The Best Explanation of White Privilege?

[pat grimshaw]

^



Yes indeed!

 

[Rolyo85]

This post adds nothing to the discussion, OR your argument, whatever it is at this point...

Let's come back to my safety on a street at night: If I were to get beat up by someone, there would be a police report about me and the crime that happened against me and the assailant. There would not be a police report about the 300 other people walking down that segment of Davie Street….because it's not relevant. When I get beat up it matters that I was the target of violence and the nature of the violence, not that 300 other people weren't accosted.

Their experience does not really inform us about anything, and analysing it or referring to it or naming it "nightlife privilege" or whatever is pretty pointless when there is already a law that applies to my situation and which has been violated. By which I mean "redundant," no-value-added, a nul synonym and pointless neologism, which gives us no new insight and no new tools to contain and minimise homophobic violence. It's like making a shopping list of things you don't need from the store.

...Except for the other argument in this thread which suggests it is a distinct phenomenon, and it is of great significance that these other 300 people didn't get beaten up walking down the street because they have some kind of privilege. Now, rather than comparing the behaviour of my assailant to a standard of legal conduct, we're off into some weird territory of analysing people who had nothing to do with it. Why? No one will give an answer as to what is supposed to be gained from that activity, or what societal change is intended to be the result of doing it.

 

[bankside]

Slogged through this entire thread. OMG. It's funny (not ha ha funny) to read the various differing of opinions and slants on mostly similar opinions. Funny how most were similar, yet slightly different. Kinda like people, huh?

What's the difference between discrimination, racism and white privilege? I maintain they are more closely related than they are dissimilar. Or am I wrong?

I recall one poster (maybe others?) who stated that racism is the act of discrimination. If that were true, then what's the difference between overt and covert discrimination, racism and white privilege?

I ask because I believe we all commit various types of prejudicial behavior each day. How much of such behavior are we actually aware of? Those we think about less than those we may actually do?

For example, I'm really working on how I react to folks working in retail with facial piercings or visible tatoos. I don't care for those piercings/tatoos; I'm prejudiced against them. So much that I avoided one particular cashier's line. But then I had to check out with her because she was the only line open; she was delightful to talk with and extremely efficient. I learned alot that day about myself.

Discrimination, racism, and prejudice are nearly synonyms.

"Prejudice" literally means to pre-judge. Assuming based on outward appearances what someone will say, do, or be capable of, because they remind you of what someone else said, did, or was able to accomplish. But people also use it to mean:

Discrimination. To change the way you treat someone based on your prejudice. And also they say prejudice to mean:
Racism. Which is obviously prejudice based on ethnic appearance or other indicators of ethnicity. Because of the "ism," some people reserve the word for cases when it is official government policy, like "communism, fascism, capitalism, racism." But in everyday speech it means the same thing as discriminiation or prejudice based on ethnicity: treating someone shittily because you have stupid ideas about their ethnicity.

"White privilege" was made up in the 60's and caught on over the last 20 years at certain universities where they study "critical theory," which is a nonsense subject made up by former marxists. It tries to make the fact that some people escape some kinds of discrimination to be as important as the fact that some people don't. Just one effect is to stigmatise (or de-normalize) not being discriminated against. Another effect is to distract from actually doing anything about racism or prejudice or discrimination. Another effect is to provoke very long threads on JUB.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Let's come back to my safety on a street at night: If I were to get beat up by someone, there would be a police report about me and the crime that happened against me and the assailant. There would not be a police report about the 300 other people walking down that segment of Davie Street….because it's not relevant. When I get beat up it matters that I was the target of violence and the nature of the violence, not that 300 other people weren't accosted.

Their experience does not really inform us about anything, and analysing it or referring to it or naming it "nightlife privilege" or whatever is pretty pointless when there is already a law that applies to my situation and which has been violated. By which I mean "redundant," no-value-added, a nul synonym and pointless neologism, which gives us no new insight and no new tools to contain and minimise homophobic violence. It's like making a shopping list of things you don't need from the store.

