A White teacher taught White students about White privilege. It cost him his job.

[Toni]

No, because not everybody is either white or black.

For example: Asian people exist. Do they need to have "the talk" about how to behave around police to avoid getting killed by racist police?

If so, and if every other group who isn't white and no significant subset of white people need to have that talk, then yes, that is a case of white privilege.

Otherwise, it's just a case of black disadvantage.

Hey, guys look over there! Asians aren't similar to blacks in one minute detail!

So the repeated instances of police brutality against resulting in deaths that happens against Black people, but not against Asian people is one minute detail?

If it is so unimportant, why does it keep getting brought up in discussions of White Privilege?

What exactly were all of the BLM protests about then?

That means white privilege doesn't exist! Adorable.

No, it means that white privilege is a shitty way to frame the problem specified, assuming that the solution that you are looking for is to remove black disadvantage and give them the same baseline rights and conditions that white people do, as opposed to blaming the problems of everyone who isn't white on white people.

How's about we talk about white privilege over Asain's then?

Here's a start. Name 4 well-known Asian American's that aren't known for martial arts? You have all of American History to choose from.

Easy:
George Takei, Andrew Yang, Ken Jeong, Sandra Oh, Michio Kaku....

I can keep going. Should I keep going? I haven't even listed any Youtubers, Twitch streamers or e-sports celebrities yet.

Just because your local circle of friends think of Asians as kung-fu fodder doesn't mean everyone else shares your limited view of Asians.

Spoiler: ALERT

After you google them, note the historic discrimination against Asians by, -surprised pikachu- privileged white people.

Asians are still struggling with racism themselves these days (in many cases from Black People). They've had/have advantages themselves but that by no means indicates the absence of white privilege. The fact there aren't a lot of well-known prominent Asain figures is telling. Especially considering that all non-white Americans becoming American citizens just for being born on American soil was solidified over an Asian.

Yes, Asian people also suffer from disadvantages in society. Some of them are even caused by white people.
They are different from those that are experienced by black people.
If you actually want to solve the problems of black disadvantage and Asian disadvantage, then recognizing that they are different problems with different solutions is a first step.

But, of course, it's more fun and easier to blame the evil white people for all of the evil.
I'm sure working to remove "White Privilege" will fix the problem.
I'm sure that if we just have some more fatal police brutalities against white people and make it so that white people also have to "have the talk" about dealing with police, it will start to make everything better for everyone, because we will have chipped away at white privilege, which is the core problem that we are trying to solve from which all other race relations problems flow.

No? That's not how it works?

No shit. That's why "White Privilege" is a stupid framework for actually trying to solve these issues. If you mean "black disadvantage" then say "black disadvantage". Some of those disadvantages are even caused by white people. Imagine that.

Like holy shit why was that never mentioned throughout my 9 years in public schools?

Because public school in America sucks. This is another problem with another solution.

But all this is not my point. What I'm really saying is if you're going to argue white privileged doesn't exist it's silly to exclude Whites then use a comparison between Asians & Blacks as the basis for that argument.

No, I'm arguing that "White Privilege" is a poor framework for solving race-based problems and a good framework for race-baiting against white people, which nicely explains why there are plenty of race-based problems going unsolved and plenty of race-baiting against the evil whites and their whitely evilness.

Really depends on what public school system you are talking about. I know some excellent ones. And some pretty piss poor privates.

I think that white privilege is a term that makes it difficult to swallow for some white people—especially those whose families struggled financially and perhaps in other ways as well. Speaking fir myself, I don’t see the fact that I can walk into pretty much any establishment and expect to be welcomed or at least not treated like a crimson as privilege. I think it’s just how everyone should be treated. I think that the fact I did not have to worry about my sons being brutalized or killed by police in a routine traffic stop is just how it should be for everyone—not privilege.the fact that I was generally accepted as having earned whatever good things came my way? Not privilege but how everyone should be treated.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We didn't get higher interest rates on our loans because of the color of our skin, which is something that to this day still happens to black people applying for mortgages. That's a pretty big advantage.

But is it real?

