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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
White Privilege.

If a copper pulls me over, it’s because I’ve actually done something.

Nobody looks at me with suspicion.

I can walk down any street without fear.

I don’t get followed round by shop security.

And in hundreds of other ways. Essentially, society just lets me be me, and be about my business. No doors are closed to me in terms of opportunity, provided I’ve the merit.

How is this different to not being discriminated against? It’s the norm to be able walk down the street without fear? A previous poster mentioned that this distinction is semantics but it really isn’t considering that it sounds just a repackaging and reframing of old ideas. For example, it’s not a privilege that, if you go into a white neighbourhood people won’t call the police and assume you are up to no good. That’s those people being prejudiced against black people? Again, none of that is controversial or disputed seriously.

If anything I think the term is a weapon of the right that it can use to discredit the left. Rather than be about discrimination and racial bigotry it wastes energy on trying to prove that very poor and impoverished Americans are entitled and have it easy. It’s an act of political suicide with near as I can tell no tangible benefit to those being discriminated against or their cause. It made far more enemies than it did win people over or mobilise people within their community.

 Sasquatch wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
White Privilege.

If a copper pulls me over, it’s because I’ve actually done something.

Nobody looks at me with suspicion.

I can walk down any street without fear.

I don’t get followed round by shop security.

And in hundreds of other ways. Essentially, society just lets me be me, and be about my business. No doors are closed to me in terms of opportunity, provided I’ve the merit.

Lol under this definition you would lose your "white privalege" by dressing the wrong way, having the wrong haircut or just being in or from the wrong area!

Or are young

Or are Irish (still happens)

Or are a scouse

Or a Brumy

Or a northerner

Or Male

Etc.

White privilege is a lie perpetuating racism while disguising it as “equality”

Aren't there black Brummies and Asian scousers? Do they face exactly the same discrimination as white ones?

No.

There you go.

White privilege means blank sheets of paper, so full of promise for doodling.

I predict great things for this thread.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Aren't there black Brummies and Asian scousers? Do they face exactly the same discrimination as white ones?

No.

There you go.

Yes

There you go.

I work with a guy called “fongy” who is from Newcastle, he gets more shot for having that accent than he does for being Asian.

People who talk about "X" privilege for an entire group, didn't grow up poor.

 Frazzled wrote:
People who talk about "X" privilege for an entire group, didn't grow up poor.

Bingo!

I live in the U.K. and was so poor when I was a late teens (both parents fethed off and left us) that at times we only had onions to eat as they were so cheap.

White privilege is a lie, pure and simple, and anyone that believes in it has some real issues that stop them being able to process the world rationally.

Depends who you ask but I'll give the general idea using an analogy we should all be comfortable with here;

'GW give the lions share of resource to space marine players much to the vitriol and anguish of all other players.'

Replace 'GW' with 'the World', replace 'space marine players' with 'Caucasians of privilege ' and replace 'other players' with 'other races'.

 greatbigtree wrote:

Anecdote the second.

More of a general thing. I planned on having a family for most of my life. I hit the teenage angst thing, and was all, "The world's too cruel to bring a baby into it..." for a while but by the time I was 20 I was comfortable with the idea of meeting the right person and settling down, you know, maybe, someday, if it was right, and uhm... I was ready. I had no close family with children. My nearby uncle and aunt didn't have kids. My Dad's side had all kinds of kids, but they were 4 hours away, so I never really had experience with little cousins or anything.

So when I became a Dad, I was all-in on it. I am not a let someone else take care of it guy. I learned to make the formula, how to warm the water, how to feed, change a diaper, proper burping technique, how to "pedal a bike" with their legs to help with gas. I can swaddle a baby (actual technical term) like a melon-fether. When I swaddle, the baby knows it and sleeps like a... baby. My kids are 7 and (almost) 9 and I'm fielding the life lessons like a boss. For a while, my wife was working weird shifts at a hospital (pharmacy techs are legal, professional drug dealers) so I was primary caregiver most days. Getting the kids up, ready, dropped off at daycare, picking them up. I was Dadding the gak out of that, and still do to this day. Proud Papa am I.

It's probably not a surprise to anyone that this is presumed to not be the case.

"Oh, Mister Mom today are you? How cute!"

"Is their Mom sick today?"

"Single parenting can be rough, right?" - I'm happily married. WTF?

