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What does this term actually mean?

Is it simply a rhetorical statement meant to draw attention to discrimination against black people? I mean, I watched the Fresh Prince as a kid in the 90s, it’s not exactly a ground breaking revelation. Basically a shorthand for “white people have advantages over black people because of discrimination. So we should end discrimination so that everyone is treated equally.”

Does it mean that white people actually have a distinct set of privileges that are above and beyond what would be considered normal in society? We can create a fair society by revoking these privileges? Think like after the French Revolution where they revoked many of the legal protections nobles had for example.

See I was watching a BBC documentary about the term and I really couldn’t understand the distinction between these two definitions. You could watch that film and take either.

It might come up at work so I d rather not get caught out misunderstanding what’s being discussed.

Essentially it means being born white gives you an advantage over any other race usually concerning wealth, jobs, and access to services such as healthcare, groceries, etc. Everything is supposedly easier if you’re born white.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Essentially it means being born white gives you an advantage over any other race usually concerning wealth, jobs, and access to services such as healthcare, groceries, etc. Everything is supposedly easier if you’re born white.

It’s definition 2? Really? So not being discriminated against is viewed as preferential treatment as opposed to the absence of a negative?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
It’s definition 2? Really? So not being discriminated against is viewed as preferential treatment as opposed to the absence of a negative?

"Not being discriminated against" is preferential treatment. if you're running a foot race, and you run it on your own merits, but someone keeps knocking your opponents over while they try to run, would it be accurate to say that you won the race on your own with no advantages since you got no bonuses like extra running time or what have you?

No one ever gets a check in the mail for being white. No one who is white automatically gets into Harvard. No one ever is guaranteed success for being white.

These are usually oversimplifications used to dismiss that, at least in the US, there is an implicit bias built into most of our culutural structures that favors being white: people with white names are more likely to get interviews, are less likely to be harassed by the police, are more likely to be offered favorable loans, and so on and so forth. I can source all this stuff if you like but the entire package is what "white privilege" constitutes, and the customary use of the phrase is just to remind you that if you're white, be aware that there are some cultural advantages that you enjoy that you don't even think about, that someone else might not enjoy.


There is no clear, exact definition of the term, but that is the gist.

 Ouze wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
It’s definition 2? Really? So not being discriminated against is viewed as preferential treatment as opposed to the absence of a negative?

"Not being discriminated against" is preferential treatment.

Privilege implies the existence of a baseline. To have privilege you have to have something beyond what the norm is. Now, given how much objection there is to discrimination against black people that obviously isn’t their position. That treatment isn’t normal or acceptable. So lack of discrimination is objectively not a privilege since the goal is to end discrimination.

There’s a difference between saying “you have it so easy” and “I have it so hard”. The issue itself is the same, the level of work I do is disproportionate. The difference is that one is a complaint of inequity and the the other can be taken as an insult.

 Ouze wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
It’s definition 2? Really? So not being discriminated against is viewed as preferential treatment as opposed to the absence of a negative?

"Not being discriminated against" is preferential treatment.

No one ever gets a check in the mail for being white. No one who is white automatically gets into Harvard. No one ever is guaranteed success for being white.

These are usually oversimplifications used to dismiss that, at least in the US, there is an implicit bias built into most of our culutural structures that favors being white: people with white names are more likely to get interviews, are less likely to be harassed by the police, are more likely to be offered favorable loans, and so on and so forth. I can source all this stuff if you like but the entire package is what "white privilege" constitutes, and the customary use of the phrase is just to remind you that if you're white, be aware that there are some cultural advantages that you enjoy that you don't even think about, that someone else might not enjoy.

This. The concept of "white privilege" is more complex than some silly notion suggesting "white people have it easy." It's a comment about societal factors, not personal advantage per se. It can effect you on a personal level. As a white American you're absurdly less likely to be pulled over by the police than a black American. In a broader sense though the notion refers fundamentally to a blurry class-race advantage held by white Americans in society.

To be fair some people really are just being pretentious dicks when they say the words, but there is an actual conception behind it.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Privilege implies the existence of a baseline. To have privilege you have to have something beyond what the norm is. Now, given how much objection there is to discrimination against black people that obviously isn’t their position. That treatment isn’t normal or acceptable. So lack of discrimination is objectively not a privilege since the goal is to end discrimination.

