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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: Gustave 01:03 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: i think it's quite clear who it's about - JereNYC 10:56 am EDT 08/27/20 | |
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| JereNYC has offered a thoughtful and balanced view of the phrase "white privilege" but, in my experience, that's not how it's usually interpreted. By law, a privilege is an entitlement. The word "privilege" itself derives from "special law." Are there special laws for White people? I find the phrase racist. Why is it OK to make specific attributions to all White people as if we're a monolithic group? Surely it would be offensive to do that to Black or Asian people. I thought the goal of our "new-found knowledge" was to treat people as individuals, not by using group labels. (All right, blast away.) Gustave | |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: whereismikeyfl 05:30 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Gustave 01:03 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| It sounds like you do not have a lot of experience with the term "white privilege" and that is okay. JereNYC's very clear statement is pretty much the standard definition of the term. You will find it defined that way in almost every article, podcast, textbook, etc. I remember hearing an educator say that she does an exercise where she asks people to speak for two minutes about how their race has impacted their life. She said that white people tend to find this difficult, because they have not really thought about it. They just assume their race as a neutral factor. But what happens when you actually think about how being white has helped (and harmed) you? I have heard groups of Catholics, Jews, Southerners, and Canadians have such conversations---without losing individuality. It is not about people having a "monolithic" similar experience. But there are some experiences that groups share. Pregnant women may be individuals, but they have many experiences in common. Lawyers may be individuals, but get them talking about law school and you will find they have a lot of experiences in common. People who grew up in Park Slope have many shared experiences. That does not make them "monolithic." It makes them part of a group. Sure there are variations, but there are shared experiences. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:51 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:46 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - whereismikeyfl 05:30 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| And of course the real basic point is that it's not about if being white has notably helped your life, i.e. provided a tangible leg up that you are aware of, it's about A) not being aware or needing to be aware or even question if it's there, B) that your skin color didn't put you at a disadvantage in this life/country/world. Poor white people with all the struggles of their poor black neighbors still have white privilege in this country if for no other reason because if they get pulled over or look "suspicious" or even if they commit a crime, they are less likely (or unlikely) to be profiled or murdered or seen as an aggressive and fatal threat to the cop just because of their skin color, and when looking for a job they are more likely to be favored by a white employer than the black person. And countless other reasons. This doesn't mean a black person who is richer or has family money or better connected or more educated or hotter or more able-bodied or hetero-presenting (etc) than you doesn't have advantages you don't have... it means that you don't have the disadvantage built into living in this society that comes from hundreds of years of racism and a system built on exploiting and suppressing and fearing you. I understand fully the frustration of an assumption that you are "privileged" merely by being white -- I am surrounded by white people and non-white people who are massively more privileged than I am in all senses- *except* in the sense that "white privilege" address: that i get to go through the world being visibly a white person. I can't ignore that I have that no matter what else is going on for me or the people (white and non white) around me. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 07:45 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Chazwaza 06:46 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| I don't necessarily disagree with anything you are saying. However, it's more complicated than the way you are describing it. First of all, there is no universally accepted exact definition of either "white privilege" or even the concept of "whiteness". The definition espoused by esteemed journalist Fareed Zakaria (who hosted a CNN series on race last year) is far more nuanced and complex than what is being stated on this thread. Even the Wikipedia "White Privilege" article states "the concept of white privilege ignores important differences between white subpopulations and individuals" and also "the notion of whiteness cannot be inclusive of all white people." Not all people who consider themselves to be "white" are able to benefit from "white privilege" because of factors like social status, economic circumstances, lack of education, and other things. |
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| Have we learned nothing from all the British imports? | |
| Posted by: whereismikeyfl 09:14 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - BroadwayTonyJ 07:45 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| It is interesting how hard it is for Americans to recognize class differences. When we see British drama it is easy for us to recognize a world where class and economic status do not always align. A world were you can be rich but of a lower class or where you can be upper class but poor. However, in America we want to tie class strictly to economics. So we are confused by the idea that a poor white person can be of a higher class than a middle-class black person. We are affected by class (which in our country is usually tied to race) but blind to its existence separate from wealth. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 08:25 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - BroadwayTonyJ 07:45 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| It's weirdly as if you specifically ignored me addressing that and saying that the 1 uniting "privilege" is how the world treats people with white skin, besides all the other stuff. Being "lower class" or under education or any of these other things is not specifically about race. The way black people in America are treated is. | |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: ryhog 08:01 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - BroadwayTonyJ 07:45 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| you are of course correct that these things are more complicated than single sentences can describe, but let's cut to the chase: no person who appears to be white walks around in the same fear of being hit on the head with a club, shot, beaten up, et al by a cop as any black man routinely does. And that's why we are talking about this. | |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Last Edit: BroadwayTonyJ 08:35 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 08:34 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - ryhog 08:01 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| I'm not arguing with you. However, some of the things stated on this thread