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

[Angra Mainyu]

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.

So, 'privilege' is a relative advantage. But is any relative advantage a privilege? Or is there some kind of extra condition, i.e., that is only about race, or resulting from some past wrongdoing, etc.?

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.

So, does 'privilege' mean 'a relative advantage', or something like 'an arbitrary relative advantage'?

I will point out the following: consider a newborn A (Black, White, Brown, it doesn't matter for the purposes of the question). If A had been born with the same features - mental or non-mental - but, say, to richer parents, then all other things equal his 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.

And then you got richer privilege. But suppose A is born to parents P1,2 vs. P3,4, who are equally rich, but P1,2 are willing to have no more children that they can dedicate time and effort to raise, whereas P3,4 have many more. Then as before, the opportunity potential would be different and life choices would be different, etc., so it's better parents privilege. Or suppose A is born in a different country, say Japan vs. Haiti, or South Korea vs. North Korea, etc., and there are plenty of privileges by that definition.

So, I would like to ask whether my interpretation of your explanation of privilege is correct, or if not, why not - so that I can adjust it and try to understand what you mean by 'privilege'.

 

[Gospel]

Thanks for that Angra, I suppose I'm doing to Bomb#20 what I'm complaining about. Anyhow, hopefully, my current attempt to answer the question can move things along. Honestly, I find Bomb#20 intriguing (yes I know bomb#20 can read this) in a likable supervillain sort of way.

Well, at least you said "super". But he is no villain. I see him more as a very misunderstood logic and rationality champion: his arguments are superb, but most of his opponents do not understand what he says because either it challenges some of their most important beliefs, or it's too difficult for them - or both.

Ohh I'm guilty on all charges. I am by no means the funkiest bile in the pile but I do know my sh%$.

 

[Bomb#20]

On the one hand, you take these very pointed questions posed as yes-or-no options, and you know the person asking them does not believe white privilege exists, and moreover has made numerous posts that he doesn’t think systemic racism exists either,

Rhea, correcting your unending stream of false and groundless claims about me is a chore you have no justification for putting me to. If you sincerely believe you saw me say I don't think systemic racism exists and didn't just make that up about me because it's part of your stereotype of your ideology's unbelievers, then feel free to go find one of those "numerous posts" you claim exist and read it again, this time carefully. If after you've done that you still believe you're right, then feel free to post a link to it and tell me where in it you think you saw me say the words you're putting in my mouth, and then I'll take the trouble to find your mistake for you and point it out to you for your education. But I don't believe for a second that you care enough about telling the truth about your outgroup to actually go the effort of fact-checking what you've written, before you post it or even when you're called out on it afterwards. So instead, why don't you just once and for all stop talking about me?

If you hate me so much you can't bring yourself to do that, here's a compromise. Do not attempt to paraphrase me. Ever. You are not a competent paraphraser. Know this about yourself, and take it into account when you're thinking of paraphrasing someone. If you want to condemn me over something you think I said, quote me. You can handle that, can't you?

for that matter, and you have observed in the past that the person doesn’t typically discuss with an open and expressed expectation of changing his stance on the above white privilege and systemic racism, and you ask yourself, “am I in a good faith discussion,

You, having the gall to accuse others of not discussing in good faith. You put words in my mouth, over and over...

or am I in a tunnel of picayune specifics that will be used to say ‘AHA! I have proved racism doesn’t exist and you have agreed with me!’

...like that. You can't get through one post without multiple inventions about me. Why do you behave this way? Malice?

When in fact you have not agreed at all, but the existence of 100 questions each with an assumption that might contradict one of the subsequent assumptions causes your actual thoughts to be mis-assigned, which was the intent of the 100-question format in the first place,

Is there a reason you've decided you're qualified to offer testimony on what my intent is? Do you perhaps have ESP? Or are you using an ad hominem argument against a fellow poster because you haven't got anything better?

... If they aren't synonymous, then what implications do you think "white privilege" has that "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" does not have, and what specific evidence do you have that those extra implications are true?