There’s a difference between saying “you have it so easy” and “I have it so hard”. The issue itself is the same, the level of work I do is disproportionate. The difference is that one is a complaint of inequity and the the other can be taken as an insult.

To be clear before we go any further, did you want to know what the concept was, or do you want to claim it doesn't exist?

I edited my post while, I think maybe you were responding. So, you maybe didn't see this:

if you're running a foot race, and you run it on your own merits, but someone keeps knocking your opponents over while they try to run, would it be accurate to say that you won the race on your own with no advantages since you got no bonuses like extra running time or what have you?

While I agree discrimination against non-whites is a thing, one must also admit that in some areas you're starting to see discrimination against whites. For example, one of the best ways to get a job in Silicon Valley is to be Indian or Chinese on an H1B visa...

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Essentially it means being born white gives you an advantage over any other race usually concerning wealth, jobs, and access to services such as healthcare, groceries, etc. Everything is supposedly easier if you’re born white.

Only if you are born white in the correct country though. Being white does not bring so much privilege in Ukraine or Moldova... Plenty of black people across the world who were born with a thousand times the privilege the average Moldovan is born with. Therefore, I think it is an incorrect term. Privilege is based on class, not on race. The real issue is that in many countries, class lines tend to run along ethnic lines, conflating two different issues.

In the US, white Americans definitely do have an advantage over Afro-Americans or Latin Americans by virtue of being the dominant ethnic group, but I think it is wrong to call this "white" privilege, since that implies it is inherent to all white people across the world, while in fact it only applies to a handful of countries that have a significant population of ethnic groups with dark skin, but where the dominant ethnic group has fair skin. Furthermore, calling it "white" privilege takes away the focus from the important fact that this same principle is at work in almost every country with multiple ethnic groups, not just in cases where the ethnic groups have different skin colour. "White" privilege exists in a country like Burundi or Rwanda as well, despite the fact that all ethnic groups there are dark-skinned. You could call that "Tutsi" privilege instead of "white" privilege, but that ignores that it is pretty much the exact mechanism at work. Same in Russia, where you have this same dynamic, but between ethnic groups that are all fair-skinned. Chechens are as white as Russians are, but they still are disadvantaged in much the same way Afro-Americans are in the US. Therefore, it would be better to rename this concept to "dominant group" privilege.

On another note, as a fair-skinned person, I would like to object to the term "white". I am not white, just fair-skinned. Paper is white. Milk is white. My skin definitely is not.

 Ouze wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Privilege implies the existence of a baseline. To have privilege you have to have something beyond what the norm is. Now, given how much objection there is to discrimination against black people that obviously isn’t their position. That treatment isn’t normal or acceptable. So lack of discrimination is objectively not a privilege since the goal is to end discrimination.

There’s a difference between saying “you have it so easy” and “I have it so hard”. The issue itself is the same, the level of work I do is disproportionate. The difference is that one is a complaint of inequity and the the other can be taken as an insult.

To be clear before we go any further, did you want to know what the concept was, or do you want to claim it doesn't exist?

I edited my post while, I think maybe you were responding. So, you maybe didn't see this:

if you're running a foot race, and you run it on your own merits, but someone keeps knocking your opponents over while they try to run, would it be accurate to say that you won the race on your own with no advantages since you got no bonuses like extra running time or what have you?

You’ve explained the definition well. I just find it a very difficult one to accept.

Let’s take the foot race issue. You’re identifying the problem with the guy who won the race rather than the “someone” who’s knocking people over. He hasn’t asked him to do that. Most interviews are anonymous for example; he isn’t party to the discrimination. If you remove that someone element, then it becomes a fair race. If you belabour that the guy didn’t win fairly for weeks afterwards it doesn’t change anything.

Plus the analogy works well for job interviews where you can say: I won out at somebody else’s expense. I suspect this is a counter to arguments against positive discrimination. But I don’t think it’s works well for police violence or stuff like loans. There you have a group being unfairly treated and criminalised. Whereas the assumption is that white peoples aren’t criminals. So the problem is with discrimination. It’s normal to not be randomly pulled over by the cops; that isn’t privilege.