"Hi Kids! What's it like with Daddy taking care of you today?"

And society's stream of incompetent Dads on TV and families barely hanging together because Mom makes all the sacrifices. Blech! For the record, my wife is amazing and also an excellent Mom. I'm not trying to take anything away from her.


When it comes to Dads being discriminated against, I can get a feel for the idea of White Privilege. White Privilege is a not-so-great name for an idea with merit. If you don't experience it, you probably don't understand it.

I think this is hits the nail on the head on two points

1) A good analogy to what privilege is. A practical example of this playing out would be baby changing. Sometimes we still have baby changing in women's toilets, as it assumes that the child will be with its mother.

2) It also points to the failings of the use of the term "White Privilege". To my mind it has gone from a valid issue addressing an imbalance in society to being an almost racist term in itself. It is now often used by people who assume that any white person is inherently more privileged and are ignorant of the fact that they may suffer from inequality for other reasons, gender, disability, age, socioeconomic background, sexuality etc.

 Sasquatch wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
White Privilege.

If a copper pulls me over, it’s because I’ve actually done something.

Nobody looks at me with suspicion.

I can walk down any street without fear.

I don’t get followed round by shop security.

And in hundreds of other ways. Essentially, society just lets me be me, and be about my business. No doors are closed to me in terms of opportunity, provided I’ve the merit.

Lol under this definition you would lose your "white privalege" by dressing the wrong way, having the wrong haircut or just being in or from the wrong area!

Hi, I went from getting stopped by a highschool kid who wanted me to buy him cigarettes to 'maybe he's a CEO' with a shave and a new jacket. Because I'm sufficiently white that as long as I'm dressed right I'm judged to belong. So, yeah, actually, it can go pretty much exactly like that. But that's part of the privilege, the judgement of society is generally on your side, no one really questions that I belong in a middle to upper class environment unless I'm immediately involved in physical violence. Now that I'm dressed right.

Meanwhile people are terrified of my brother in law, who grew up upper class and is a puffball of love compared to my trailer trash ass. Maybe it's more obvious when you see it directly.

I think wealth is the biggest divider between people. It’s true that black people are more likely to come from deprived areas, but often the common causal factor is wealth not skin colour, we have several overlapping symptoms and causes and you can’t attribute the impacts of them simply. All the people who get an easy ride through he justice system, get second chances for things, get those opportunities for education and work opportunities, all come from wealthier backgrounds. There’s just as much poverty, drugs, crime and hopelessness in deprived white areas as black areas.

The problem I have with ‘privilege’ is the massive broad strokes it paints huge numbers of people with without any nuance. Seeing someone dismissed with the response ‘check your privilege’. This makes huge assumptions about a person without any consideration for their personal circumstances, it’s just assumed if they are white they have it easy. Not everyone is in receipt of privilage at all times, and being told you’re privileged is just an excuse to rudely ignore you if you’re white, or male, or whatever.

A common counter to male privilege that stupid people come up with, thinking they are being insightful, are things like male suicide rates, or likelihood of dying in work being much higher in men than women. This is only true in the broadest of senses because on average men work in more dangerous, manual jobs that women tend not to do. I cannot claim to be in receipt of this negative ‘privilage’ because I work in a school, my chances of dying at work are practically nil. So stats on men dying in work are utterly irrelevant to any discussion I’m a part of. But following that argument, there are positive privileges men are not always in receipt of either.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

How is this different to not being discriminated against? It’s the norm to be able walk down the street without fear? A previous poster mentioned that this distinction is semantics but it really isn’t considering that it sounds just a repackaging and reframing of old ideas. For example, it’s not a privilege that, if you go into a white neighbourhood people won’t call the police and assume you are up to no good. That’s those people being prejudiced against black people? Again, none of that is controversial or disputed seriously.

If anything I think the term is a weapon of the right that it can use to discredit the left. Rather than be about discrimination and racial bigotry it wastes energy on trying to prove that very poor and impoverished Americans are entitled and have it easy. It’s an act of political suicide with near as I can tell no tangible benefit to those being discriminated against or their cause. It made far more enemies than it did win people over or mobilise people within their community.

The one major difference is that the idea of white privilege in a wide sense also encompasses the general assumptions and reality of poverty relative to racial groups. It goes beyond the simple fact of prejudice and factors in the results of generational prejudice.