...Except for the other argument in this thread which suggests it is a distinct phenomenon, and it is of great significance that these other 300 people didn't get beaten up walking down the street because they have some kind of privilege. Now, rather than comparing the behaviour of my assailant to a standard of legal conduct, we're off into some weird territory of analysing people who had nothing to do with it. Why? No one will give an answer as to what is supposed to be gained from that activity, or what societal change is intended to be the result of doing it.

Another semantic argument. This has been addressed.

 

[xbuzzerx]

"White privilege" was made up in the 60's and caught on over the last 20 years at certain universities where they study "critical theory," which is a nonsense subject made up by former marxists. It tries to make the fact that some people escape some kinds of discrimination to be as important as the fact that some people don't. Just one effect is to stigmatise (or de-normalize) not being discriminated against. Another effect is to distract from actually doing anything about racism or prejudice or discrimination. Another effect is to provoke very long threads on JUB.

No, it's not. It's a term to encompass the body of inequality which persists within a society after the "formal" discrimination via de jure and de facto social behavior has been removed. Formal racism no longer exists in the U.S. or, to my knowledge, any of the white first world that I know of. The differences that remain are privileges and rights being observed differently at a level which underlines what's actually written in laws or regulations, and isn't strictly expressed.

 

[blackbeltninja]

It basically sounded in the above quote like you were saying minorities get rejected because they're less worthy to extend credit to and are the "wrong market", but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that you weren't intended to sound as racist as that did.

Alright, then, obvious question time - why would the banks reject customers if not on credit fears? If anything, the financial fuck-ups of the last 5 years have shown that banks and bankers are willing to go to ridiculous proportions to make both actual and virtual money, hence the current crises, and have been doing so quite happily for some time. So I presume someone higher-up the management chain would be asking questions like "why are we turning away so many customers whose wallets we could bleed dry?" if there wasn't an obvious financial reason.

Either that or there is some super-massive conspiracy theorising going on somewhere.

If you're totally against changing the parameters or wording of laws to minimize this kind of effect, I have no idea what you think the solution is? Sensitivity training? lol.

Not at all. If there is some blatantly discriminatory law in place, change it by all means necessary and with as much speed as we can muster. If there are some blatantly discriminatory practices in place, it is the attitude and not the law which needs changing.

Affirmative action is a totally different topic, in fact its its own topic. This thread was about white privilege, not about affirmative action or reparations or indigenous land claims or anything else. White privilege is separate from all of those things and if the bug up your rear on this topic is that you don't like AA that has nothing to do with whether or not white privilege exists, nor has anyone ever said that the solution to white privilege is AA or "exclusionary laws" or anything else that you've repeatedly brought up.

Well, then, why the nonsense with the triangular doors, which in itself of course was meant to... what?

-d-

 

[bankside]

This post adds nothing to the discussion, OR your argument, whatever it is at this point...

Another semantic argument. This has been addressed.

You really have no choice in this: either "white privilege" signifies nothing, in which case stop saying it. Or it signifies something, in which case the users of "white privilege" need to start agreeing among themselves as to what it means: "racism" or "something different from racism." If it means merely racism, stop using it. If it means something different, explain the significance.

It hasn't happened yet in the thread. My point has been addressed only by being dismissed, but the point is relevant and it stands. You've had well-constructed and specific points to rebut, if you could or would, but you have not. The funny part is, in the post you are now trying to wave away, I was offering a direct reinterpretation of a scenario both of you proposed to "explain" things to me. When you do it, it's apparently brilliant insight. When I'm not convinced and tweak the same scenario to show my point, you go back to chanting your articles of faith and clutching your "critical theory" rosaries:

"That's not so."
"You just don't want to admit…"
"You can't comprehend" bla bla bla ad hominem. It's ridiculous.

 

[Rolyo85]

You really have no choice in this: either "white privilege" signifies nothing, in which case stop saying it. Or it signifies something, in which case the users of "white privilege" need to start agreeing among themselves as to what it means: "racism" or "something different from racism." If it means merely racism, stop using it. If it means something different, explain the significance.

It hasn't happened yet in the thread.

Really? It hasn't happened, bankside? Really?