I do need to be clear. Iam not saying there is not discrimination. Certainly is.

I mean what is the advantage of describing it as white privilege as opposed to racial discrimination?

I suppose if you unpack the idea: It implies a level of complicity even if you do not actively partake in acts of discrimination. However, that then risks finger pointing. I mean the one interview I had which had an Asian and Black applicant they both beat me on the applicants exam. Fair enough. So, I could turn around and say; well that doesn’t apply to me so stop saying I didn’t earn the current job Iam in. It’s too specific a definition. You can be told that other people are discriminated against. It’s a lot harder to convince people they are part of the problem. But then I would have to ask to what end when ending discrimination is the main goal?

if it's a literally semantically argument - why is it called x and not y - then I don't really have an answer for you, because I don't know

White privilege isn’t just about white people not being discriminated against like black people and other minorities are discriminated against. That’s part of it, because sort of, but it’s more than that. If that was all it was we could just stick to talking about racism and reducing that.

White privilege is more passive, and more insidious. It is the underlying assumption that a white person’s experience is the normal, while every other experience is abnormal. That assumption gives a lot of privileges to white people. A white person speaking out will be assumed to be speaking from a universal position, while a black person will be assumed to be speaking from a black perspective.

Similarly, a black person is deemed first and foremost to be part of the black group, so any actions he takes are thought to reflect on all black people, and actions by other black people are thought to reflect on him. Think about how often people will complain that black leaders aren’t speaking out about a thing done by some black person, and then consider if you’ve ever heard a non-ironic complaint that white leaders aren’t speaking out against something done by a white person.

 

The thing about white privilege is it doesn’t actually require any kind of malice or conscious race hate. I remember once listening to an aboriginal speaker and going up to them after the event to question part of their argument, and seen multiple people in front of me not comment on the speaker’s idea or the content of his speech, but just to tell them how nice it was to see an aboriginal person doing so well. They didn’t see man with some ideas about financing the expansion of higher education, they saw a black person representing his people so nicely. The guy looked kind of relieved when I questioned one of his claims, at least I was debating his ideas.

 

Basically, it is the idea that when you see a white person you don’t think of whiteness and any assumptions that come with that, but when you see a person of another ethnicity you think of their ethnicity and start making assumptions.

As a white American you're absurdly less likely to be pulled over by the police than a black American. In a broader sense though the notion refers fundamentally to a blurry class-race advantage held by white Americans in society.

Yes, I am also less likely to be yelled or called horrible gak, because I am white.

I am privileged to be white, but I do not have an advantage, white privilege is less of empowerment and more a commentary of society and how historically 'white' people are not the targets of mass suppression or being pushed down by society.

t is the underlying assumption that a white person’s experience is the normal, while every other experience is abnormal. That assumption gives a lot of privileges to white people. A white person speaking out will be assumed to be speaking from a universal position, while a black person will be assumed to be speaking from a black perspective.

Amply put. Its also like how we are technically racist based on how we answer somes question, do we notice their skin color or do we notice them? If you notice their skin color that is just your human tribalism kicking in. (Our biggest advantage and our curse)

There is no 'norm' to society, because where would we base that norm on? What is the average person? In reality there is no such thing as a norm.

All that matters is what we do with our position in society, do we give back or take away?

You’ve explained the definition well. I just find it a very difficult one to accept.

I don't blame, Its a hard concept to understand till you've met someone who you try to relate to but cannot because well they had an entirely different situation to what I did. I was white, she was mexican. She grew up in a shanty town outside chicago, I grew up in the burbs with two highly educated parents. She was constantly called things by people because of her origins, I wasn't.

The idea is to empathize, to feel and understand the places they come from. Understand you come from a place of power, what little you have you have more than others who are less forunate. This isn't racist this just understanding.

We have to admit that there are different walks of life, and know that not everyone walks the same path.

I mean what is the advantage of describing it as white privilege as opposed to racial discrimination?

Historics. Look at history.

Historically White people have been in power, European and American. We had systematic oppression of minorities in these places for hundreds of years, hell we had a slave trade of minorities for hundreds of those years.