White privilege is generally speaking the results of consistently not being the group getting shat upon. You can fit in with the big boys if you have the opportunity and scrounge up the correct appearance. If I can do it, anyone can.

In no small amount the idea of this came around due to the people who declared racism over and don't understand why it's an issue anymore since civil rights passed so everything must be totally equal. And then go on to justify their racist as gak views of black people because of unequal results from hideously unequal beginnings.

 Steve steveson wrote:
I think this is hits the nail on the head on two points

1) A good analogy to what privilege is. A practical example of this playing out would be baby changing. Sometimes we still have baby changing in women's toilets, as it assumes that the child will be with its mother.

2) It also points to the failings of the use of the term "White Privilege". To my mind it has gone from a valid issue addressing an imbalance in society to being an almost racist term in itself. It is now often used by people who assume that any white person is inherently more privileged and are ignorant of the fact that they may suffer from inequality for other reasons, gender, disability, age, socioeconomic background, sexuality etc.

This is my problem really with the current paradigm surrounding white privilege. It offers no solutions and is primarily used as a conversational battering ram to insult or invalidate someones position. and it obfuscates any conversation on the various social issues that its umbrella term covers.

Worse it makes enemies of many a proponent of the arguements taken individually.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Seeing someone dismissed with the response ‘check your privilege’.

And just to get ahead of anyone making assumptions, I fething hate this and beat it with a bag of hammers every chance I get. Still find the concept rather useful in understanding the sociological bs being perpetuated by various political groups.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 Sasquatch wrote:


Lol under this definition you would lose your "white privalege" by dressing the wrong way, having the wrong haircut or just being in or from the wrong area!

Hi, I went from getting stopped by a highschool kid who wanted me to buy him cigarettes to 'maybe he's a CEO' with a shave and a new jacket. Because I'm sufficiently white that as long as I'm dressed right I'm judged to belong. So, yeah, actually, it can go pretty much exactly like that. But that's part of the privilege, the judgement of society is generally on your side, no one really questions that I belong in a middle to upper class environment unless I'm immediately involved in physical violence. Now that I'm dressed right.

Meanwhile people are terrified of my brother in law, who grew up upper class and is a puffball of love compared to my trailer trash ass. Maybe it's more obvious when you see it directly.

To build on this, class and race are very strongly intertwined. The point of race is to create a class barrier that can't be truly escaped. Colonial powers invented science about race as justification for plundering and enslaving, after all. A white guy can dress better and talk posher and fit right into the middle and upper classes whereas a black guy could do the same things but have one, final obstacle in the way. A white person and a black person acting and dressing the same are still likely to be viewed as being from two different classes.


Additonally, Western racial relations are not exactly transposable to other cultural spheres (and do differ slightly even with the West) and so a white person wouldn't necessarily count for anything in Saudi Arabia or Japan. Being "white" or being "black" or being anything at all aren't immutable qualities because these identifications exist within a particular society.

 Steve steveson wrote:
2) It also points to the failings of the use of the term "White Privilege". To my mind it has gone from a valid issue addressing an imbalance in society to being an almost racist term in itself. It is now often used by people who assume that any white person is inherently more privileged and are ignorant of the fact that they may suffer from inequality for other reasons, gender, disability, age, socioeconomic background, sexuality etc.

Okay, so there's a recurring theme in this thread to trot out the tired argument of "not all white people have the same privilege," which is of course true, but also ignores that, at least in the US, not matter what the rest of your identity, you're almost always better off being white than non-white.

So, as others (notably sebster) have pointed out, sociologically privilege is most broadly the benefit of not being "other." Meaning, that whatever identity you have, it is in the majority, which for most people becomes "normal." So, you define yourself, and society defines you, by your more personal traits, such as personality, accomplishments, etc, rather than by your identity. When a person says "I don't see race," they're almost certainly in the majority of their community. They can afford to not see race, because their race seldom, if ever, is an issue. If you want to see a great example of white privilege, look at how quickly the corner cases where white's are discriminated are brought up in any discussion on racism. White people become keenly aware of race the second they perceive it as a disadvantage. You can show some of them reams of data showing systematic inequality, and they will simply point out that one of their friends wasn't hired at the post office because he was white.