But on the other hand, you know others reading may be interested in the actual discussion, so you are willing to use the Gish-Gallop-in-progress as a launch for meaningfu discussion…

In order for it to count as an "actual discussion", apparently one's opponent is supposed to tacitly accept the unspoken tenets of one's religious faith as shared premises.

what implications do you think "white privilege" has that "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" does not have

White privilege can include the starting point that you have, based on prior acts of more racial discrimination against non-white people.

Good lord, you said something substantive! Well then, do you have specific evidence that this extra implication is true? Do you have specific evidence that every impoverished white person who's accused of having "white privilege" had a better starting point than he would have had if all those prior acts of more racial discrimination against non-white people hadn't happened?

White privilege can include the ability to be blind to the descrimination, current or past, and therefore unconcerned about it.

Ah, "the ability" to be blind. Normal people would call blindness a disability, but in leftist-speak apparently it is counted an ability. Now why would that be? Well, from the outside it looks like it's called that in order to make the insinuation of blindness unfalsifiable and impossible to defend against.

See, if you'd said "to be blind to the discrimination" was "white privilege", you'd have had an argument. (Not necessarily a good argument -- there are a lot of problems out there and just because you have some pet problem that is especially salient in your mind does not mean everyone else has an obligation to prioritize your favorite problem over the problems he's focusing on -- but at least it's an argument.) But "the ability" to be blind? Even those who are not blind, even those who are fully aware of and concerned about the discrimination, can be accused of having "the ability" to be blind.

But of course, if you'd said "to be blind to the discrimination" was "white privilege", then that would have defeated the whole purpose of the "white privilege" narrative, wouldn't it? We wouldn't want any individual impoverished white person to be able to get acquitted of leading a privileged life just by showing he knows and cares about other people being discriminated against, would we?

White privilege can include the behaviors people display toward you (or don’t.)

That calls for another lecture on the difference between sense and reference; but somehow I sense that you would not profit from it and would just trump up more false accusations of bad-faith gish-galloping. So that's an explanation I think I'd better save for someone else.

 

[Bomb#20]

Why do people take others out of context, say something absurd, and then claim they have disproved something via reductio ad absurdum?There's a whole context here of what privilege means and while that may be largely implicit, abstract, and perhaps fuzzily applied to a social construct of race, at least some of the framing of privilege has also been explicitly discussed to include what is "undue." You could try to claim that not being omnicided is an undue privilege, but you are going to have to provide a logical proof of that proposition.

I'm not sure if you're talking about me, or Enigma, or both of us; but how the heck do you figure we took anything Gospel said out of context? He said a couple of unreasonable things, and we used reductio ad absurdum to point out the logical implications of what he said, and you have a problem with that because we didn't instead assume he meant something different that was more reasonable and on those grounds let his unreasonable statements stand unrebutted? How is that any different from telling atheists we shouldn't point out Bible contradictions because any unreasonable Bible passage should be taken as allegorical? That's just a recipe for worse arguments down the road when somebody uses those unrebutted statements as premises.

If Gospel and others here are implicitly relying on making an unspoken distinction between "undue privilege" and "due privilege" if there even is such a thing, they can bloody well start being explicit about it so we can analyze the concept, see if the arguments for it hold water, and check whether subsequent talk of "privilege" is referring back to the one or to the other. I do not respect Christianity for its reliance on fuzzily applying its constructs; and I see no reason to privilege other religions over Christianity. I'm a nondiscriminatory infidel.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

If Gospel and others here are implicitly relying on making an unspoken distinction between "undue privilege" and "due privilege" if there even is such a thing, they can bloody well start being explicit about it so we can analyze the concept, ...

This is common sense and if you don't get it, I really can't help you, actually there is no way in bloody hell I want to get involved in writing a phd level thesis when a word has already been used this way for over a century. Please just use your common knowledge of how humans use fuzzy concepts and language, instead of making it out to be religion. I am also not going to argue on why a futon is a couch or a bed for a gazillion pages.

I do not respect Christianity for its reliance on fuzzily applying its constructs...