I'm thinking back quite a while to a big flap about redlining in mortgage applications here. The article even admitted that the race of the applicant made no difference for any given mortgage. And that it made no difference when applying for an 80/20 mortgage. It only showed up for low down payment mortgages.

Strange that they would only discriminate in this case.....maybe something else is going on. Yup--all the "discrimination" was going on in two zip codes. The two zip codes with the lowest property appreciation rate. Are they discriminating by race, or are the bankers looking at the chance the mortgage will be underwater.

This is how it works. Generational advantages (intentional to start with) that then snowball down the road to greater access for one side and lesser access for another side.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We didn't get higher interest rates on our loans because of the color of our skin, which is something that to this day still happens to black people applying for mortgages. That's a pretty big advantage.

But is it real?

I'm thinking back quite a while to a big flap about redlining in mortgage applications here. The article even admitted that the race of the applicant made no difference for any given mortgage. And that it made no difference when applying for an 80/20 mortgage. It only showed up for low down payment mortgages.

Strange that they would only discriminate in this case.....maybe something else is going on. Yup--all the "discrimination" was going on in two zip codes. The two zip codes with the lowest property appreciation rate. Are they discriminating by race, or are the bankers looking at the chance the mortgage will be underwater. The latter is a quite legitimate fear for the bankers and it was exactly those mortgages they didn't like. That's a best-guess piece of data rather than a known piece of data, it's no surprise it didn't make it into the government model that "proved" discrimination.

It’s kind of a catch-22 isn’t it? Only certain zip codes, where property values were typically lower/people had less money. It would be very interesting to see how those zip codes correlate to skin color.

Why is it a catch-22? The reasons for the low property values there were obvious--it's an area I very much would not want to be out at night.

The house we first bought was purchased over 30 years ago, in a major urban area with a significant black and other minority population—which was significantly segregated along racial/ethnic lines. Something that I had not thought much about or considered at the time.

For the record, we did not have a 20% down payment for our first home. I can’t think of a single friend who did….

I'm talking the 3-5% down mortgages that used to be common. Without appreciation of the houses they would be risky loans.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We didn't get higher interest rates on our loans because of the color of our skin, which is something that to this day still happens to black people applying for mortgages. That's a pretty big advantage.

But is it real?

I'm thinking back quite a while to a big flap about redlining in mortgage applications here. The article even admitted that the race of the applicant made no difference for any given mortgage. And that it made no difference when applying for an 80/20 mortgage. It only showed up for low down payment mortgages.

Strange that they would only discriminate in this case.....maybe something else is going on. Yup--all the "discrimination" was going on in two zip codes. The two zip codes with the lowest property appreciation rate. Are they discriminating by race, or are the bankers looking at the chance the mortgage will be underwater.

This is how it works. Generational advantages (intentional to start with) that then snowball down the road to greater access for one side and lesser access for another side.

The area was not a good part of town. Don't blame the bankers for that.

 

[Toni]

We didn't get higher interest rates on our loans because of the color of our skin, which is something that to this day still happens to black people applying for mortgages. That's a pretty big advantage.

But is it real?

I'm thinking back quite a while to a big flap about redlining in mortgage applications here. The article even admitted that the race of the applicant made no difference for any given mortgage. And that it made no difference when applying for an 80/20 mortgage. It only showed up for low down payment mortgages.

Strange that they would only discriminate in this case.....maybe something else is going on. Yup--all the "discrimination" was going on in two zip codes. The two zip codes with the lowest property appreciation rate. Are they discriminating by race, or are the bankers looking at the chance the mortgage will be underwater.

This is how it works. Generational advantages (intentional to start with) that then snowball down the road to greater access for one side and lesser access for another side.

The area was not a good part of town. Don't blame the bankers for that.

What made it a not good part of town?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We didn't get higher interest rates on our loans because of the color of our skin, which is something that to this day still happens to black people applying for mortgages. That's a pretty big advantage.

But is it real?

I'm thinking back quite a while to a big flap about redlining in mortgage applications here. The article even admitted that the race of the applicant made no difference for any given mortgage. And that it made no difference when applying for an 80/20 mortgage. It only showed up for low down payment mortgages.