Race is a common form of privilege, at least in the US, because it's so stark and clear cut. It's not always the most dramatic (abled vs. disabled is pretty much the most dramatic privilege, particularly for the most extreme disabilities), but it layers pretty nastily with anything else. Meaning, a poor white kid and a poor black have different probabilities for success in life. Both have less privilege than even a black middle class kid, but the poor white kid is less likely to be entangled in the criminal justice system, will generally have access to better schools, and will have better job and financial prospects as an adult. And this isn't just leftist propaganda. There are pretty extensive studies on this stuff. For example, black men with bachelor's degrees have the same median income as white men with only high school educations.

So, to respond directly to the quote here, as a rule, white people are more privileged than a similarly situated person of a different race. Obviously, a wealthy, non-disabled, straight cis-male black person is going to have an easier life than a poor, disabled, queer white person. I don't think anybody argues that outside of the outermost fringes of tumblr and twitter.

I think you need to update your analysis a bit, It is true that historically that race was used to justify an economic hierarchy (See slavery), but in modern liberal capitalism that is no longer the case. In modern liberalism identities like race and sex have been incorporated into the leading ideology, so today you can have black governors or presidents, which was unthinkable 50-60 years ago. Of course the realities of a class society remains and the effects of the racial segregation is still felt, but the point stands that the ruling ideology of today doesn't use race to justify those economic hierarchies (IE: class)

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Aren't there black Brummies and Asian scousers? Do they face exactly the same discrimination as white ones?

No.

There you go.

I'd look up what a brummie or scouser is, but I am scared.

Personally I would like to see a real and tangible example of any privilege that white people get that isn’t legally afforded to any other race that lives in our county.

All I ever hear is wishy washy handwavium remarks about “followed in a shop” or other things.

This all boils down to the parasitical identity politics that invests the US these days (and is encroaching on the U.K.), I could go on but don’t want to be too harsh.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Aren't there black Brummies and Asian scousers? Do they face exactly the same discrimination as white ones?

No.

There you go.

I'd look up what a brummie or scouser is, but I am scared.

A Brummie is sort of a motorised broom, while a Scouser is a type of Bread Roll*

*facts as presented may not be entirely accurate

dyndraig wrote:
I think you need to update your analysis a bit, It is true that historically that race was used to justify an economic hierarchy (See slavery), but in modern liberal capitalism that is no longer the case. In modern liberalism identities like race and sex have been incorporated into the leading ideology, so today you can have black governors or presidents, which was unthinkable 50-60 years ago. Of course the realities of a class society remains and the effects of the racial segregation is still felt, but the point stands that the ruling ideology of today doesn't use race to justify those economic hierarchies (IE: class)

Obama was surrounded by racial fear. "In modern liberalism", maybe, but liberalism is far from the sole thing to motivate white voters and racism has been and continues to be a strong factor in how the entire system of voting is organised. Never mind that the current president campaigned on building a wall to keep brown people out.

 Formosa wrote:
Personally I would like to see a real and tangible example of any privilege that white people get that isn’t legally afforded to any other race that lives in our county.

All I ever hear is wishy washy handwavium remarks about “followed in a shop” or other things.

This all boils down to the parasitical identity politics that invests the US these days (and is encroaching on the U.K.), I could go on but don’t want to be too harsh.

You're saying that you're going to ignore the answers to the question you ostensibly want answered. The conclusion to draw here is that you are not really interested in understanding what white privilege means, how it's used and any strengths and weaknesses this model of analysis has, but that you're just pretending in order to gain a veneer of legitimacy in your dismissal of the basic idea of there being a racial hierarchy and in order to waste people's time when they try to engage with you in good faith.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
White Privilege.

If a copper pulls me over, it’s because I’ve actually done something.

Nobody looks at me with suspicion.

I can walk down any street without fear.

I don’t get followed round by shop security.

And in hundreds of other ways. Essentially, society just lets me be me, and be about my business. No doors are closed to me in terms of opportunity, provided I’ve the merit.

I'm white and have been pulled over for being white, the cop even admitted it like it was no big deal. Back in 2002, before I had any cell phone, let alone a smart phone, I looked at a map and decided that traveling north to south through eastern Omaha, Nebraska would be a good shortcut rather than taking the highway. Not only did this in fact add 45 minutes to my trip, I got pulled over for being a pasty-faced nerd in the middle of a Black ghetto. Cops thought I was there to buy drugs.

Every race/gender/religion has its own form of privilege. Try being a man taking your kids to play at a public park. The moms look at you like you are a pedo. Ever look at the clothing sections of any department store? Notice how the women's section is roughly 2.5 times the size of the men's section?

