12 ms·

If people don't like the concept, they don't really understand it. The way the word is often used and even the word itself, absolutely that ruffles some feather

by wfo 9y ago

If people don't like the concept, they don't really understand it. The way the word is often used and even the word itself, absolutely that ruffles some feathers and rightly so. They do studies, if people are given massive advantages (e.g. rolling two dice instead of one in monopoly and starting with double the cash) that are obvious and explicit, people will still believe they deserved to win, they earned their victory. Recognizing a lot of your success is because of dumb luck (yes you worked hard, but millions of others worked just as hard or harder and weren't lucky) is a good way to stay humble, and to remind yourself to stop pretending you "deserve" what you have -- we all live in a fundamentally (intentionally) unjust economic system where "desert" has no meaning but we try to superimpose it on our lives because of a need to believe things are fair. Privilege is a word that can be a good way to remember that. It can also be used as a rhetorical weapon to bludgeon people. The word itself is terrible and I hate it: it is not a "privilege" in my view to be treated decently, to have a chance at success, to not be discriminated against or assaulted by police or have to face anything that the poor, minorities, women face. It is a right. Everyone has the right to be treated the way straight rich white men are and have been for centuries and using the word "privilege" conjures up this notion that they are getting something they do not deserve: rather, they should be viewed as the model, the goal, they are getting something that we all deserve to have as well alongside them.

