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What you write is generally true. You're taking it to an unjustified extreme, though, and glossing over the fact that the advantages diminish rapidly as one des
by sidlls 6y ago
What you write is generally true. You're taking it to an unjustified extreme, though, and glossing over the fact that the advantages diminish rapidly as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, to the point where the "white advantage" for impoverished folks looks more like regular fluctuations in the noise than it does a clear above-the-noise signal. That is to say: the poorest whites might on average have some advantage over their peers in some contexts, but as a matter of practice day-to-day living isn't that different.
I know there is a lot of well-deserved focus on the ways our racist systems do more damage to blacks. That doesn't mean we should exaggerate, simply because the ground truth is horrific enough.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoHi. My extremely poor white brother in Appalachia told me today about his most recent encounter with a cop. The scenario was disturbingly similar to scenarios where traffic stops have ended with black people dead. My brother got cut slack, allowed to leave with his car out of compliance with state law. Advised by the cop to take back roads to avoid further scrutiny. YOU might not see white privilege, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If my brother had been black, in his words... “I HOPE I would have been treated the same way”. But he knew that’s a false hope. If my brother had been black, would he be just one more statistic to debate here?
- sidlls 6y agoYour brother's anecdote doesn't erase my lived experience, okay? You have an extremely poor white brother; I grew up an extremely poor white guy in a mixed-race neighborhood. I know, better than most, what privilege being white buys me in this society. It exists. But existence is far from universal, or uniform. You're off the mark. Way off.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoMy brother and I grew up in a world that sounds similar to yours. I’m not negating your experience. The fact that you and I have privilege doesn’t negate our own hardships.
- sidlls 6y agoYou’re playing a bit loose, here. When you write that 100% of whites are advantaged, you are engaged in exaggeration that erases the practical reality. It is true that our system is structured to advantage whites. It does not necessarily follow that all whites are equally advantaged (other things being equal) or that all whites live a life in which they experience these advantages.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoOn the contrary, I'm choosing my words and considering their meaning very carefully. This topic is too important to "play loose". 100% of white people are advantaged by racism. I didn't claim that all experience that advantage equally, and I didn't claim that the advantage negates any other disadvantages each individual white person experiences due to the specifics of their lives, their class or social status, any number of other systems of identity-based power, or even countervailing individual prejudices. You may find it hard to notice the advantage it gives you, but it certainly exists.
- sidlls 6y ago"100% of white people are advantaged by racism." No, this is an extraordinary claim without evidence that you are asserting. "You may find it hard to notice the advantage it gives you, but it certainly exists," isn't carefully worded, and it's designed to effectively squash any sort of disagreement with the assertion in the first place.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago> No, this is an extraordinary claim without evidence that you are asserting. There are libraries worth of literature on the subject. I encourage you to spend some time seeking it out and understanding it better. > isn't carefully worded, and it's designed to effectively squash any sort of disagreement with the assertion in the first place. It was carefully worded, but you don't seem to be interested in coming to the discussion to understand. You seem determined to fight. The wording was intended to give you the grace that maybe other challenges in your life make it difficult to see this particular advantage. The words chosen were intentionally placed in the same comment with other words giving that grace explicitly.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoBy the way “blacks” is a dead giveaway you’re either very ignorant or not sincere. Just by the way.
- sidlls 6y agoHow so? I’ve engaged in numerous conversations about race and its suffusing everything in this country with non-white close friends and casual acquaintances alike who’ve never made the suggestion you make. This isn’t an issue of them being hesitant to challenge me (lawd knows they don’t show any hesitation to challenge in other areas of race-related conversation we engage in: I’d be surprised if this were the one issue that weren’t true for).