My disrespect for Christianity doesn't come from fuzzy concepts or fuzzily applying concepts because that is human and dealing with real life problems in real life often involves coming to reasonable things though thresholds may be argued by some to be arbitrary who are being literal and/or disingenuous. Life goes on. My disrespect for some of Christianity comes from deliberate power hungry persons fooling other people for power and from the immoral things some Christian groups support, especially when it contradicts their stated positions such as supporting historical genocides but having a commandment not to murder.

 

[Bomb#20]

Do you think "white privilege" and "more racial discrimination against non-white people than against white people" are synonyms?

I disagree with your use of the word "more".

Why? Are you claiming white people aren't racially discriminated against at all?

What do you mean by more & what kind of discrimination are we talking about? There are different types of discrimination.

Quite so. Some kinds affect one race more than another; some kinds discriminate indiscriminately, the way laws against gay marriage discriminate against men and women equally. For the 84 years between Pace v Alabama and Loving v Virginia, the SCOTUS made believe that prohibiting black people from marrying white people while also prohibiting white people from marrying black people qualified as equal protection of the law. But it plainly racially discriminated against both black people and white people, wouldn't you agree? I say "more" because although racial discrimination is bad for just about everyone, in America black people are getting the lion's share of the hurt.

Earlier in this thread Gun Nut shared how Gun Nut faced discrimination as a white person due to affirmative action. Which (if I'm correct) discriminated against Gun Nut's color because of a government program limiting the number of white people the school can enroll. Black people however are discriminated against not only because of our skin color but because some white people imagine that we are not human &/or inferior. Big difference.

I.e., you're pointing out that black people encounter more kinds of discrimination as well as more acts of it. That's disagreeing with the word "more"?

(And of course white people are sometimes discriminated against because some people (of any color) imagine we are inferior: morally inferior, due to our supposed original sin of inherited racial guilt.)

 

[Bomb#20]

I like this however I have one issue with it. I wouldn't call it having a discussion in good faith if/when you accuse your opponent of dishonesty when gaps are not filled to your liking. For example in my discussion with Bomb#20, it's my misunderstanding of what the actual question is/was & not my trying to avoid.

I was not accusing you of dishonesty; I'm sorry if it came off that way. There's nothing dishonest about declining to answer a question. It's a perfectly normal maneuver in debate, as is pointing out when the other person is doing it -- they're just part of the process of jockeying for control of the debate trajectory. If you weren't doing it for control but because you really didn't understand what I was asking for, sorry I mistook your intent.

 

[Gospel]

I respect that. I just don't debate like that. I try to be as straightforward as possible and have no intention of dodging questions. gaslighting or being manipulative, those are all bitch moves in the hood.

 

[Gospel]

Why? Are you claiming white people aren't racially discriminated against at all?

I misread what you posted because I was on edge. What I read was "white people face more discrimination" and obviously I was wrong. you never said that. But no, I do not think white people aren't racially discriminated against.

Quite so. Some kinds affect one race more than another; some kinds discriminate indiscriminately, the way laws against gay marriage discriminate against men and women equally. For the 84 years between Pace v Alabama and Loving v Virginia, the SCOTUS made believe that prohibiting black people from marrying white people while also prohibiting white people from marrying black people qualified as equal protection of the law. But it plainly racially discriminated against both black people and white people, wouldn't you agree? I say "more" because although racial discrimination is bad for just about everyone, in America black people are getting the lion's share of the hurt.

I agree that it discriminated against both black and white people however the discrimination white people faced was collateral damage with the target actually being black people.

I.e., you're pointing out that black people encounter more kinds of discrimination as well as more acts of it. That's disagreeing with the word "more"?

(And of course white people are sometimes discriminated against because some people (of any color) imagine we are inferior: morally inferior, due to our supposed original sin of inherited racial guilt.)

Recognizing that my misreading of a statement (see above) lead to this reply from you, I agree with all of what you unnecessarily (my fault) stated here. I personally know a few brothas in the hood that still think white people are the devil.