Were white people enslaved, yes the word Slave comes from the Word Slav. But recently very few white or europeans were enslaved. But that took centuries to mend. It doesn't disappear, it will slowly mend but it will be felt by the people and victims of those events.

To put it in perspective Just 50 or so years ago we had the civil rights movement to get rid of segregation between African Americans and white Americans. We still have people who lived through that and are still racist. Hell we have people in power who want to go back to that.

I used to think very similarly it just took my life experiences to show me I was wrong. It took me a year to figure that out, sometimes you need to understand it and it will make you a better person its not about putting people down, but more of a "Hey you don't know them"'

Ouze explained probably the best. I am very rambly and could easily just reduce this to a few sentences of pep talk.

Don't feel ashamed to ask questions. These are bad things to worry about as long as your not calling people names, and treating people like crap.

But of course people make generalisations about groups and assume they are monolithic. You are probably going to judge a Communist, or a Nazi, or a Trump supporter and have preconceived notions about them before you meet said individual. That’s just human nature and I don’t think that’s tied directly to white privilege. I am sure that people from minority groups have opinions and monolithic assumptions about white people. Probably the best example is having preconceived notions of what men and women are like. That’s not just about race.

An excuse for the failures of those who happen to share a similar level of melanin as yourself.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
But of course people make generalisations about groups and assume they are monolithic. You are probably going to judge a Communist, or a Nazi, or a Trump supporter and have preconceived notions about them before you meet said individual. That’s just human nature and I don’t think that’s tied directly to white privilege. I am sure that people from minority groups have opinions and monolithic assumptions about white people. Probably the best example is having preconceived notions of what men and women are like. That’s not just about race.

Well, Nazism is nationalism to an extreme, your an extremist at that point which means you have extreme views. Generally, a Nazi is someone who thinks they are a superior race. So no...The individual has already made that aware just by description.

 Vulcan wrote:
While I agree discrimination against non-whites is a thing, one must also admit that in some areas you're starting to see discrimination against whites. For example, one of the best ways to get a job in Silicon Valley is to be Indian or Chinese on an H1B visa...

No.

I have to challenge this statement. To clarify, that is not discrimination against whites. That is capitalism.

You really think that the few people (in comparison to their huge populations) who got those H1B visas are more privileged than American whites? Do you know the level of competition in their home countries there is to get those visas and what they had to do to get them?

On white privilege, others have captured it well. It is understanding that others would have a different perspective. The whole term is about viewing the society outside of the "white" view that sometimes considered the default. It is saying " No, that is not the default."

I will admit that White Privilege exists. However, I also think that many aspects of it are over stated, and in some respects are conflated with "wealth privilege".

I feel that there are MANY different categories of people that have different types and levels of privilege. For example, there is such a thing as female privilege.

White privilege in short: your life may be difficult, but it is not difficult because you are white.

when you are still 77% of the population, it is default, that % gets much higher the further back you go. Whites are still the majority in more than 40 states.

 cuda1179 wrote:
... and in some respects are conflated with "wealth privilege".

It can be hard to get an interview if your name is Jamal. It can also be hard if your name is Cleatus. There's CERTAINLY a racial aspect to white privilege, personally I believe the wealth aspect (or the impression of wealth) is a bigger part than many give credence to. Still not the major aspect, but a larger portion than many believe.

White Privilege is a term used to describe an OVERALL tendency for white individuals to have fewer occurrences of "success inhibiting events" outside their control.

People that, for lack of better term, are offended by the notion of white privilege tend to look at individual cases and point out that there are many forms of privilege and that being white doesn't necessarily mean things are easy or even easier than other individual cases for non-whites.

White privilege is an ironic idea, in that it uses racism to point out that racism isn't necessarily active in order to be present. If, as a white person, you've never experienced racism in your day-to-day life, you probably don't think about it, and you probably think that because you don't engage in racist action, no special actions need to be enacted to combat racism.

I grew up in a small town, in Southwestern Ontario. I can recall having met about 5 persons of non-white ethnicity in my public school years. My parents had no racist comments, or any kind of prejudices that I am aware of... except my Dad had a thing against Dutch people. A farmland deal went sour between his father (My grandfather) and a Dutch person, and I guess there were some hard feelings between them. It's weird, because I'm living proof that racism is learned. I don't think about whether or not a person is Dutch until I have a negative experience with a person and I reflect on their name and start to wonder. I'll glibly point out that I have Dutch friends, and it doesn't bother me that they're Dutch. I had a former boss that was Dutch... and I only *hate* two people in my life, and he is one of them. I sometimes wonder if the two are related, or if it's confirmation bias...