If you have access to Netflix, there's a 15 or so minute show called "explained" and it talks about White Privilege in one of the episodes.

In particular, how White families have been building wealth by virtue of owning land, in valuable locations, while "others" have not. If you're genuinely interested, and can set aside the "I'm white, I had it tough, so other people's struggles are not as hard as mine..." viewpoint, I'd say it's worth the 15 minutes to watch it.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Every race/gender/religion has its own form of privilege. Try being a man taking your kids to play at a public park. The moms look at you like you are a pedo. Ever look at the clothing sections of any department store? Notice how the women's section is roughly 2.5 times the size of the men's section?

So, that's true, that there are advantages and disadvantages to many different demographic groups, but lets not pretend for even a second that those pros and cons balance out.

You park example does point out how related to "otherness" is to privilege. Normally, child care takers are female, so a male is unusual, and other. While a stay at home mom is accepted, a stay at home dad is a novelty. So you have 100% experienced what it's like to run into bias.

Now, imagine instead of facing that bias once a week when you take your kids to the park, it's every day, in a multitude of situations. You know how uncomfortable that bias makes you feel, not realize that other people feel that far more often, and often for much higher stakes. Think about feeling that way at work, driving around town, etc.

When people say that the concept of white privilege doesn't help, it's because they don't understand that it's about trying to empathize with others.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Formosa wrote:
Personally I would like to see a real and tangible example of any privilege that white people get that isn’t legally afforded to any other race that lives in our county.

All I ever hear is wishy washy handwavium remarks about “followed in a shop” or other things.

This all boils down to the parasitical identity politics that invests the US these days (and is encroaching on the U.K.), I could go on but don’t want to be too harsh.

Here's one of the classic experiments on the subject: http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience.

Another tangible example is in online dating, where black women receive far fewer responses. OK Cupid did a huge study that I'll link to later when I'm not on my work computer, but it's pretty easy to find.

 cuda1179 wrote:

I'm white and have been pulled over for being white, the cop even admitted it like it was no big deal. Back in 2002, before I had any cell phone, let alone a smart phone, I looked at a map and decided that traveling north to south through eastern Omaha, Nebraska would be a good shortcut rather than taking the highway. Not only did this in fact add 45 minutes to my trip, I got pulled over for being a pasty-faced nerd in the middle of a Black ghetto. Cops thought I was there to buy drugs.

I think you need to take a step back and get some perspective.

The thread's frustration with the term "white privilege" reminds me of the hostility to the term "rape culture." Like it was stated, it is just an aggressive way of saying "be more empathetic and see it from another point of view."

Race and wealth mobility have been tied together in the US since before its foundation. And the term "white" is such a fluid thing that basically means "not the other" in america. It was only in the 20th century in America that Irish and Italians were allowed to be considered "white." I would not be surprised that other groups will be considered white in the future.

I can understand why being called "privileged" feels like an attack, but you understand why being called "disadvantaged" feels like an attack too?

And can we please stop the "we had a black president so race is not an issue anymore statements?" Come on. Especially since there was such a backlash against him. Does anyone think it was coincidence that the person who championed that Obama was "not legitimate" (birther) and has been dedicated to destroying the Obama legacy is now the president?

EDIT: cuda1179 comment is an example of him being forced to interact with the police because he was in a highly policed area that he happened to drive through. Now imagine how often the people who lived there get harassed by the police. For just living there.

If only there were some sort of academic concept for how different kinds of disciplines intersect with one another. We could call it, I don't know, Intersectionality. Alas, such a thing hasn't ever been thought of before, so sadly we must conclude that White Privilege can't be a thing because other people can be oppressed too. Oh well.

 AdeptSister wrote:
The thread's frustration with the term "white privilege" reminds me of the hostility to the term "rape culture." Like it was stated, it is just an aggressive way of saying "be more empathetic and see it from another point of view."

Race and wealth mobility have been tied together in the US since before its foundation. And the term "white" is such a fluid thing that basically means "not the other" in america. It was only in the 20th century in America that Irish and Italians were allowed to be considered "white." I would not be surprised that other groups will be considered white in the future.

I can understand why being called "privileged" feels like an attack, but you understand why being called "disadvantaged" feels like an attack too?