Nobody has given any explanation as to the significance of how white privilege isn't racism?

Wow. Somebody has taken their insincerity pill today. I've been suspecting it for days, but now I know you're just being a chance1 and being contrary for the sake of being contrary.

 

[MorrisseyX]

It is interesting that Women Studies and the feminist community is one of the places in society where white privilege has been written about in extensive detail. Audre Lorde's work and Peggy McIntosh both write a lot about white privilege in their essays.

 

[-Kane-]

Stop crying because that white dick doesnt want to fuck you. jeezus, only in America.

This is such a strange irony coming from someone who only chases after Caucasian and (White) Hispanic DICK... but what else would you expect from a snow queen.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Not at all. If there is some blatantly discriminatory law in place, change it by all means necessary and with as much speed as we can muster. If there are some blatantly discriminatory practices in place, it is the attitude and not the law which needs changing.

How about when the law isn't, in its wording, discriminatory whatsoever but is still resulting in 48 times more jail time because at multiple points along the process of law enforcement, people are making discretionary decisions about whether to let this one go, give this one a warning, let this one off with community service, or not press criminal charges against this defendant? The current law doesn't tell anyone to punish blacks and go easier on whites. But in the end result that's what happens because much of the decisions regarding who to arrest, and for what, and whether or not to prosecute, and if convicted how heavily to sentence, are decisions largely being made by a series of individuals (who likely all, individually, believe they are not racist and are just doing their job.)

Well, then, why the nonsense with the triangular doors, which in itself of course was meant to... what?

-d-

Because programs that do things like, as an example, aim to promote and encourage the extension of homeloans (as one example) to otherwise qualified, working inner city or minority or immigrant people who experience being rejected time and again in a walk-in bank are a good thing. Because banks are private profit-driven companies who want to extend loans only to "safe" (heavy quotes-- certainly lots of white people default on homeloans or walk away from upside down real estate properties, and definitely a lot more of them were white in the last speculative housing crisis) demographics and you can almost never get a straight answer out of a bank as to why they rejected an application for a loan, and there is a tremendous history of redlining and refusal to extend credit to many traditionally downtrodden minority groups or people from poor areas or inner cities despite the on-paper equal access.

When white people en masse experience a statistically significant inability to get loans at the same rate as other groups I'll propose a "triangle door" for them as well.

 

[xbuzzerx]

You really have no choice in this: either "white privilege" signifies nothing, in which case stop saying it. Or it signifies something, in which case the users of "white privilege" need to start agreeing among themselves as to what it means: "racism" or "something different from racism." If it means merely racism, stop using it. If it means something different, explain the significance.

It hasn't happened yet in the thread. My point has been addressed only by being dismissed, but the point is relevant and it stands. You've had well-constructed and specific points to rebut, if you could or would, but you have not. The funny part is, in the post you are now trying to wave away, I was offering a direct reinterpretation of a scenario both of you proposed to "explain" things to me. When you do it, it's apparently brilliant insight. When I'm not convinced and tweak the same scenario to show my point, you go back to chanting your articles of faith and clutching your "critical theory" rosaries:

"That's not so."
"You just don't want to admit…"
"You can't comprehend" bla bla bla ad hominem. It's ridiculous.

Yes, you demand answers repeatedly--- then briefly argue with the answer--- then make another semantic argument --- then claim no one ever answered you. You've done this for 6 pages.

 

[pat grimshaw]

This is a very weird thread.

1. Two preachers set themselves up to preach
2. The audience is confused and ask questions
3. The preachers insult the audience
4. The audience loses interest and goes elsewhere.

 

[Kulindahr]

...or when you're riding your bike through a "not-nice" neighborhood at night and the cops stop you to tell you it's not safe? This has happened to me - the only time I got harassed going through that neighborhood was by the cops.

Been there, experienced that, though I was on foot.

 

[Kulindahr]

Personally I think this forum is one of those places where I wish I never have to talk about races etc

can we just stop please?

I keep waiting till we can actually have a discussion about another race. So far, it's all about humans.

 

[Rolyo85]

This is a very weird thread.