jnbiche 9y ago
There's a good reason many of us dislike current usage of word "privilege", and to your credit, you avoided it. Lots of times the word "white privilege" is thrown around by relatively well-off people in urban areas, and that usage is extremely hurtful and frankly stunning if you're a poor white person living in a small town in say, W. Virginia. You work multiple minimum wage jobs and still barely scrap by, watch friends and family succumb to desperation and opiates, and look around your town as it crumbles in neglect. And you don't feel like you're very "privileged" in spite of being white. The term is particularly bewildering to rural and small town poor whites when it's tossed out by a 20-something-year old professional in some big city who's making a $200,000/year salary, or by a trust-fund kid protesting in a university where tuition costs more money a semester than your whole extended family makes in a year. I realize that many people who use the term "white privilege" may not be targeting such people with the term (although many clearly are). However, when the only qualifier someone uses is "white", it's hard to draw that conclusion. Again, to your credit, you used the term "straight rich white men". But most people fail to make this distinction. I also strongly agree with your final paragraph. What we call "privilege" is something that all people should have. Instead of working to destroy privilege, we should work to ensure that all people have that same privilege.
- vostok 9y ago
  I think white privilege is in contrast to being not white. Statistically, you can think of it as a, for example, 1% effect that gets added to another 1% effect that gets added to another 1% effect and so on. Add enough of these effects and you have a pretty big impact. Even accounting for the racial makeup of those states, I know far more white people than non-white people from poor states who are now making great money.
- Retric 9y ago
  Being poor and white is still an advantage over poor and Latino/Black. Look at conviction rates at criminal trials for example. Now, it's not the kind of advantage that feels meaningful, but it really adds up over a lifetime. Even +/- 1% sales can make or break a small business for example.
  - badpun 9y ago
    > Being poor and white is still an advantage over poor and Latino/Black. Look at conviction rates at criminal trials for example. Are there stats for convictions of poor white people vs poor black latino/black, or just all white vs all latino/black? I don't think the latter stats would be particularly helpful here.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Yes, it's so bad: Poor white kids are less likely to go to prison than rich black kids "https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/poor-white-kids-are-less-likely-to-go-to-prison-than-rich-black-kids/" https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... "One in ten Black males in their thirties is in prison or jail in the United States." That's insane.
      - badpun 9y ago
        Very interesting. However, one thing that I fail to see addressed here is reason for the incarceration gap. The way I see it, it can be partially because black kids are prosecuted more (the "white privilege" argument) and partially perhaps because, for whatever reason, rich black kids just commit crimes more often.
bigmanwalter 9y ago
The reason people refer to these things as privileges is because they are unavailable to the majority of the population. It's a very privileged perspective to live in a world where these things are considered normal. Privilege has to do with the idea that these things are so far from being a reality for so many people that it's evident to them that the world does not consider this to be their right.
- d0lph 9y ago
  And I think realizing these differences is maybe helpful somehow, but here is the reality: > In that sense it feels perversly exploitative and priveleged to make so much more money ... It seems to be more useful for shaming people. > ... that the world does not consider this to be their right. This seems to imply that those with privilege think their privilege is a right.
  - zbentley 9y ago
    > It seems to be more useful for shaming people. It is sometimes used that way, but is (I think more) often used in a much more analytically useful sense: as a means of indexing passive/automatic advantages that some people benefit from, and as a lens into the ways that advantage might be extended to others. > This seems to imply that those with privilege think their privilege is a right. That doesn't follow logically (if group A is bothered that the advantages of group B are not considered to be group A's right, it does not follow that group B considers those advantages to be group B's right), or textually (GP referred to "the world" as the thing not considering privilege a right for some people, which I interpreted as a reference to the context/emergent behavior/power structures that confer advantages; not specific people).
    - d0lph 9y ago
      So privilege is useful primarily for charity? > "...a reality for so many people that it's evident to them that the world does not..." The dichotomy is those with privilege, and those without.
malvosenior 9y ago
> If people don't like the concept, they don't really understand it. I think plenty of people understand it, they just don't agree with it. Why wouldn't humans use every advantage available to them to succeed? It's a tough world out there and people want to thrive and survive, they'd also like to pass along the fruits of their labor to their offspring. That's how nature works. There will always be a will to be the best, it doesn't matter if the demographics of people with economic advantages shift. I don't imagine we'll ever see people willfully make their lives more difficult and we shouldn't expect them to.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  Generally, people don't say you should refuse to take advantage of them, but that you recognize them. That is, right now, you're misunderstanding privilege.
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    Recognize them then do what? Humans are complex and I see no value in using a one dimensional, subjective metric to make any sort of decision or guide a personal philosophy.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      Privilege is a lens through which you look at the world and analyze things. It's more or less an analytical tool developed as a response to various flavors of social darwinism. The idea behind privilege theory is to say that, when you compare people, you don't say "the more successful one is more successful because they are better", but instead "there are a number of factors, many of which are difficult to quantify, that contribute to the varying levels of success between two people (or especially groups)". It's not one dimensional, and there's no objective way to measure or compare things as generic as "success". Privilege theory being explicit about this makes it superior to many of the alternatives. "Do what" is such a broad question that I can't really answer it. Are you an academic, or a company or a government or something else? The answer depends on that. It's a malformed question, like asking "What do you do with Kantianism?" or something. The best answer I can give is "use it as an analytical lens to guide your decision making", which is a bad answer precisely because its a bad question. A better one might be "What value does analyzing situations/systems via the lens that privilege provides give?" Which is incidentally also a pretty good question to ask about Kantianism. The answer to that question also depends on exactly who you are and what you're doing, but at least it makes sense. For example, for me personally, I think that looking at things via a lens of privilege helps me to be a more empathetic person, on the whole. For an academic, it might help you decide whether or not you are asking the right questions in an experiment. As a very straightforward historical example, for many years in the US, there was explicit bias against African Americans in segregated schools. This was justified in many cases, through a social darwinistic lens: black people are less intelligent, the proof is that they perform worse, and so we should devote fewer resources to their education. Looking at the same data through a lens of privilege though, one might instead conclude that segregated schools performed worse because they had fewer resources. In other words, the same correlation is explained in two vastly different ways. I use that example specifically because today the same thing still happens, as a result of most school systems getting funding based on property taxes, and historical reasons so you still have a world where, in practice, predominantly black schools have much less funding. Ostensibly, this is "fair", since you use the same rule to fund everyone, but clearly it isn't actually. Privilege is one way of accounting for how things that are ostensibly fair may not be in practice. As an aside, in a much more mathematical sense, I think that privilege theory is all about picking the right bayesian priors when doing an analysis.
andrei_says_ 9y ago
I think “privilege” because the right is not the norm. Like “black lives matter (, too!)” because being black and having respect for your life and freedom is not the norm, at all. In a situation where not being exposed to massive dangers and obstacles is a rare occasion, I think it is fair to classify that as a privilege. White / wealthy / male / educated / citizen of the US, all indicate the top parts of pyramids of oppression and massive obstacles. The blind acceptance of these structures by the ones standing on top of them, is the actionable part. We (I am definitely amongst the privileged) can’t easily see the nature of the structures, the way we don’t choke on clean air. But once we’re aware of them, our responsibility kicks in. Not taking actions to actively challenge these structures makes us complicit and defines where we stand. The anger of the ones living life on “extra hard” so that we can live ours on “quite/super easy” or even “normal”, is fully justified. We are passive perpetrators, there’s no way around it. Very uncomfortable.

