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Yeah, absolutely. Being white is not an advantage everywhere. There are some places where beig white is a distinct disadvantage. Like the examples you named. O

Yeah, absolutely. Being white is not an advantage everywhere. There are some places where beig white is a distinct disadvantage. Like the examples you named. Or, try being a European male in ISIS-controlled territory! That'll get you killed pretty quick, right? No "white privilege" there. In Sunni-dominated regions, in fact, Sunni privilege is a thing. I mean, obviously, right? Sunnis in those regions have a lot of rights that Shia, Jews, Christians, and atheists don't. So the good news for you here is that the concept of "white privilege" does not involve the notion that white people have magical force fields that render them immune to problems everywhere in the world. In places like America where whites control nearly all of the wealth as well as the political establishment? For places like this, yeah, it's probably worth taking a look at things and asking ourselves if white people literally controlling almost everything in America might have some effect on equality in America.

mc32 11y ago
Right but you're skirting right by. The thing is it is a pretty common phenomenon. It's something that isn't intrinsic to white people or any single class of people. It happens to be that in the US whites on average can experience advantage. But if the US had a different history and were colonized by other people there would be other people experiencing this "privilege". I mean, we don't go around calling the issue Sunny privilege to describe it, or urban Han privilege, Sciences-po privilege, yet it is the same phenomenon. Look at it this way, how would people X feel if we called crime instead of crime "people X" behavior as if only that group engaged in crime? And go around saying, well, true many peoples engage in crime but we wanted to highlight that people X engage in lots of crime too so that the people will be conscious of it and then kerb crime.
- cname 11y ago
  So, it's a pretty common problem. I think everyone knows that. Does that mean we shouldn't address the problems in front of us?
  - mc32 11y ago
    Yes, the problem is presenting it as a zero-sum issue where what one has is at the expense of someone else and in addition posing something as intrinsic and inextricable from a class of people. It's their disease it's a bad disease and really they should be ashamed, rather than addressing the system we're addressing it as a people issue.
- JohnBooty 11y ago
  I mean, we don't go around calling the issue Sunny privilege to describe it We certainly would (or could) if we were discussing privilege in a Sunni-dominated area where other groups were oppressed! That would be completely correct, right? how would people X feel if we called crime instead of crime "people X" behavior as if only that group engaged in crime? That's an awesome question actually. Let's say there was a city where nearly all of the muggings involved black people mugging white people. There are one million whites in this city, and one million blacks. There were also 10,000 muggings last year and most of them were black on white muggings. First of all, that would suck, and in this hypothetical city it'd be hard to argue that there wasn't a racial component to those 10,000 muggings. It is, essentially, a black crime in this example. But! In this hypothetical city, that also means there are 990,000 black people who didn't mug anybody and -- this is the key concept -- didn't profit from those muggings. White privilege is a little different. As a white person I actually do profit from white privilege. My life hasn't always been easy, and I have generally worked my ass off. But I have also never had to deal with any of the big and small disadvantages that blacks face in America. Nearly every single day of my life -- and this includes some really shitty, tough, fucked up days -- my whiteness has either helped me or at least not been a disadvantage. I profit from white privilege all the time. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person or that things are always easy, but I do want to recognize it.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Ok, I thought we were speaking "privilege" however now you're bringing up or conflating oppression, which to my understanding is different. Never the less, even in Sunni areas, I dont think it would be helpful to describe the issue suffered by say Shias as Sunni privilege. This representation is apt to create a greater wedge between the groups. Now, as it pertains people in general, within neighborhoods with a majority class there are oftentimes a classification of people who while may suffer disadvantage outside their neighborhood will most likely experience advantage in their neighborhoods. So let's say a recent poor immigrant from Bolivia going to a south Asian neighborhood, or a Bangladeshi going into a Mexican neighborhood. These two may experience privilege in one area and lack of privilege in another. Or, see how easy it might be for you to get a stock boy job at a Mexican supermarket in for example LA, versus how easy it might be for a Mexican national to get the job. So privilege can be found among the many groups within the US itself, not just among whites, as might be portrayed. It's something for which we can find expression, if we look enough.

mc32 11y ago

Right but you're skirting right by. The thing is it is a pretty common phenomenon. It's something that isn't intrinsic to white people or any single class of people. It happens to be that in the US whites on average can experience advantage. But if the US had a different history and were colonized by other people there would be other people experiencing this "privilege". I mean, we don't go around calling the issue Sunny privilege to describe it, or urban Han privilege, Sciences-po privilege, yet it is the same phenomenon. Look at it this way, how would people X feel if we called crime instead of crime "people X" behavior as if only that group engaged in crime? And go around saying, well, true many peoples engage in crime but we wanted to highlight that people X engage in lots of crime too so that the people will be conscious of it and then kerb crime.

cname 11y ago
So, it's a pretty common problem. I think everyone knows that. Does that mean we shouldn't address the problems in front of us?
- mc32 11y ago
  Yes, the problem is presenting it as a zero-sum issue where what one has is at the expense of someone else and in addition posing something as intrinsic and inextricable from a class of people. It's their disease it's a bad disease and really they should be ashamed, rather than addressing the system we're addressing it as a people issue.
JohnBooty 11y ago
I mean, we don't go around calling the issue Sunny privilege to describe it We certainly would (or could) if we were discussing privilege in a Sunni-dominated area where other groups were oppressed! That would be completely correct, right? how would people X feel if we called crime instead of crime "people X" behavior as if only that group engaged in crime? That's an awesome question actually. Let's say there was a city where nearly all of the muggings involved black people mugging white people. There are one million whites in this city, and one million blacks. There were also 10,000 muggings last year and most of them were black on white muggings. First of all, that would suck, and in this hypothetical city it'd be hard to argue that there wasn't a racial component to those 10,000 muggings. It is, essentially, a black crime in this example. But! In this hypothetical city, that also means there are 990,000 black people who didn't mug anybody and -- this is the key concept -- didn't profit from those muggings. White privilege is a little different. As a white person I actually do profit from white privilege. My life hasn't always been easy, and I have generally worked my ass off. But I have also never had to deal with any of the big and small disadvantages that blacks face in America. Nearly every single day of my life -- and this includes some really shitty, tough, fucked up days -- my whiteness has either helped me or at least not been a disadvantage. I profit from white privilege all the time. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person or that things are always easy, but I do want to recognize it.
- mc32 11y ago
  Ok, I thought we were speaking "privilege" however now you're bringing up or conflating oppression, which to my understanding is different. Never the less, even in Sunni areas, I dont think it would be helpful to describe the issue suffered by say Shias as Sunni privilege. This representation is apt to create a greater wedge between the groups. Now, as it pertains people in general, within neighborhoods with a majority class there are oftentimes a classification of people who while may suffer disadvantage outside their neighborhood will most likely experience advantage in their neighborhoods. So let's say a recent poor immigrant from Bolivia going to a south Asian neighborhood, or a Bangladeshi going into a Mexican neighborhood. These two may experience privilege in one area and lack of privilege in another. Or, see how easy it might be for you to get a stock boy job at a Mexican supermarket in for example LA, versus how easy it might be for a Mexican national to get the job. So privilege can be found among the many groups within the US itself, not just among whites, as might be portrayed. It's something for which we can find expression, if we look enough.