1. Two preachers set themselves up to preach
2. The audience is confused and ask questions
3. The preachers insult the audience
4. The audience loses interest and goes elsewhere.

You posted this in the wrong topic. Did you mistake the tabs of JUB and Eugenics 'R Us?

 

[Kulindahr]

This is kind of an odd way to make my first post here at JUB, especially since I've been lurking so long in the various porny sections, but I figured I'd share some links that are relevant to the discussion.


Here it is: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

And this one is also useful: How To Talk To Someone About Privilege Who Doesn’t Know What That Is

From the first link:

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

 

[Kulindahr]

That's actually incorrect, since whatever position the white Americans were born into, if they were born in America, it IS the result of slave labor.

I don't like it when some people here cry racism for bullshit, but historic revisionism is not sexy.

Rubbish. My immigrant ancestors crossed the country and headed straight west, and never benefited any more from a former slave economy than did the Chinese in San Francisco.

Substantially considering an enormous swath of the U.S. economy was dependant upon slave labor for centuries.

So everyone now living here benefited from slavery.

But the best response is here:

xbuxxerx, i think the word you're looking for is solid, not dense.

No one doubts that the US economy was at one point based on slavery, for which many of the world's most cruel and undignified criminals escaped unpunished and unaccountable. In terms of its economic effects, you can even reasonably argue that old American institutions are nicer than they would have otherwise been if they actually had to pay free people to build them. The Capitol would not have been as fine a gem. The east coast ports would not have been as serviceable. The refined heritage architecture of the southeast would have been less spectacular. Grand Central Station would have been more plain. Fortunes that endowed libraries, concert halls, and scholarships would have been impoverished, all if not for the barbaric practice of treating people as disposable capital inputs.

Let's say there is for the sake of argument, after averaging things out over the centuries, twenty years adjusted to the present day of Total GDP economic output paid for in the blood of free humans treated as slaves. Even then it does not show that any particular white person benefits from this fantasy of white privilege. If it gives a dividend at all it is to the country as a whole: black, white, asian, native, gay, straight, male, female. Anyone can use Grand Central, anyone can attend the Capitol, anyone can open a business on an east coast port. And to the extent that opportunity is not available equally to modern Americans, it is because of a specific act of racism or sexism or homophobia toward someone, on the part of someone who should be held accountable for that act. But an entire segment of society cannot be accountable based on the accident of their skin colour at birth; that's just ridiculous. And more to the point, the math just doesn't work out: just because some white person was (or is) unfairly advantaged simply does not mean it is a general condition applying to white people (it's the Fallacy of False Composition). Particularly when the majority of white people are also being fucked over by economic inequality.

To expect white people to do something about racism is absolutely fair, as we must expect all people to fight it. But to expect white people to do something about this illusory white privilege is to ask another drowning man to hold still so you can climb out of the water on his shoulders. It's laughable, and it just will never work.

 

[Kulindahr]

I gave up on page four and skipped to the end when a thought took up residence in my brain and waved for attention:

Most of this discussion revolves around whether there's such a thing as zero.

Really!

See, part of the argument is that if people who aren't white get treated worse automatically, then whites must be privileged. That's a purely binary view, holding that there are only two positions, one and minus-one, so that if one group is at minus-one, the other group is at one. Another view is also binary, holding that there is a zero, so that whites aren't privileged because they're at level zero, while others are at minus one, meaning they just need to be brought up to zero.

If there's no zero, then there's white privilege; if zero exists, then there's no white privilege.

Which means that really, much of this thread has been devoted to people talking past each other for the simple reason that they haven't bothered to start off by defining their terms.


Of course, what's common to both positions is that those at minus-one are less privileged than those at either zero or one. So whether you believe zero exists or not, there's a common position to be looked at, one that shows we have a problem after all.



note: I haven't seen anyone argue that the situation is trinary, with whites at +1, blacks at -1, and others at zero -- but a case could be made for that!

 

[Rolyo85]

Rubbish. My immigrant ancestors crossed the country and headed straight west, and never benefited any more from a former slave economy than did the Chinese in San Francisco.

Did the phrase "born in the US" somehow escape you?