by wfo 9y ago

jnbiche 9y ago

There's a good reason many of us dislike current usage of word "privilege", and to your credit, you avoided it. Lots of times the word "white privilege" is thrown around by relatively well-off people in urban areas, and that usage is extremely hurtful and frankly stunning if you're a poor white person living in a small town in say, W. Virginia. You work multiple minimum wage jobs and still barely scrap by, watch friends and family succumb to desperation and opiates, and look around your town as it crumbles in neglect. And you don't feel like you're very "privileged" in spite of being white. The term is particularly bewildering to rural and small town poor whites when it's tossed out by a 20-something-year old professional in some big city who's making a $200,000/year salary, or by a trust-fund kid protesting in a university where tuition costs more money a semester than your whole extended family makes in a year. I realize that many people who use the term "white privilege" may not be targeting such people with the term (although many clearly are). However, when the only qualifier someone uses is "white", it's hard to draw that conclusion. Again, to your credit, you used the term "straight rich white men". But most people fail to make this distinction. I also strongly agree with your final paragraph. What we call "privilege" is something that all people should have. Instead of working to destroy privilege, we should work to ensure that all people have that same privilege.

vostok 9y ago
I think white privilege is in contrast to being not white. Statistically, you can think of it as a, for example, 1% effect that gets added to another 1% effect that gets added to another 1% effect and so on. Add enough of these effects and you have a pretty big impact. Even accounting for the racial makeup of those states, I know far more white people than non-white people from poor states who are now making great money.
Retric 9y ago
Being poor and white is still an advantage over poor and Latino/Black. Look at conviction rates at criminal trials for example. Now, it's not the kind of advantage that feels meaningful, but it really adds up over a lifetime. Even +/- 1% sales can make or break a small business for example.
- badpun 9y ago
  > Being poor and white is still an advantage over poor and Latino/Black. Look at conviction rates at criminal trials for example. Are there stats for convictions of poor white people vs poor black latino/black, or just all white vs all latino/black? I don't think the latter stats would be particularly helpful here.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Yes, it's so bad: Poor white kids are less likely to go to prison than rich black kids "https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/poor-white-kids-are-less-likely-to-go-to-prison-than-rich-black-kids/" https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... "One in ten Black males in their thirties is in prison or jail in the United States." That's insane.
    - badpun 9y ago
      Very interesting. However, one thing that I fail to see addressed here is reason for the incarceration gap. The way I see it, it can be partially because black kids are prosecuted more (the "white privilege" argument) and partially perhaps because, for whatever reason, rich black kids just commit crimes more often.

bigmanwalter 9y ago

The reason people refer to these things as privileges is because they are unavailable to the majority of the population. It's a very privileged perspective to live in a world where these things are considered normal. Privilege has to do with the idea that these things are so far from being a reality for so many people that it's evident to them that the world does not consider this to be their right.

d0lph 9y ago
And I think realizing these differences is maybe helpful somehow, but here is the reality: > In that sense it feels perversly exploitative and priveleged to make so much more money ... It seems to be more useful for shaming people. > ... that the world does not consider this to be their right. This seems to imply that those with privilege think their privilege is a right.
- zbentley 9y ago
  > It seems to be more useful for shaming people. It is sometimes used that way, but is (I think more) often used in a much more analytically useful sense: as a means of indexing passive/automatic advantages that some people benefit from, and as a lens into the ways that advantage might be extended to others. > This seems to imply that those with privilege think their privilege is a right. That doesn't follow logically (if group A is bothered that the advantages of group B are not considered to be group A's right, it does not follow that group B considers those advantages to be group B's right), or textually (GP referred to "the world" as the thing not considering privilege a right for some people, which I interpreted as a reference to the context/emergent behavior/power structures that confer advantages; not specific people).
  - d0lph 9y ago
    So privilege is useful primarily for charity? > "...a reality for so many people that it's evident to them that the world does not..." The dichotomy is those with privilege, and those without.