And can we please stop the "we had a black president so race is not an issue anymore statements?" Come on. Especially since there was such a backlash against him. Does anyone think it was coincidence that the person who championed that Obama was "not legitimate" (birther) and has been dedicated to destroying the Obama legacy is now the president?

EDIT: cuda1179 comment is an example of him being forced to interact with the police because he was in a highly policed area that he happened to drive through. Now imagine how often the people who lived there get harassed by the police. For just living there.

How is it an attack to say that black people are discriminated against? You’re saying that because a group is a persecuted minority is itself a term of insult and that the only way to deal with that is to frame the absence of discrimination of privilege. But if that’s the case then why are people calling for the removal of that discrimination. You don’t hear, “we need more white kids getting shot so we can all be equal”. It’s a nonesense. The issue is clearly is one of the majority discriminating against the minority. It’s pride to insist that there be no connotation of victimhood because it implies weakness. I think that is a completely suicidal train of thought. Also how is not condescending to have white people tweeting “woe is me and my white privilege”? That kind of distracts the issue and I’d say that’s more insulting than saying “black peoples are the victims of discrimination. How would not be showing empathy to show concern for instances of racial discrimination?

Well if you know it feels like an attack and you know it’s going to discredit the movement then why frame the issue like that in the first place? Aggressive rhetoric only works if it brings new people to your side or mobilises support. If it has the opposite effect and empowers the right so that you lose influence then it’s a terrible idea.

To be honest the whole rape culture thing is more or less exactly the same problem. The feminist movement didn’t really change its position, but it tried to ratchet up its rhetoric. Saying women are discriminated against and frequently attacked by men is not new. The problem is that our culture overwhelmingly makes it clear that masculinity is built upon a chivalrous notion that men should protect women. How many video games or stories involve a guy trying to save his woman; usually from a cruel guy trying to use her in some way? This goes to films like in Back to the Future where Biff tries to rape Marty’s mother and his Dad beats him up. We have a culture that doesn’t just criminalise and throw rapists in jail. But one which arguably considers it the highest virtue of masculinity to attack the bad men which do it. Yes, this can depict women as victims without power. However it’s extremely clear what the socially accepted ideal is. It’s also ridiculise because it ignores that every man wants to be loved and so the idea of forcing a woman implies that you’re to weak to inspire love in her. So only a loser would rape a woman. Again, how often in films are rapists and gropers depicted as losers? I am not talking modern films, you can see this in films decades old. If a man does something disrespectful to a woman, in a lot of cases, it’s partly an act of rebellion and one that he knows is in contravention to what’s acceptable. Wolf whistling for example. So if you say “Rape Culture” and “Toxic Masculinity” you are again using rhetoric does more to discredit the movement then it does to win people over. Because it sounds far to close to “all men are evil”. I mean, to me these just sound like edgy buzzwords.

If the problem is some of the people using it, then shouldn't we be arguing for better debaters, rather than the term itself? White privilege is still a thing that needs to be talked about, even if it's not the sole thing that effects every person or to as great a extent as other. It's as if the phrase that is one part in in a larger discussion about socio-economics.

It's not like, oh say, "identity politics", which is similarly used to shut down conversations while being inherently antagonistic by accusing peoples beliefs and actions as being purely cynical.

 Polonius wrote:

The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience.

Another tangible example is in online dating, where black women receive far fewer responses. OK Cupid did a huge study that I'll link to later when I'm not on my work computer, but it's pretty easy to find.

A white name? I wonder if someone named 'Ivan Kuznetsov' or 'Juan Herrero' would get the same amount of callbacks as someone named 'John Smith'? Is this really a racial issue, or is it a more broad issue with xenophobia in that any people that do not have a name associated with the dominant ethnic group get rejected more often, regardless of race? Before they can claim that "white names" result in more callbacks, they should have had a more representative sample of "white" names. Because now it proves nothing beyond having an Anglo-American name results in more callbacks, but Anglo-American does not equate to "white". In European countries with a Germanic majority (like England, Germany etc.), Slavic people get discriminated against, even though both are equally white (again, it is usually set along class lines, Slavic people in those countries typically being lower class). Is this different in the US (Seeing as that the US is predominantly Germanic as well)? Does having a Slavic name yield the same kind of benefits as having a Germanic name? And what about Spanish, Italian or other Latin names? Do all whites have "white" privilege? Or is there discrimination against certain white groups as well?