Which wraps back to the real point of coming up with a term for White Privilege. Sometimes you can only understand something by feeling it. By experiencing it. What is blue to a blind man? I inherited something else from my Father, he has no sense of smell. Lost it entirely when he hit puberty. My sense of smell comes and goes, since puberty. Sometimes I can smell, and sometimes I can't.

I worked at a nursing home for a year, before I went to college (for the second time...) and let me tell you. The days I couldn't smell were a lot easier than the days I could. Sometimes, I couldn't smell. So sometimes, I didn't have the DISADVANTAGE that my coworkers shared. Sometimes, I had a bit of a lead in the race, because I wasn't being bombarded with the smell of piss and gak and mushrooms and vomit and decay. (Technically I was, but I didn't sense it. )

I can also say, that as a child of a single parent father that lost his job, with a non-financially-supportive mother (minimum wage store clerk) I experienced living poor. I can say that I had well-off friends and I would often joke with some about "rich kid problems" when they were torn about which cell phone they should buy. I didn't begrudge them... it was beyond their control as much as it was beyond mine. I would not have volunteered to be poor, despite my current gratitude for making me the person I am today. I was nerdy before being nerdy was cool. I had long hair (halfway down my back) when *boys didn't grow their hair out like girls*. I've always been a husky gentleman. So I have experienced discrimination before, but truth be told, I was also able to do something about it. I was poor, so I got a job. I was a hippy-looking dude, so I got a hair cut. I'm still geeky and overweight, but I could hypothetically do something about it.

It's not like I would be discriminated against for my skin colour.


Two more anecdotes... and this is of course all anecdotal.

The key difference between a retirement home, and a nursing home, is that in a nursing home, you generally can't get yourself to a toilet, and you sometimes can't feed yourself. Or, you have dementia. You *need* help to keep you alive. You would either die without it, or live in your own filth.

Personal Support Workers are the people that, for the most part, take care of the residents' needs. Bathing, feeding, dressing, repositioning (avoid bed sores) are mostly taken care of by people with a few months' training, not by Nurses or Doctors. When it comes to administering medications, and things like that, you've got to be a Nurse. I was a "Nurses' Aide" which meant I was an untrained, and truthfully unqualified PSW. I got hired because about 97 of the 100 staff were women, and I was a strapping young lad able to move the residents easily. I was probably a "Minority Hire". The relationship between workers and residents is intimate. I mean, you're feeding them, clothing them, wiping their asses, putting them to bed. You kind of can't help but care for these people. They need you, and they're people at the end of their lives. You learn their stories. They aren't just another customer. They're people.

One of our residents had dementia, and sometimes she would become very upset and confused. I happened to be able to calm her down fairly well, I'd learned to pick up on some of the people she'd talk about and remember a few details of the house she talked about. So when she'd get on an "episode" I would often help out if I wasn't on her wing because I'm pretty good at improvising and sorting out where/when she was and the conversation path that would calm her down and set her on her happily on her way. (Happiness is a state of mind, nothing else.) It was the end of my shift, I was tired, just pulled a double-shift to cover for an absence, and an episode was starting.

A co-worker asked if I would mind helping out with her, and Nurse Lamby (I'm not fething kidding, her name was Lamby, like a small sheep) in front of about 10 of my (women) co-workers said,

"How could he help? He's just a *man*. " and *man* was said in a way I'd never heard it before, because it was derogatory. Like I, as a *man* was lesser, and not able to perform the task of care for another human being as well as a ^Woman^. In that moment, I looked at the women I worked with. I'd say half were nodding in agreement. People that had seen me care, deeply, for these residents. People that knew I was taking an extra shift not for the money (didn't need it then, HA!) but was helping out my coworkers so they wouldn't be short, and proper care could be provided for the residents. People I had shared the hurt of loss for a well liked resident with. Nodding their heads in agreement with Lamby that I was less competent to deal with care, despite having proven myself in that exact situation multiple times. Some walked away, and one started to stand up for me, but was cut off and told to deal with it herself. (She was good, and I can remember her face but not her name. :( )

