White privilege

[ruby sparks]

Ok so not a perfect poll (I'm not an expert at setting up polls) but an opportunity for people to vote anonymously, if they want to.

Apologies for only having two ethnic/skin colour options.

Comments welcome.

 

[Underseer]

Well, I'm half white and I don't live in a palace surrounded by servants, therefore white privilege doesn't exist! [/conservolibertarian]

 

[Bronzeage]

I owe most of what I have to white privilege. Without it, I'd have had to work much harder.

 

[Tammuz]

I was born into a (native) Swedish upper middle class family. Obviously it helps. But what if I had been born into an upper middle class family in this country, but of non-Swedish origin? Would my life have been worse, or would I have been less successful than now (I don't consder myself especially successful, but not necessarily a failure either, so it's a relative term in this context)? It's hard to tell.

 

[untermensche]

A lot of white privilege is in what doesn't happen to you.

You don't get pulled over by the police.

You don't suffer racial discrimination at work.

You don't go to prison.

You don't grow up surrounded by poverty and despair where a lot of males are ether dead or in prison.

You don't get an inferior education.

You don't suffer a lot of things.

So like anything that doesn't happen to you it doesn't really mean much.

 

[Derec]

A lot of white privilege is in what doesn't happen to you.

Uh-huh. Like how women don't assume you have a huge cock even though statistically there isn't that much difference in means between groups for erect members? I'd count such a positive stereotype as privilege, so since it doesn't apply to me, it isn't "white privilege".

You don't get pulled over by the police.

You don't believe white people get pulled over by police?

You don't suffer racial discrimination at work.

The hell we don't!
Atlanta Library Board Must Pay White Librarians $23 Million In Damages
Or remember the New Haven Firefighter case?
Not to mention all the companies with "affirmative action" policies.

You don't go to prison.

You don't think white people go to prison?

You don't grow up surrounded by poverty and despair

There are white people in poverty. There are even concentrated pockets of white poverty, for example in Appalachia. I guess they just forgot to turn their privilege on. Maybe they just need new batteries for it.

where a lot of males are ether dead or in prison.

Often due to their own actions. If you commit, say, armed robbery, expect a long stint in jail. Or death. If your kids grow up without a father for 15 years (or forever, if dead) that's not lack of privilege, it's your own damn choices. Whether you, the armed robber, are white, black, Asian ...

You don't get an inferior education.

There are white kids in bad school districts too. But these white kids will not get the benefit of race-based affirmative action when they apply to colleges and later maybe medical schools where you need lower scores and grades to get in if you are black or hispanic.

You don't suffer a lot of things.

That's too specific. Could you generalize it a bit?

So like anything that doesn't happen to you it doesn't really mean much.

Especially when it's made up.

 

[Trausti]

 

[untermensche]

Uh-huh. Like how women don't assume you have a huge cock even though statistically there isn't that much difference in means between groups for erect members?

Is that your experience in life?

You don't get pulled over by the police.

You don't believe white people get pulled over by police?

I'm talking about the odds of bad things happening to you if you are black vs white.

Much more likely to have a substandard education if you are black.

Much more likely to end up dead or in prison if you are black and male.

If you are white bad things can happen but for some reason some bad things happen at a lesser rate.

For many, white privilege is in all the bad things that don't happen to you in a racist society.

So some do not even know it is there.

 

[Trausti]

Is that your experience in life?

You don't believe white people get pulled over by police?

I'm talking about the odds of bad things happening to you if you are black vs white.

Much more likely to have a substandard education if you are black.

This is overall true for Black people all over the world, regardless of continent or country.

 

[untermensche]

So you're saying White privilege is not just something in the US. You're not saying it isn't there.

 

[Underseer]

Sure. You got to where you are because of that superior intellect you get from those superior white genes. That's why you guys are flocking to those Trump rallies blaming minorities for your bad life choices.

It's the Mexicans' fault you can't find a job. Build that wall!

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Ha! Only white people have voted that it exists at this point.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ha! Only white people have voted that it exists at this point.

Self realization is a good thing, don't you think?

 

[Underseer]

Ha! Only white people have voted that it exists at this point.

Self realization is a good thing, don't you think?

Oh look, shortly after insisting that racism is a conservative thing and definitely not a libertarian thing, here we see someone taking the conservative position. Huh. Funny how that works.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Ha! Only white people have voted that it exists at this point.

Self realization is a good thing, don't you think?

I'm not white.

 

[Underseer]

https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1026112296567926785


Speaking of good life choices, lookit the superior genes on that fine specimen! If only them dirty minorities could make good life choices like these guys. Kek! [/sarcasm]

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Ha! Only white people have voted that it exists at this point.

Self realization is a good thing, don't you think?

Oh look, shortly after insisting that racism is a conservative thing and definitely not a libertarian thing, here we see someone taking the conservative position. Huh. Funny how that works.

You must be that one white vote that says it doesn't exist.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ha! Only white people have voted that it exists at this point.

Self realization is a good thing, don't you think?

I'm not white.

I wasn't talking about you.

 

[Politesse]

It is VERY clear to me that my position in life would not exist for me to inhabit, were it not for the influence and situation of my family. Painfully so. I watch my students throw themselves against the invisible walls of race bias year after year, and it makes me ashamed. Not personally, or as a "white" (I'm not convinced such an entity truly exists) but for us collectively as a society, black white and whatever other color, that we cannot do any better for our next generation. And it's why you'll never catch me bragging about my degree or job or publications, etc; as much as I did work very hard for those things, I know perfectly well how much harder I would have had to work if the genetic dice had landed another way.

My great-great-great grandfather was in fact the son of a slave, but he had white skin and his genetic father's name, and it made all the difference in the world. After the war, he escaped out west, claimed a fictitiously pure background, and built a small agricultural empire. Without that, there would have been no legacy for my grandparents to inherit, no money to send my mother and grandmother to college, no four-generation tradition of literacy and the advantages of my parents' teaching careers for me to enculturate into early... had my grandsire had black skin and facial features instead of white, a very small chance when factored all together, everything would have had to happen in a very different way or not at all.

 

[ronburgundy]

Other:

I am white, and I believe that "privilege" is an inherently relative and contextual term and thus a phrase like "white privilege" that implies a general privilege of whiteness is a invalid, misleading, and dehumanizes the experiences of individuals. I have privileges over some people of all races and some people of all races have privileges over me. And this it true of the vast majority of people of all races.

Like most people my level of privilege relative to various others has changed over the course of my live based upon near infinite events, mostly random. Yet my whiteness has not changed, thus further invalidating the concept of "white privilege"

It is true that at an aggregated level, ignoring individual persons, the average level of privileges of whites as a group is higher than the average level of blacks as a group. However, a term like "white privilege" does not convey this well and is rarely used in a way to limit its meaning to this. At best it is needlessly intellectually lazy.
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