Edit: Pardon the edits. That discrimination (and this is my opinion) really has no effect on a white person's life unless the black person is in a position to prevent a white person from exercising all their rights. Which I have never seen in all my years being around said racist against whites black people.

 

[Jarhyn]

If Gospel and others here are implicitly relying on making an unspoken distinction between "undue privilege" and "due privilege" if there even is such a thing, they can bloody well start being explicit about it so we can analyze the concept, ...

This is common sense and if you don't get it, I really can't help you, actually there is no way in bloody hell I want to get involved in writing a phd level thesis when a word has already been used this way for over a century. Please just use your common knowledge of how humans use fuzzy concepts and language, instead of making it out to be religion. I am also not going to argue on why a futon is a couch or a bed for a gazillion pages.

I do not respect Christianity for its reliance on fuzzily applying its constructs...

My disrespect for Christianity doesn't come from fuzzy concepts or fuzzily applying concepts because that is human and dealing with real life problems in real life often involves coming to reasonable things though thresholds may be argued by some to be arbitrary who are being literal and/or disingenuous. Life goes on. My disrespect for some of Christianity comes from deliberate power hungry persons fooling other people for power and from the immoral things some Christian groups support, especially when it contradicts their stated positions such as supporting historical genocides but having a commandment not to murder.

The most fucked up part about being fucked up just because something is "fuzzy" is that it ignores the fact that in reality, things really are extremely complicated.

I do not respect Christianity because it is a 2000 year old concept that passed it's best-by date some 1900 years ago. I dump it not for it's fuzziness but because of it's fallaciousness.

 

[Bomb#20]

This has some overlap and similarity to what I also wrote previously:

Privilege is in this sense a relative advantage. The opposite of relative advantage is relative disadvantage, not discrimination. ...

I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points.

You're more likely to get one if you address people's attempts to rationally discuss it with you...

So show me a leftist who forthrightly grants that it takes more than racial discrimination to make a case for "white privilege", and who correctly identifies the additional criteria that need to be satisfied, and who presents evidence that those additional criteria are satisfied. Because over and over I hear leftists say what amounts to "Look, racial discrimination! See, white privilege is a thing that exists."

To think about discrimination, one conceptualizes a bad person committing provably illegal acts or civilly liable acts.

Yes, those; or just legal and non-actionable racially motivated bad acts like refusing to lend your neighbor a cup of sugar on account of her ethnicity. I take it you're offering yourself as such an exemplary leftist.

I've stated discrimination is more narrow than disadvantage, but before we get into that, you are going to need to explain that last sentence.

... with more than that. I'm not sure what's unclear about that last sentence. I pointed out that leftists typically treat evidence for racial discrimination as if it were evidence for "white privilege" even though "white privilege" doesn't mean the same thing as "racial discrimination" and in post #184 challenged you to show me one who wouldn't commit that fallacy; from your post #189 I took you to be volunteering to do it yourself: to discuss the topic without committing the fallacy. Does this explain my last sentence sufficiently for you to address the rest of post #214?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This has some overlap and similarity to what I also wrote previously:

Privilege is in this sense a relative advantage. The opposite of relative advantage is relative disadvantage, not discrimination. ...

I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points.

You're more likely to get one if you address people's attempts to rationally discuss it with you...

So show me a leftist who forthrightly grants that it takes more than racial discrimination to make a case for "white privilege", and who correctly identifies the additional criteria that need to be satisfied, and who presents evidence that those additional criteria are satisfied. Because over and over I hear leftists say what amounts to "Look, racial discrimination! See, white privilege is a thing that exists."

To think about discrimination, one conceptualizes a bad person committing provably illegal acts or civilly liable acts.

Yes, those; or just legal and non-actionable racially motivated bad acts like refusing to lend your neighbor a cup of sugar on account of her ethnicity. I take it you're offering yourself as such an exemplary leftist.

I've stated discrimination is more narrow than disadvantage, but before we get into that, you are going to need to explain that last sentence.