I was stunned. I'd never before, and I can't remember since having been in a professional situation where I was blatantly discriminated against. It was beyond my control. I was angry with myself for not saying anything then. I'm still angry about it today, right now. It was half a lifetime ago (18 years, ish) and I can feel my adrenaline reaction today, right now. I'm angry at Lamby, I'm angry at the women that nodded their heads, I'm angry with the people that walked away and I'm angry with myself. I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I just, left. I went home. I didn't help the resident, or the coworker that tried to stand up for me.

If it hasn't happened to you, you probably don't understand the shame that comes with having your value stripped away, publicly, for no reason that's within your control, and you don't do anything about it. It happens to you, and it's like rain. It just hits you, soaks you, covers you, and you don't do anything about it. Afterwards, you know what you should have done, but you didn't.


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.

You may not realize that you have advantages over another person simply by fortune of your birth. Nobody's fault. It's not a blame issue. It is a perspective issue. Not all people are created equally, though we must all be treated equally by the law.

In my teens, I had a car available to me, so I could get myself to work. That's a privilege I had, that I frankly took for granted. I still had to work, I had to pay for the gas, but I had more opportunities than some people in similar circumstances to myself. It doesn't take away from my hard work. But I wouldn't have had as many opportunities to work, if I didn't have that car available.

When I applied for my first apartment, I had an established grandmother that co-signed on my application. She's not rich, but she and my grandfather worked (like me) from a young age and were able to purchase a home and her "credit" was extended to me through that co-sign. If my grandmother hadn't been able (and willing) to help me, I might not have gotten that apartment. Without the apartment, I couldn't have gone to college (again) which then provided me the opportunity to gain employment at my current workplace.

If my family had been discriminated against for generations, I probably wouldn't have had a car available to have employment options to better my situation. I would have had to compete for the local "scraps" of employment that were available. I wouldn't have had that credit to leave my home and go (back) to school.

I work hard, and I am my own man. I had benefits that may be taken for granted by some, but without them my options and opportunities would have been fewer, and I may not have been able to achieve the life I have today. (Which I am grateful for.)


The concept of White Privilege is, at its best, an attempt to make people aware of things they take for granted. Particularly, disadvantages they may not face, by the fortune of their birth. This isn't a "my life is harder" contest, but is meant to open thoughts on ways to help bridge these gaps to make for more-even opportunities for all people to succeed.

The concept of White Privilege is, at its worst, a racist talking point. White people can't understand what they don't experience, so no matter what they do, it ultimately hurts "other" people. White Privilege creates a no-win scenario for eliminating racism. White people that want to help are perpetuating the power dynamic that puts white people in positions of power to "lift up" the other races, which continues oppression. White people that disagree are bigots, and racists. The only answer is segregation, or acquisition of power by force, to turn the tide of power.

AdeptSister wrote:

On white privilege, others have captured it well. It is understanding that others would have a different perspective. The whole term is about viewing the society outside of the "white" view that sometimes considered the default. It is saying " No, that is not the default."

I find it a very silly thing, then. People have different perspectives? That has nothing to do with privilige, that's just life.
And in countries where white people are the majority, their view *is* the default.
It's not the only view, mind, and encouraging people to look at things from someone else's point of view (ie, empathy) is laudable. Doing that by devaluing their own point of view by labeling it as "white privilige" and therefore inherently suspect/subconsciously mildly racist, however, is ironically enough very un-empathical.
Which is probably why the concept meets so much resistance outside of strongly left-wing circles, as a lot of people would probably agree to the underlying principle if it was presented less confrontationally, but resent being euphemistically called a racist and so (quite rightly IMO) reject the concept as it stands.

...

Huh. I just realised that under that definition, the rightly much-hated term "check your privilige" basically means "show some empathy". A clearer example of the irony and of how self-defeating the concept is I cannot think of.

White privilege has a North American context. Primarily American context, but it still applies within Canada and is part of the US / Mexico relationship issues.

While American culture is exported to all corners of the world, the context isn't always carried.

