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> basic rights we take for granted (for example, walking into a store and not being treated as a potential thief, or having prospective interviewers assume we'r

• lbebber 11y ago
  Indeed, various groups of white people have suffered varying levels of prejudice, but 1- it doesn't compare to what, for example, black or chinese people or native americans suffered historically and 2- most of the prejudice against these groups has been forgotten, whereas prejudice against "people of color" is still very much alive.
  • maratd 11y ago
    > but 1- it doesn't compare to what, for example, black or chinese people or native americans suffered historically And that doesn't compare to what Jews went through 50 years ago. What's your point? There's always a bigger sob story around the corner. You deal with it and move on. The moving on part is important. > whereas prejudice against "people of color" is still very much alive. And that prejudice will amplify if you continue treating people of color differently. By providing special privileges to make up for the sins of the past, you are fomenting racism today. Every white guy who didn't get a job because of the color of his skin is now a newly minted racist. And while he really should direct his ire toward misguided leftists, in the end, he'll blame the person of color instead ... which is sad.
    • lbebber 11y ago
      The point is that he was saying that groups of white people had the same as people of color, and that's not true. They had it bad, but it's not remotely comparable.
      • blub 11y ago
        Ever heard of a thing called the Holocaust? Or the purges in the Soviet Union or any other ex-communist country?
    • fucking_tragedy 11y ago
      We pretended that institutional racism wasn't sown into the fabric of our society for decades and did nothing about it. The net effect is that nothing changed for minorities, because we've proven that we won't change our behavior without incentives. > And that prejudice will amplify if you continue treating people of color differently. Do you have a source for this? Such policy has real concrete effects with statistics you can point to. You can see the real positive effect it has on certain groups of people. The only effect on white people I've seen documented is that racists have another bullet point on their long list of talking points to stir up their voter base. It doesn't bother normal people. As a potential candidate, if you're going home and blaming affirmative action for the reason you didn't get hired, it says a lot about the way you think. Mainly, that you blame other people for your problems, specifically minorities, which is an odd conclusion to come to.
      • maratd 11y ago
        > Do you have a source for this? Yeah. It's called deductive reasoning. You scream about the evils of racism and what harm it's done to our society ... and your solution is more racism, just in the opposite direction? Smart. How about no racism at all? I think that's better. > Mainly, that you blame other people for your problems, specifically minorities, which is an odd conclusion to come to. It is an absolutely odd conclusion to come to. It would make more sense to blame people like you. Unfortunately, human beings aren't purely logical and when they see another person at the job they should have had ... they blame that person, rather than the policy that put them there. What's worse, nobody knows if that policy is at fault or not ... so people assume that they got fucked over, because it's always easier to blame someone else than yourself. So you've now created a society that resents success, because it's assumed that success only comes to the privileged classes like minorities, etc, rather than to those who earned it. Congrats on making a full circle.
• maratd 11y ago
  > It jsut paints such a simplistic view of the world, not a real one, but one that is useful for rhetoric. Bingo. Race is just one facet anyway. We're all born with various advantages and disadvantages, none of which we have any control over. Just as an example, some people are better looking than others ... and those people tend to have an advantage, because they're better looking. They can get better jobs, better pay, etc. all because of the way they look. So what? The rest of us just have to work a bit harder. That's how life works. Stop whining. No, life isn't fair. Deal with it.
  • saiya-jin 11y ago
    seeing this upvoted gives me back a bit of hope in HN crowd
  • fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    > Deal with it. Just like the other arbitrary things that can needlessly hold a person or group of people back, if it can be fixed why not fix it? What's wrong with dealing with it that way? You seem to suggest to that people keep quiet, keep their head down and not rock the boat. That's a defeatist attitude and suggests that you don't think any effort should be spent trying to correct something that's broken in the world.
    • crusso 11y ago
      "if it can be fixed why not fix it?" If the fix is "lay guilt upon and attempt to disadvantage all people of a certain skin color because some of that skin color have had an easier time in life", then it doesn't seem like much of a fix, does it? Racism and bigotry need to be wrong in all cases or the moral authority against them is diminished.
      • st3v3r 11y ago
        Except no one is talking about disadvantaging people of a certain skin color (white). We're talking about trying to help bring everyone else up to the same level.