... with more than that. I'm not sure what's unclear about that last sentence. I pointed out that leftists typically treat evidence for racial discrimination as if it were evidence for "white privilege" even though "white privilege" doesn't mean the same thing as "racial discrimination" and in post #184 challenged you to show me one who wouldn't commit that fallacy; from your post #189 I took you to be volunteering to do it yourself: to discuss the topic without committing the fallacy.

While I don't think it's a fallacy, a couple of people in the thread have already explained how relative [dis]advantage across race goes beyond racial discrimination.

Does this explain my last sentence sufficiently for you to address the rest of post #214?

It sounds like a sarcastic insult.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

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.

Wow, this really comes across the way. It's also not a good way to go about communicating.

 

[Bomb#20]

... 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."? ...

I have no idea where all this is coming from. I'm a simple person. It's not complicated at all. I thought I made it clear that I was disregarding "inference" to plainly say, that the officers should not have used skin color as the basis for their response. You admitted you understand this, yet you'd rather dig into this "inference" you think my argument (I never made) was relying on.

Well, normally, when people say "X because Y" they're making an inference. I thought I'd made it clear that I was asking what the cops should do, so I was trying to explain why "treating everyone the same and not choosing skin color as the reason" isn't a valid "because" for deciding that option (c) "would have been fine" for the cops to do. I gather at that point in the discussion you were still persisting in telling me what the cops shouldn't do -- be racist -- because you were still not taking seriously that I was asking what they should do. And after that I got bogged down having to explain it to two other kibitzing posters. Sorry we blew so much time talking at cross purposes.

 

[Bomb#20]

Does this explain my last sentence sufficiently for you to address the rest of post #214?

It sounds like a sarcastic insult.

And what exactly do you think "I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points." sounds like?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Does this explain my last sentence sufficiently for you to address the rest of post #214?

It sounds like a sarcastic insult.

And what exactly do you think "I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points." sounds like?

A decent, non-personal statement of a goal we ought to aspire to.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Does this explain my last sentence sufficiently for you to address the rest of post #214?

It sounds like a sarcastic insult.

And what exactly do you think "I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points." sounds like?

A decent, non-personal statement of a goal we ought to aspire to.

Could you please clarify those points? I asked for specific points of clarification here.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Does this explain my last sentence sufficiently for you to address the rest of post #214?

It sounds like a sarcastic insult.

And what exactly do you think "I expect a worthy, rational discussion around these points." sounds like?

A decent, non-personal statement of a goal we ought to aspire to.

Could you please clarify those points? I asked for specific points of clarification here.

Yeah, I read that post. In that post you said you wanted to understand how __I__ was using the term which is a tacit way of saying that I am using the word privilege in some non-standard way. That declaration is an obvious entry into a debate, but I did not write I wanted to engage in a "debate"--I wrote rational discussion. I am not interested in an endless debate based on endless semantic questions of words people have been using for a very, very long time. That said, I will address your points for now, but again I am not going to go into an endless line of questioning for the purposes of someone's wish to debate.

But is any relative advantage a privilege?

No, that is not how the word is defined or how people use it. For example, if finches have evolved in ways very well suited to their environments, people do not say "finches have finch privilege."

Or is there some kind of extra condition, i.e., that is only about race, or resulting from some past wrongdoing, etc.?

This is a very bizarre question--of course privilege isn't only about race. For example, people were talking about economic privilege for a long time.

I will point out the following: consider a newborn A (Black, White, Brown, it doesn't matter for the purposes of the question). If A had been born with the same features - mental or non-mental - but, say, to richer parents, then all other things equal his 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.

And then you got richer privilege. But suppose A is born to parents P1,2 vs. P3,4, who are equally rich, but P1,2 are willing to have no more children that they can dedicate time and effort to raise, whereas P3,4 have many more. Then as before, the opportunity potential would be different and life choices would be different, etc., so it's better parents privilege. Or suppose A is born in a different country, say Japan vs. Haiti, or South Korea vs. North Korea, etc., and there are plenty of privileges by that definition.

So, I would like to ask whether my interpretation of your explanation of privilege is correct, or if not, why not - so that I can adjust it and try to understand what you mean by 'privilege'.