Strange that they would only discriminate in this case.....maybe something else is going on. Yup--all the "discrimination" was going on in two zip codes. The two zip codes with the lowest property appreciation rate. Are they discriminating by race, or are the bankers looking at the chance the mortgage will be underwater.

This is how it works. Generational advantages (intentional to start with) that then snowball down the road to greater access for one side and lesser access for another side.

The area was not a good part of town. Don't blame the bankers for that.

What made it a not good part of town?

Exactly. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Decisions made on racial lines 75 or 100 years ago, creating a sort of destiny of doom, even when racial disparity hasn’t been flat out intentional for decades. This stuff doesn’t right itself quickly.

 

[Toni]

We didn't get higher interest rates on our loans because of the color of our skin, which is something that to this day still happens to black people applying for mortgages. That's a pretty big advantage.

But is it real?

I'm thinking back quite a while to a big flap about redlining in mortgage applications here. The article even admitted that the race of the applicant made no difference for any given mortgage. And that it made no difference when applying for an 80/20 mortgage. It only showed up for low down payment mortgages.

Strange that they would only discriminate in this case.....maybe something else is going on. Yup--all the "discrimination" was going on in two zip codes. The two zip codes with the lowest property appreciation rate. Are they discriminating by race, or are the bankers looking at the chance the mortgage will be underwater.

This is how it works. Generational advantages (intentional to start with) that then snowball down the road to greater access for one side and lesser access for another side.

The area was not a good part of town. Don't blame the bankers for that.

What made it a not good part of town?

Exactly. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Decisions made on racial lines 75 or 100 years ago, creating a sort of destiny of doom, even when racial disparity hasn’t been flat out intentional for decades. This stuff doesn’t right itself quickly.

When I was in high school, there was a rumor that a black family tried to move into town but had been run off. I didn't quite believe it at the time. Oh, not the part about being run out of town but that a black family actually tried to move into our town. Anyway, years later, when I talk with old friends, it turns out it was quite true---they had more personal knowledge than I did. And I heard separately from two friends who had moved away soon after high school that when talking with friends they met as young adults, friends who were black, when the new friends heard the name of the town we were from--which was a few miles off of the interstate, they said, Yeah, black people know better than to stop there.

But progress has been made: One of those friends drove past her old home on a visit back in the area and saw a little black child playing in front of her old house. We cheered at the progress made. Unfathomable when we were in school.

 

[Trausti]

What made it a not good part of town?

The people who live there. Not politically correct to notice that, but it's not the brick and mortar. It's not the dirt.

 

[Toni]

What made it a not good part of town?

The people who live there. Not politically correct to notice that, but it's not the brick and mortar. It's not the dirt.

So, what exactly is it about the people who live there?

 

[Trausti]

What made it a not good part of town?

The people who live there. Not politically correct to notice that, but it's not the brick and mortar. It's not the dirt.

So, what exactly is it about the people who live there?

'It's not my fault you paid $250,000 and I paid a buck'

Three years ago, Lamar Grace left Detroit for the suburb of Southfield. He got a good deal — a 3,000-square-foot colonial that once was worth $220,000. In foreclosure, he paid $109,000.

The neighbors were not pleased.

"They don't want to live next door to ghetto folks," he says.

That his neighbors are black, like Grace, is immaterial. Many in the black middle class moved out of Detroit and settled in the northern suburbs years ago; now, due to foreclosures, it is easy to buy or rent houses on the cheap here. The result has been a new, poorer wave of arrivals from the city, and growing tensions between established residents and the newcomers.

The neighbors say there's more to it than that. People like John Clanton, a retired auto worker, say the new arrivals have brought behavior more common in the inner city — increased trash, adults and children on the streets at all times of the night, a disregard for others' property.

"During the summer months, I sat in the garage and at 3 o'clock in the morning you see them walking up and the down the streets on their cell phones talking," Clanton says. "They pull up (in cars) in the middle of the street, and they'll hold a conversation. You can't get in your driveway. You blow the horn and they look back at you and keep on talking. That's all Detroit."

The tensions have not gone unnoticed by local officials.

