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What about if you are white working-class man? Is a middle-class black woman less privileged than a white working-class man? What about short versus tall people
by heisnotanalien 9y ago
What about if you are white working-class man? Is a middle-class black woman less privileged than a white working-class man? What about short versus tall people? What about beautiful versus ugly people? The halo effect is well-known. The whole thing is just absurd and dehumanising.
- hashkb 9y ago> Is a middle-class black woman less privileged than a white working-class man? Yes, on average, significantly. I'd be interested in your definition of "privilege" though.
- merpnderp 9y agoI'm interested in your definition of privilege. How exactly do the millions of variables that make up a person's life get outweighed by their skin color? Especially when we're comparing two people with similar job paths and economic equality? And how will answering this question not imply making drastic assumptions about an individual based on their race?
- mlevental 9y agoyes: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/10/white-high-school-dropouts-are-wealthier-than-black-and-hispanic-college-graduates-can-a-new-policy-tool-fix-that/?utm_term=.db15a22d5a09 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/10/white...
- sol_remmy 9y ago> White high school dropouts are wealthier than Hispanic college graduates. What I'm seeing is "people who have lived in America for a long time (European heritage) are on average wealthier than people who arrived fairly recently from third world countries (Hispanic heritage). Why is that surprising? Why is that a problem?
- mlevental 9y agothe article says absolutely nothing about immigration or third world countries. whether the paper controls for generational wealth i don't know. >Why is that surprising? ...it's not to me since i understand we live in a structurally racist society >Why is that a problem? ...the op asks about "privilege" not whether it's problematic. inherited wealth is most certainly privilege. i was only addressing that. there are many good reasons why privilege of this sort is problematic that i will not rehearse here (many smart people believe estate tax should be 100%; here is the guardian on it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/24/utopian-thinking-fund-welfare-state-inheritance-tax https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/24/utopia...).
- heisnotanalien 9y agoSo people work hard all their life for their wealth (maybe they earned a lot or maybe they were just frugal) and smart people think it is okay for the state to take 100% of it away? And you think that's okay? I just can't get my head around how anyone can think that's moral at all. Oh yes, I see this is teh same Guardian writer that was defending Stalin so no surprises really.
- mlevental 9y ago>I just can't get my head around how anyone can think that's moral at all. it's not rocket science: fair is value-system and ethics dependent. yes in a certain value-system and ethics it is not fair to give people advantages they didn't themselves earn. whether it's the right ethics/value-systems is up to you as an individual and us as a society to decide. really obvious example: weight classes in combat sports.
- heisnotanalien 9y agoWell duh. That goes without saying.
- sincerely 9y agoYou're referring to the concept of "intersectionality" which is very well accepted in the literature etc.
- heisnotanalien 9y agoSure but I rarely hear people talk about class which isn't so visible as other things. You can be a black woman born to professors or a working class white man born to garage store attendants.
- sincerely 9y agoSounds like you need to hang out with more marxists :P