• ant6n 11y ago
  Yeah, like 50-100 years ago. Are you saying because some whites were discriminated against in the past, non-whites should be discriminated against today? Sort of like, 'everybody has their turn'? Except of course during all those times where some whites were discriminated against, people of color always had it worse.
• kaitai 11y ago
  No, the poster you are responding to is absolutely right -- we need a better language for this thing we are talking about today. You again are getting all hung up on wine and roses (things being good) when that's not what is being discussed by your partner in this discussion. It's worth going back to the original essay discussing "white privilege" -- the text can be found at http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html. A few highlights: 4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. 5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented. 6. When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is. 12. I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race. 13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial. 14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race. 15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. Irish people in American get to do all those things today, as do Italian-Americans! When's the last time you were called a credit to your race? Me, never -- even though once in the past, the US government tried to deport a Finn under the Oriental Exclusion Act (John Swan, 1909) and Finns were regarded as backward and slow. Times change and that hasn't been a problem lately.
  • j4kp07 11y ago
    > I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race. You've never heard of "White Trash" or "Rednecks" (a.k.a Bogans in Australia) or how "uneducated" the South is in America (nevermind that Alabama outranks California in graduation ranks)? > I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. And yet, here you are. Speaking for all of us.
    • kaitai 11y ago
      As you are happy to point out, no one asked me to :)
• JohnBooty 11y ago
  I'll keep this polite and assume you're intelligent and informed, a courtesy you did not extend to me. You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right? I'm very, very aware of that fact. Hey, for the record, I'm partly Welsh. The Welsh have been oppressed by everybody! They're pretty damn white. Literally nobody is denying that Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans, or people from unfashionable parts of Brussels, or your mother's uncle's cousin from Estonia, have faced discrimination at various points in time, and perhaps still do today. White Privilege should just be called White Devil. I won't try and change your opinion, but you should at least understand what the concept of "white privilege" means. It absolutely does not imply that white people are bad, or that white people are devils, or anything of the sort. The concept of white privilege is a way of viewing things that challenges us to observe freedoms that we as white people have that others don't always enjoy. For example: as a white person, if a cop pulls me over, I may be treated unfairly. But whatever happens, I generally know that I won't be treated badly because of my race. He certainly didn't pull me over because I'm fucking part Welsh, I can tell you that! Black people don't have that privilege. Now, 99% of the time, maybe their race doesn't have anything to do with their interactions with the police. Most cops are good people. But wouldn't it suck to be black and never really know if a cop was going to treat you badly simply because you're black? And that at least once or twice in your life, it probably will happen? That's some bullshit I don't really ever have to deal with in my life. A privilege I have, if you will. Now, like I said above, I can't help but wonder if we do need some new terminology here. I am certain that I have not changed your mind. Again, I'm just defining the concept for you. You can agree with it or disagree with it at this point. That's cool. But your post made it very clear that you had no understanding of the concept. Probably because the term "white privilege" itself was a turn-off. You probably thought it was an attack on white people. It's not.
  • blub 11y ago
    The privilege you enjoy you do not enjoy because of being a white male, but rather because you're part of one of the dominant social groups. If you go to another country you'll see that people do treat you differently and might discriminate against you depending on your sex/looks/ancestry/etc. Those that are different always have some disadvantages. We should be working towards fair societies, not replacing one type of discrimination with another.
• geofft 11y ago
  I was going to say something about how I occasionally use the phrase "white privilege" and I agree with you, but I think I actually just tend to use "privilege". You're right, in different times and places there's a lot of change in who is privileged. And it's definitely not a two-level system. I don't think the word "privilege" necessarily implies it, but it's used like that a lot, and I think that's unfortunate, and it's definitely a simplistic view of the world. For instance, Irish-Americans did not have a particularly great time in the US in the mid-19th century by any means, but they had a much better time than African-Americans. They faced serious discrimination, but they rarely were assumed to be runaway slaves. I think it's useful to acknowledge that even today, some groups of people have basic privileges like being assumed not to be a thief that everyone ought to have, and we can acknowledge that without reducing it to a simple white-nonwhite line.
  • JohnBooty 11y ago
    I think I agree. Ultimately it's all about recognizing one's privileges, whatever they are.