"I've got people of color who don't want people of color to move into the city," says Southfield Police Chief Joseph Thomas, who is himself black. "It's not a black-white thing. This is a black-black thing. My six-figure blacks are very concerned about multiple-family, economically depressed people moving into rental homes and apartments, bringing in their bad behaviors."

For example, "They still think it's OK to play basketball at 3 o'clock in the morning; it's OK to play football in the streets when there's a car coming; it's OK to walk down the streets three abreast. That's unacceptable in this city."

 

[Bomb#20]

They ought not to have done that. It sucks how so many cops are racist. So, looking back on this with the perspective of time, what do you think the police should have done instead?

(a) Told all five of you to leave?
(b) Let all five of you stay?
(c) Made the five of you draw straws for the three available sleep-in-the-train-station slots?
(d) Other?

@ Bomb#20, I'm trying to understand what point you think you are making here.

I'm not making a point, I'm asking a question. I'm trying to find out what Gospel thinks the police should have done. That's why I asked. Points come later, after I find out what our shared premises are and which assumptions he's making that I'll need to refute.

For starters, what in the story made you think there were exactly THREE "sleep-in-the-train-station slots"?

I'm guessing you haven't been following the thread and didn't read post #182. As you can see, I plainly do not think there were exactly three "sleep-in-the-train-station slots". The scenario is embedded in my "What do you think the police should have done instead?" question. I was asking Gospel whether HE thinks there were exactly three slots, not expressing any opinion of my own about the matter. Since Gospel and I had already agreed that the police shouldn't be racist, I simply laid out the three most painfully obvious non-racist options the police had, in order to convert "What do you think the police should have done instead?" from an essay question into multiple-choice, in the thus far vain hope that this would make it more likely I'd get an answer.

Is it really your contention that if three of the five sleepers had been black, one of them would have been permitted to stay? Or if four out of five were white, one of the whites would have been asked to leave? Really?

Dude! Why do you read a "do you think" and imagine you see a contention?

And if that is NOT your contention, what in tarnation was your question about?

Well, since we're in an argument about "white privilege", obviously I think what the police should or shouldn't do bears on the "white privilege" dispute. My argument's going to go one way if he says a, and a different way if he says b, and so forth. Why do you have a problem with this?

If I can summarize one of your positions in the thread, you seem to be arguing that discrimination against Blacks is real, but discrimination to favor whites is not real. Aren't they just two sides of the same coin?

When the guy who "Like"s your post is someone who calls himself a socialist, that's a warning sign that you're reasoning from articles of the leftist faith instead of from empirical evidence. Why on earth would you assume discrimination against some implies discrimination to favor others? If a school says girls aren't allowed to take machine shop and have to take sewing instead, do you think its policy does something to favor boys? How the heck do boys benefit from that?

 

[Bomb#20]

Had to Google that. Okay, I'll explain like you're five. I wrote:

They ought not to have done that. ... So, looking back on this with the perspective of time, what do you think the police should have done instead?

(a) Told all five of you to leave?
(b) Let all five of you stay?
(c) Made the five of you draw straws for the three available sleep-in-the-train-station slots?
Pick one.

The topic is white privilege. And I brought up my train station incident to put on display an instance of white privilege I encountered. With this In mind, you should understand why I'm answering your question the way I do.

You aren't four, and at your request I explained as if you were five, so at this point this is no longer a matter of you not understanding my question. You understand what I'm asking, and you're refusing to answer. Your option.

It has nothing to do with what would be lawful or ethical on the police officers' part (as you seem to be turning the topic towards depending on my answer).

You think it has nothing to do with what would be ethical on the police officers' part because your ideological fellows fed you a blue pill. I'm offering you a red pill.

"I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?" - The Matrix​

For most people there's really very little upside to applying critical thought to their own beliefs, because people derive more personal benefit from fitting comfortably into a group that accepts them than they do from knowing abstract truths. If you find out white-privilege is a myth, all it will do for you is make you more right and less happy. So if you don't want a red pill, that's probably a wise choice.