Agreed, it is a very American specific phenomena that is being applied to the rest of the world where it doesn't make sense

dyndraig wrote:

Spoiler:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Essentially it means being born white gives you an advantage over any other race usually concerning wealth, jobs, and access to services such as healthcare, groceries, etc. Everything is supposedly easier if you’re born white.

Only if you are born white in the correct country though. Being white does not bring so much privilege in Ukraine or Moldova... Plenty of black people across the world who were born with a thousand times the privilege the average Moldovan is born with. Therefore, I think it is an incorrect term. Privilege is based on class, not on race. The real issue is that in many countries, class lines tend to run along ethnic lines, conflating two different issues.

In the US, white Americans definitely do have an advantage over Afro-Americans or Latin Americans by virtue of being the dominant ethnic group, but I think it is wrong to call this "white" privilege, since that implies it is inherent to all white people across the world, while in fact it only applies to a handful of countries that have a significant population of ethnic groups with dark skin, but where the dominant ethnic group has fair skin. Furthermore, calling it "white" privilege takes away the focus from the important fact that this same principle is at work in almost every country with multiple ethnic groups, not just in cases where the ethnic groups have different skin colour. "White" privilege exists in a country like Burundi or Rwanda as well, despite the fact that all ethnic groups there are dark-skinned. You could call that "Tutsi" privilege instead of "white" privilege, but that ignores that it is pretty much the exact mechanism at work. Same in Russia, where you have this same dynamic, but between ethnic groups that are all fair-skinned. Chechens are as white as Russians are, but they still are disadvantaged in much the same way Afro-Americans are in the US. Therefore, it would be better to rename this concept to "dominant group" privilege.

On another note, as a fair-skinned person, I would like to object to the term "white". I am not white, just fair-skinned. Paper is white. Milk is white. My skin definitely is not.

Agreed, it is a very American specific phenomena that is being applied to the rest of the world where it doesn't make sense

I think it would make sense in Australia, UK, New Zealand, Canada, France, etc

My main worry concerning the concept of "White Privilege", is how some people sometimes uses the very concept as a weapon, used to shut down conversation and avoid questions.

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.

 Cheesecat wrote:

dyndraig wrote:

Spoiler:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Essentially it means being born white gives you an advantage over any other race usually concerning wealth, jobs, and access to services such as healthcare, groceries, etc. Everything is supposedly easier if you’re born white.

Only if you are born white in the correct country though. Being white does not bring so much privilege in Ukraine or Moldova... Plenty of black people across the world who were born with a thousand times the privilege the average Moldovan is born with. Therefore, I think it is an incorrect term. Privilege is based on class, not on race. The real issue is that in many countries, class lines tend to run along ethnic lines, conflating two different issues.

In the US, white Americans definitely do have an advantage over Afro-Americans or Latin Americans by virtue of being the dominant ethnic group, but I think it is wrong to call this "white" privilege, since that implies it is inherent to all white people across the world, while in fact it only applies to a handful of countries that have a significant population of ethnic groups with dark skin, but where the dominant ethnic group has fair skin. Furthermore, calling it "white" privilege takes away the focus from the important fact that this same principle is at work in almost every country with multiple ethnic groups, not just in cases where the ethnic groups have different skin colour. "White" privilege exists in a country like Burundi or Rwanda as well, despite the fact that all ethnic groups there are dark-skinned. You could call that "Tutsi" privilege instead of "white" privilege, but that ignores that it is pretty much the exact mechanism at work. Same in Russia, where you have this same dynamic, but between ethnic groups that are all fair-skinned. Chechens are as white as Russians are, but they still are disadvantaged in much the same way Afro-Americans are in the US. Therefore, it would be better to rename this concept to "dominant group" privilege.

On another note, as a fair-skinned person, I would like to object to the term "white". I am not white, just fair-skinned. Paper is white. Milk is white. My skin definitely is not.

Agreed, it is a very American specific phenomena that is being applied to the rest of the world where it doesn't make sense

I think it would make sense in Australia, UK, New Zealand, Canada, France, etc

I suppose the concept might have merit in states with histories of racial caste system or settler states, but trying to view the historical oppressions and conflicts in Europe through a white privilege lens is a fools errand. But that wont stop people from trying

 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!