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"...if you think having privilege means that you’re a bad person, or that you haven’t had struggles, or that you haven’t worked hard for what you have – then I
by paulv 11y ago
"...if you think having privilege means that you’re a bad person, or that you haven’t had struggles, or that you haven’t worked hard for what you have – then I can totally feel why you might be frustrated. If that were the case, then yes, it’d be completely unfair of me to claim that all white people or straight people or men or people of any other dominant group are living easy off their unearned privileges.
But having privilege doesn’t mean any of those things."
Maisha Z. Johnson, http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/what-privilege-really-means/ http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/what-privilege-really-me...
- 13thLetter 11y agoThen perhaps Ms. Johnson should take that up with 90% of the people who use the word "privilege" in arguments nowadays, because they're not using it the way she thinks they're using it.
- paulv 11y agoI don't think it's solely Ms. Johnson's job to tell people that they're using the word wrong. Now that you know the meaning, you can help us spread the knowledge (like I did by sharing that link).
- Karunamon 11y agoThis sounds like linguistic prescriptivism. For most human communication, the most commonly used definition is the "correct" one. Cf. "Literally", "I could care less", "Dapper"
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- BurningFrog 11y agoThat's the formal definition, used when being scrutinized. The angrier one is far more common in real life debate. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
- mfringel 11y agoDoes it being said in anger make it any less applicable?
- 67726e 11y agoThe definition used in someone's essay means ass all to me. It's he definiton uaee by the common man, if you'll excuse my microaggression.
- jschwartzi 11y agoIt's usually used to quash disagreements. As in "check your privilege." It's often used as a way to categorically exclude people from a discussion, and this sense is the "angry" sense. So yes, it's less applicable because it's used as a shortcut to avoid forming a real understanding with someone else.