malvosenior 9y ago

> If people don't like the concept, they don't really understand it. I think plenty of people understand it, they just don't agree with it. Why wouldn't humans use every advantage available to them to succeed? It's a tough world out there and people want to thrive and survive, they'd also like to pass along the fruits of their labor to their offspring. That's how nature works. There will always be a will to be the best, it doesn't matter if the demographics of people with economic advantages shift. I don't imagine we'll ever see people willfully make their lives more difficult and we shouldn't expect them to.

joshuamorton 9y ago
Generally, people don't say you should refuse to take advantage of them, but that you recognize them. That is, right now, you're misunderstanding privilege.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  Recognize them then do what? Humans are complex and I see no value in using a one dimensional, subjective metric to make any sort of decision or guide a personal philosophy.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    Privilege is a lens through which you look at the world and analyze things. It's more or less an analytical tool developed as a response to various flavors of social darwinism. The idea behind privilege theory is to say that, when you compare people, you don't say "the more successful one is more successful because they are better", but instead "there are a number of factors, many of which are difficult to quantify, that contribute to the varying levels of success between two people (or especially groups)". It's not one dimensional, and there's no objective way to measure or compare things as generic as "success". Privilege theory being explicit about this makes it superior to many of the alternatives. "Do what" is such a broad question that I can't really answer it. Are you an academic, or a company or a government or something else? The answer depends on that. It's a malformed question, like asking "What do you do with Kantianism?" or something. The best answer I can give is "use it as an analytical lens to guide your decision making", which is a bad answer precisely because its a bad question. A better one might be "What value does analyzing situations/systems via the lens that privilege provides give?" Which is incidentally also a pretty good question to ask about Kantianism. The answer to that question also depends on exactly who you are and what you're doing, but at least it makes sense. For example, for me personally, I think that looking at things via a lens of privilege helps me to be a more empathetic person, on the whole. For an academic, it might help you decide whether or not you are asking the right questions in an experiment. As a very straightforward historical example, for many years in the US, there was explicit bias against African Americans in segregated schools. This was justified in many cases, through a social darwinistic lens: black people are less intelligent, the proof is that they perform worse, and so we should devote fewer resources to their education. Looking at the same data through a lens of privilege though, one might instead conclude that segregated schools performed worse because they had fewer resources. In other words, the same correlation is explained in two vastly different ways. I use that example specifically because today the same thing still happens, as a result of most school systems getting funding based on property taxes, and historical reasons so you still have a world where, in practice, predominantly black schools have much less funding. Ostensibly, this is "fair", since you use the same rule to fund everyone, but clearly it isn't actually. Privilege is one way of accounting for how things that are ostensibly fair may not be in practice. As an aside, in a much more mathematical sense, I think that privilege theory is all about picking the right bayesian priors when doing an analysis.

andrei_says_ 9y ago

I think “privilege” because the right is not the norm. Like “black lives matter (, too!)” because being black and having respect for your life and freedom is not the norm, at all. In a situation where not being exposed to massive dangers and obstacles is a rare occasion, I think it is fair to classify that as a privilege. White / wealthy / male / educated / citizen of the US, all indicate the top parts of pyramids of oppression and massive obstacles. The blind acceptance of these structures by the ones standing on top of them, is the actionable part. We (I am definitely amongst the privileged) can’t easily see the nature of the structures, the way we don’t choke on clean air. But once we’re aware of them, our responsibility kicks in. Not taking actions to actively challenge these structures makes us complicit and defines where we stand. The anger of the ones living life on “extra hard” so that we can live ours on “quite/super easy” or even “normal”, is fully justified. We are passive perpetrators, there’s no way around it. Very uncomfortable.