are over-simplifications and the word "racist" is being tossed around much too causally (not by you). I just thought I should add some clarifications that really do need to be said. I was very careful to make sure every word in my previous post was accurate. | |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:04 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - BroadwayTonyJ 08:34 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| there are things that have been said in this thread that don't please me, but I was not arguing with you either. I do think we have to be careful with "racist" which, to me (and I think this was discussed previously here), is an "active" word that represents evil, and I think a lot of what's discussed has to do with "racism" especially of the systemic variety and that's something we can and must crawl our way out of. Let me also mention the other post about "class." I think it is confounding to use that term in the US as if the UK sense has any application. We don't have those sorts of class distinctions, and it is a terrible mistake to think race in America is a class. I don't think it moves our enormous race challenges forward an angstrom. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: ryhog 05:09 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Gustave 01:03 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| Learned Hand once cautioned "not to make a fortress out of a dictionary." I'd like to suggest a definition by example for "white privilege," in a slightly less charged context. Two men in their 20s, one white and one black, are standing about 10 feet apart on 8th Avenue and 46th Street. Both are hailing a cab. It is a well-documented fact that the cab will, most of the time, pick up the white dude, even if he is farther up the street. That's white privilege. It's also white privilege that the white guy had no idea why he got the cab (because he had not given it a thought). Every black man in America knew. {You can extrapolate to a police encounter if you want.} |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 01:57 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Gustave 01:03 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| I get that, but at the same time I think the point of the term is to make it a personal awareness and accountability thing. We could say "black disadvantage" but the point is to make people aware of the benefit their lives have due to whiteness rather than just the hardship black and brown people have due to their skin color. Also I think in some ways that is the opposite of the goal... treating people as individuals rather than a group, with regard to oppression, puts the onus on the individual to have overcome or deserved or not deserved some kind of oppression or discriminatory behavior against them in their life. It also allows white people to say "I am friends with this black person so is doing fine, so things are fine" rather than saying "all black people are living in a country with deep rooted and systemic racism." It also also people to think or behave as if "the lives of the black people *I know* matter, but it's not my problem if the black people I don't know are killed or oppression or turned in a slave of the prison industrial complex" etc. It's also why we say "ALL Black Lives Matter", to stop allowing non-blacks and blacks alike from cherry picking what type of black people matter, i.e. leaving out LGBTQ+ (especially trans) lives that don't fit into the vision of humans or America or blackness that a lot of people (non-black and black) seem to have. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: Gustave 05:19 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Chazwaza 01:57 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| I'm aware of the incredible hardships that Black people have gone through in this country. And I believe that "All Black Lives Matter." But the constant use of phrases like "white privilege" makes it seem that White people shoulder all the blame. Here's a statistic I can't get past. Roughly 7500 Black people are murdered in this country every year -- and 95% of the murderers are other Black people. Why don't we ever talk about these figures? Gustave | |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: whereismikeyfl 09:24 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Gustave 05:19 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| What would we say about the black on black murders? Are you saying that blacks by black cops? Somehow I do not think that is the case? And if we are going to talk about black-on-black murder, we have also to talk about whites murdering whites, which has consistently outnumbers black on black murders. Are you going to talk about those figures? I am having fun with you, because you are grasping at straws here. How you get from "white privilege" to black on black murder is a leap over logic that pretty much speaks for itself. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: ryhog 07:33 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Gustave 05:19 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| "the constant use of phrases like "white privilege" makes it seem that White people shoulder all the blame" 1. no it doesn't. 2. if you want to focus on history, yes a lot of "blame" is properly assigned to white people. economic disparity based on race was not a black idea. mass incarceration of black men was not a black idea. etc. etc. these are bitter pills to swallow even for a white person who thinks all black lives matter. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Last Edit: Ann 05:58 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| Posted by: Ann 05:56 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Gustave 05:19 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| Racism is not "hardships." And who should shoulder the blame for racism? It's really a topic for another forum, but I find your comments mindboggling. Examples of white privilege have been provided elsewhere; I hope you see what the phrase means. Most murders involve people of the same race. Most murder victims are killed by someone they knew or a family member. Most whites who are murdered are murdered by whites. |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:38 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Ann 05:56 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| Also, "black on black crime" is CONSTANTLY talked about and pushed in the media, and has been since I was a kid in the 90s, and i'm assuming before that. I don't know where Gustave gets the idea that no one was talking about it. What we are talking about now is that those stats do not mean what white people want them to mean. | |
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| re: White privilege | |
| Posted by: Gustave 08:07 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: White privilege - Chazwaza 06:38 pm EDT 08/28/20 | |
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| I'm not aware that black-on-black crime is constantly talked about in the media. I mean that sincerely. The fact that most murders are intra-racial is not in dispute. My point was that the number of black-on-black murders is strongly disproportionate to the number of Blacks in the population. I thought the issue was worth noting. As Ann pointed out, this topic probably belongs on another site -- although I thought ryhog cleverly brought it back to the theatre domain when he placed the cab on 8th Ave. and 46th St! Gustave | |
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