People have been talking about how other people, including particular individuals, are __privileged__ for a long time. That usage has been applied to groups in aggregate and individuals, both of which at least seem consistent with how you are theoretically trying to use it.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Yeah, I read that post. In that post you said you wanted to understand how __I__ was using the term which is a tacit way of saying that I am using the word privilege in some non-standard way.

Actually, it is not a way of saying that. It is simply a way of asking as a means of making sure that I understand what it is that you are saying. While I am not familiar with the usage of 'privilege' that seemed to be in your explanation, it might be for all I know just be a standard usage I am not aware of.

That declaration is an obvious entry into a debate, but I did not write I wanted to engage in a "debate"--I wrote rational discussion.

It is not a declaration. It is a short series of questions.

I am not interested in an endless debate based on endless semantic questions of words people have been using for a very, very long time.

But I did not ask you to defend whether that meaning is standard. I was just trying to understand at this point what you meant.

That said, I will address your points for now, but again I am not going to go into an endless line of questioning for the purposes of someone's wish to debate.

Good.

No, that is not how the word is defined or how people use it. For example, if finches have evolved in ways very well suited to their environments, people do not say "finches have finch privilege."

Right, I am not familiar with that usage. However, your explanation of the meaning did not seem to exclude cases, so I was asking.

This is a very bizarre question--of course privilege isn't only about race. For example, people were talking about economic privilege for a long time.

My question here is whether there is some extra condition, whether race or something else, for example some past wrongdoing. So, now you tell me that there is economic privilege. Is then any economic relative advantage a privilege? If not, is there some extra condition? (in the economic case, or any other).

People have been talking about how other people, including particular individuals, are __privileged__ for a long time. That usage has been applied to groups in aggregate and individuals, both of which at least seem consistent with how you are theoretically trying to use it.

Okay, so I'll take that.

So far?

I still do not know what you mean by "privilege", though I now know that you aim at explain a standard usage. I also know that your definition fails to capture or approach what you intend to capture or approach. The main problem is that you said:

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.

Note that here you said "Privilege is in this sense a relative advantage. The opposite of relative advantage is relative disadvantage, not discrimination.", and " Discrimination leads to and has overlap with relative disadvantage but they are not exactly the same set of things as discussed in prior posts.".

Clearly, above you are saying that privilege=relative advantage. Now I realize you did not mean to convey that, because you are saying there are extra conditions, and finches are not privileged. However, you haven't explained what the extra conditions might be. You did explain it's not only about race, but not much more.

It is very difficult to have a serious discussion when one is mostly in the dark, i.e., with only some limited information about what you have to say. But let me raise the following issue: In the sense in which you use the word "privilege" (regardless of how common it is, whether it is standard, etc.), do you believe that other posters in this thread are using the word 'privilege' in the sense in which you are using it?

For example, Gospel said " I'm fine with everyone recognizing their privileges. The goal is for said recognition to lead to action resulting in the abolishment of those privileges. ". Well, if it turns out that the things I asked you about are privileges in the sense Gospel understands the word, well in general I think the goal of abolishing of privileges is an overall very negative goal, as the consequences of it would be overall very bad, even if there would be a some good ones as well. But then again, maybe Gospel is not saying anything like that, but simply does not use the word 'privilege' to mean what you mean. Or maybe he meant to abolish some privileges, but not all, in which case we still need to distinguish between privileges it would be better to try to remove, and privileges it would be better not to try to remove...for which, a clarification of what is meant by 'privilege' would be helpful.

 

[Bomb#20]

Thanks for that Angra, I suppose I'm doing to Bomb#20 what I'm complaining about. Anyhow, hopefully, my current attempt to answer the question can move things along. Honestly, I find Bomb#20 intriguing (yes I know bomb#20 can read this) in a likable supervillain sort of way.

Awww, you think I'm likable! I like you too! (And I always figured instead of a Monster-of-the-Week that Buffy or whoever has to take down, there ought to be a TV show where in each episode the same likable supervillain faces yet another interchangeable Superhero/Team-of-Meddling-Kids-of-the-Week, who kick his ass anew.)