Anyhow,
a) would be fine because they would be treating all five of us the same and not giving the white homeless people the privilege to stay.
b) would be just fine because that's also treating everyone the same and not giving one group (or person) a privilege others cannot enjoy for racist reasons.
c) would have been fine because again the officers are treating everyone the same and not choosing skin color as the reason why some of us can stay at the train station.

If you can't understand this, it's not my problem.

What makes you think I can't understand it? I understand it fine; but that something is understandable doesn't magically make it right. You're wrong. (c) would not have been fine, for reasons I went into upthread. How on earth do you figure "treating everyone the same and not choosing skin color as the reason" implies "would have been fine"? What, is "Don't be racist" the sum total of your moral principles? Do you believe that when Andrew Jackson death-marched 60,000 people out of their homes and farms in the Old South to a struggle not to starve in the Oklahoma wilderness, that would have been a fine and dandy thing for the President to do if only he'd chosen his victims randomly instead of racistly picking on Indians?

 

[Toni]

What made it a not good part of town?

The people who live there. Not politically correct to notice that, but it's not the brick and mortar. It's not the dirt.

So, what exactly is it about the people who live there?

'It's not my fault you paid $250,000 and I paid a buck'

Three years ago, Lamar Grace left Detroit for the suburb of Southfield. He got a good deal — a 3,000-square-foot colonial that once was worth $220,000. In foreclosure, he paid $109,000.

The neighbors were not pleased.

"They don't want to live next door to ghetto folks," he says.

That his neighbors are black, like Grace, is immaterial. Many in the black middle class moved out of Detroit and settled in the northern suburbs years ago; now, due to foreclosures, it is easy to buy or rent houses on the cheap here. The result has been a new, poorer wave of arrivals from the city, and growing tensions between established residents and the newcomers.

The neighbors say there's more to it than that. People like John Clanton, a retired auto worker, say the new arrivals have brought behavior more common in the inner city — increased trash, adults and children on the streets at all times of the night, a disregard for others' property.

"During the summer months, I sat in the garage and at 3 o'clock in the morning you see them walking up and the down the streets on their cell phones talking," Clanton says. "They pull up (in cars) in the middle of the street, and they'll hold a conversation. You can't get in your driveway. You blow the horn and they look back at you and keep on talking. That's all Detroit."

The tensions have not gone unnoticed by local officials.

"I've got people of color who don't want people of color to move into the city," says Southfield Police Chief Joseph Thomas, who is himself black. "It's not a black-white thing. This is a black-black thing. My six-figure blacks are very concerned about multiple-family, economically depressed people moving into rental homes and apartments, bringing in their bad behaviors."

For example, "They still think it's OK to play basketball at 3 o'clock in the morning; it's OK to play football in the streets when there's a car coming; it's OK to walk down the streets three abreast. That's unacceptable in this city."

My extremely white father was extremely outraged if he thought anyone was building multi-home housing anywhere near his property. He and some of the neighbor men used to closely inspect the building of the new house down the street and found it not at all up to snuff. I'm not sure how/what happened but there were never any more such poorly made houses built on any of the empty lots in our subdivision. NOTE: The house we lived in and all of the houses in our subdivision were extremely modest ranch homes--modest even for the day. This concern over new housing being built more cheaply a few blocks over and attracting the 'wrong' demographic continued decades later when he and his 3rd wife built their (very modest) retirement home. Note: 'wrong' demographic did not mean people of color but people of very modest means, which included, as it happened, his 3rd wife's daughter.

People always worry about property values. Being concerned about cheap housing being built in your neighborhood is pretty universal. Homes are most people's biggest investments--they want to protect that investment.

 

[Rhea]

If a school says girls aren't allowed to take machine shop and have to take sewing instead, do you think its policy does something to favor boys? How the heck do boys benefit from that?

That’s an easy one.

Machine shop jobs pay a shitload more than sewing jobs.

Did you never notice that? Really?

 

[Rhea]

Do you believe that when Andrew Jackson death-marched 60,000 people out of their homes and farms in the Old South to a struggle not to starve in the Oklahoma wilderness, that would have been a fine and dandy thing for the President to do if only he'd chosen his victims randomly instead of racistly picking on Indians?

This is a great point to explore.

