion on what whites do because you aren't one."
You know this could have been said a hundred years ago and everyone would think it was totally acceptable. Of course we all know better, but now the same divisive, us-versus-them, thought-termination tactic has been repainted yet again and no-one is supposed to notice because this time, it's used against a majority.
And no, I'm not pretending whites are oppressed or anything ridiculous like that, not the point of the post at all.

That's not gonna change my mind. I still believe a complex interaction of factors is at work.

I read the article and unsurprisingly, it's a bunch of bullshit. There was one part that was not laughable, although a gross oversimplification:

Privilege is: About how society accommodates you.

Of course, no matter how you try to twist it, the poor, the elderly, the disabled are groups most logical individuals in 2013 will think about when understanding this.

OH REALLY? Because

Socioeconomic background is a complex interaction of factors.

Look, I understand you believe in the concept of white man privilege. I've been pretty consistent in my views and I understand that you do not believe they have merits.

So there's no need to twist my words around. Just don't agree with them.

So, what you are saying is what matters is the starting point, the "background", but afterwards it doesn't matter if you're black or white? Well obviously socioeconomic background correlates with racial background (on of those many "factors"), since what you deny for today's world was very real in the past. And it is still real today. When you are black you will face a number of problems that for a white person of comparable socioeconomic status are less severe or nonexistent.

Are you still trying to catch me in some contradiction or are you genuinely interested in my views?

In a strict measure, many people prefer to only account for stuff such as education, occupation, money.

We can generalize to more factors in the interest of simplification in informal conversations. Accounting for factors which could affect directly your socioeconomic background (according to the rigid definition) is fair but calculating how everything affects everything is complex. So this could include race, whether by race you mean ethnic and cultural background or outside appearance (like skin color). Those all factor in because in the interest of comprehensiveness, your genes could matter.

All of this is then interacting with the other part of the equation: your environment.

That makes for a lot of things to account for.

Even within a single city, we would have a lot of work and debates to see how to tackle different perceived privileges and come up with reliable data on actual discrimination. I'm far from an authority on the subject and know more about individual development based on ecological models (or what they call social ecology). But that shit is vast with very little empirical data.

That's why I'm uncomfortable with white man privilege. It's too vague and too divisive. Addressing actual problems as they appear seems to work better and bring more people together.

What I'm getting from these responses to rotwang's excellent thought experiment is that:

1) Riffs isn't really very good at reading comprehension

and

2) BalorofhteEvilEye doesn't understand what a thought experiment is.

I understood what Rotwang was saying. I just don't think it's particularly helpful to determine whether there is or isn't privilege.

There are all kinds of situations where people can put themselves into other's shoes without doing such thinking. I do it myself too and have never had to wonder about such things.

I like my background, my parents. I don't want to be someone else. I can nonetheless see I am privileged over a lot of people and some people are privileged over me as well. It's just that, in this discussion, I don't agree with the concept of this so-called white man privilege, nor its uses. Again, I find it vague and divisive.

But you recognize that there is wealth privilege, right? That's what you're talking about when you talk about socioeconomic background, no? Why accept the concept of that (and yes, inherited wealth is probably the strongest form of privilege that exists), and not accept the concept of gender or race privilege, when there is clearly no shortage of examples for these? You say socioeconomic background can make a person privileged, but when it comes to race or gender these are all isolated phenomena that should be discussed seperately? Or do you think advantages related to socioeconomic background shouldn't be summarized as privilege either? In that case you are merely arguing semantics.

Because it's irrelevant to Riffs, and whatever's irrelevant to Riffs is not real for anyone else. Typical privileged narcissism.

"Privileged" is a bullshit distinction because it goes only one way. If anyone has more than you, they're privileged and thus you deserve what they have.

That attitude leads to real psychotic breaks from reality.

Actually that's "relative deprivation". Privilege is a social factor, not a personal perspective.

I actually applaud Riffs for continuing discussion even though people here seem to think he's wrong. He's not. Economic status is the more key thing here than race.

We can joke about the black guy being pulled over for no reason...but when was the last time this actually happened?

All the fucking time.

We're going in circles at this point. If a concrete example of privilege is presented, it's declared an outlier. If a peer-reviewed statistical study shows that institutional racism is a reality in the United States it's said to be biased and untrustworthy. If a thoughtful appeal to reason is given (as rotwang did wonderfully a few posts ago) it's said to lack concrete examples. Repeat ad infinitam.

It's really quite tiring.

This thread is nuts. Rather than wade into the thick of it I'll just throw this out there: for any white guys who deny that privilege exists, spend more time listening to those most affected by it.

Also, +1 rotwang, you can't really break it down any simpler than that.

What are you even trying to say with that? That all privilege that's seemingly race based is actually just due to correlation of race and inherited economic status? Well, no. There are enough counterexamples mentioned in this thread. Not to mention what it says about our society that today's racial minorities are still victims to the aftereffects of the racism their ancestors had to endure. That race doesn't matter because economic status is the more important factor? Yeah great, from now on I'll stop thinking about eating food because it's totally irrelevant compared to drinking water!

Oh I understand it well enough, I just think you can't honestly answer a playschool question "would you rather be born a boy than a girl?". I mean, a transgender could, I guess.

Awful false equivalence.