Indeed it is more likely that the march would never have happened if the victims were chosen randomly, because he would have gotten pushbackk from people with the power to stop him if their own families were at risk.

That is one of the ways that systemic racism is maintained. By picking on the people with no power to object, and the ones benefitting from that shield to say nothing.

So yes, history shows that it would indeed have been better morally for him to chose in a non-racist way.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

There seems to be a lot of angst and a little objection over semantics, the primary objection of the form: "if it's just discrimination, then there is no need to re-frame it as privilege and you leftists are all just doing that to make it sound like something else!!11"

I have disagreed with the semantic quibbling for a couple of reasons.
1. "it's just discrimination" -- no, I don't think that and I've explained why. I will try to explain that again. The way privilege is used is consistent with dictionary definition and usage in other contexts to mean a word like "advantage." Privilege is in this sense a relative advantage. The opposite of relative advantage is relative disadvantage, not discrimination. Discrimination leads to and has overlap with relative disadvantage but they are not exactly the same set of things as discussed in prior posts. An example is how historical racism in conjunction with color-blind policy can lead to continuation of outcome differences among races and so a relative advantage can still be present without it technically being discrimination. Another thing besides is that the word discrimination is a pretty narrow thing: all opportunity differences across race with external persons, perception differences across race by external persons, treatment differences across race by external persons do not necessarily qualify as discrimination.
2. The claim that the things under discussion do not properly belong to the word privilege is incorrect--they do. As above, it's a proper usage as in advantage supported by other usages and by the dictionary. But there's another reason and that is that it is the advantage is arbitrary or undue in the sense that if the same exact newborn baby had just different physical features to appear as a baby of a different race and lived with a different race family upon birth, the opportunity potential would be different and life choices would be different based on the probabilities of available options and different risk assessments, let alone actual concrete differences due to different treatment and perceptions.

 

[laughing dog]

Do you believe that when Andrew Jackson death-marched 60,000 people out of their homes and farms in the Old South to a struggle not to starve in the Oklahoma wilderness, that would have been a fine and dandy thing for the President to do if only he'd chosen his victims randomly instead of racistly picking on Indians?

This is a great point to explore.

Indeed it is more likely that the march would never have happened if the victims were chosen randomly, because he would have gotten pushbackk from people with the power to stop him if their own families were at risk.

That is one of the ways that systemic racism is maintained. By picking on the people with no power to object, and the ones benefitting from that shield to say nothing.

So yes, history shows that it would indeed have been better morally for him to chose in a non-racist way.

And your answer glides over the issue that President Jackson's policy was genocidal in nature and intent. Moreover, the notion that picking victims randomly would have been "fine and dandy" is a vicious and incredibly stupid use of an excluded middle (i.e. nothing between "wrong" and "fine and dandy").

 

[Bomb#20]

And your answer glides over the issue that President Jackson's policy was genocidal in nature and intent. Moreover, the notion that picking victims randomly would have been "fine and dandy" is a vicious and incredibly stupid use of an excluded middle (i.e. nothing between "wrong" and "fine and dandy").

Why do you make up libelous garbage about other posters? Why do you insinuate that the notion that picking victims randomly would have been "fine and dandy" is a notion I'm advocating rather than a notion I'm condemning? Why do you suggest that I indicated that there's nothing between "wrong" and "fine and dandy"? Why do you imply that what I did is vicious and incredibly stupid, when what I did was simply point out the absurdity of the inference rule Gospel was relying on when he reasoned "c) would have been fine because again the officers are treating everyone the same and not choosing skin color as the reason why some of us can stay at the train station."? If you feel there's a problem with jumping directly from "Not wrong because of X" to "fine", due to the many gradations intermediate between "wrong" and "fine and dandy", take it up with Gospel.

 

[Metaphor]

That’s an easy one.

Machine shop jobs pay a shitload more than sewing jobs.

Did you never notice that? Really?

Disabling people does not help the able-bodied. In fact, it makes everyone worse off.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

... take it up with Gospel.

No one needs to take anything up with Gospel. You are simply too often very literal and take things out of context. If someone is having an informal discussion and says the reason is X for some situation, there is also an implicit c for context that supplies additional conditions to go along with X.