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as a white that grew up very very poor, I can't possibly understand why so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege, when most of

as a white that grew up very very poor, I can't possibly understand why so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege, when most of them had many more resources growing up.

anigbrowl 6y ago
Sure you can. You're less likely to be pulled over in most of the US than a black person driving the same car and wearing the same clothes.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll walk away and go to work and back home. Why is being stopped by police such a big deal? I think the police should do more of that in the US, it would reduce crime considerably.
  - lucian1900 6y ago
    Black peoples in the US are far more likely to be summarily executed when interacting with police.
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. There are 32 million traffic stops each year. In 2019 the police shot 14 unarmed black Americans. I think every death is unforgivable, but let's not pretend that going to work and back as a black person you're putting your life at risk when meeting the police. There is a bias, sure, but it's just that, a bias. I fail to see the evidence for widespread discrimination. Police should do more stops and preventive interventions, look at Baltimore https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... I'm deviating, but my point is that police is not a suppressor for the black community, but a helper and an enabler for the honest working people. It can be intimidating and demeaning interacting with the police, but it's still 100x better than interacting with the gangs of Baltimore.
      - vmception 6y ago
        I’m familiar with these talking points and what influences you would have to regurgitate them. That talking point still assumes that the killings of armed people was necessary. It doesn't tell you if they were legal holders, responsible concealed carry holders, the type of weapon or anything. Supporting this frame of thought requires being too much of an apologist for an institution that just has too many options with too little accountability. It is a false dichotomy to simplify it to more police or less, the same goes to people saying defund the police. Accountability is an overarching theme. Overpolicing certain areas is a self fulfilling prophecy that even pollutes your own stats. Black and white people commit arrestable crimes at a similar distribution while the areas black people live in are policed more, or enforced more.
        flavius29663 6y ago
        I don't think police should kill as many people as they do. They are way too trigger happy. I was making an argument that the police is about as shitty for whites and blacks. It's not a matter of racism, but of bad policing. I want police to be better to everyone, not just black people. If we don't address the root of the problem (and racism isn't it), you just end up with other Baltimores. For example just the other day I saw in the news that NYPD is losing officers at twice the rate since 2020.
        zpeti 6y ago
        And in fact the solution is more money and training to the police. Police don't get trained, especially in high pressure situations, which creates even more mistakes. People upset with the police should be asking for funding the police and more training, not defunding them.
      - bjourne 6y ago
        > not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. ... Think about it. How does higher levels of crime among black Americans explain why more unarmed black Americans are killed by police? Think about it ...
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      They're more likely to be roughed up and about equally likely to be shot https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      An unfortunate myth that is easily disproven after a quick glance at the data. Yet, it persists.
  - metiscus 6y ago
    Let's work through a hypothetical. Say that drug use is evenly distributed regardless of race across a group of people. If orange people get searched more frequently, even if every search is equally justified, then the number of orange people being prosecuted for drug infractions would be disproportionate. Note: I am not making a statement about the propriety of this, but merely working through an example of applied statistics.
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      I see the problem, but I fail to see what you're suggesting? Are we supposed to let criminals go free? Don't deal drugs, is it that hard? If black people wouldn't deal drugs, they wouldn't be targeted by police officers. Think of the east Asians, they are discriminated and mocked maybe even more than black people, but they are less likely to commit crimes, so police doesn't target them.
      - selimthegrim 6y ago
        If I’m Muslim I should be OK with being profiled because some reprobates think it’s still the 7th century AD? It’s a little more complicated than “Was drugs your dealer?”
      - klyrs 6y ago
        Actually, there have been quite a few studies on this and there are marginally fewer black drug users than white drug users, and roughly equal rates of drug dealing in the white and black populations https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and...
  - snypher 6y ago
    Because one should have the freedom to continue about their day without being detained for no reason. Can you support your claim? In my city people who have outstanding warrants (arguably having met a standard of having committed a crime) are regularly released after being stopped by police. It seems to me that being stopped by the police doesn't result in the detention of people actually charged with crimes - so why should an average citizen be subject to that or worse?
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      I honestly don't understand this argument. Please help me do so, because I keep hearing it. If you're doing crimes, you're paying for them. Now the police, the argument goes, lets white people walk away with warrants. In the same time, they let less black people walk away. Is that the argument? This might be true, but my problem is the letting people walk away in the first place. I don't want the police to do that at all. If the crime is not too bad, then don't emit warrants to begin with. But if there is a warrant, then that should be enforced. I don't see how not enforcing warrants for black people or criminals of any color will make things better. It won't make things better for the society at large or for the black community. I believe the hard working black people also want less crime on the streets. There is a problem with longer sentencing for black people, from what I heard. That is not a police issue. Police violence is a police issue, for all races. But police trying to arrest based on a warrant is not an issue, even if it devolves in violence. What am I getting wrong?
    - zpeti 6y ago
      In my city (non US), the police block a bridge over the river, stop everyone, and check the levels of alcohol in their breath. I don't make a fuss about it, because it probably keeps me safer as a lot of idiots won't drink and drive because of this being done regularly. Deal with it. The police stopping you is not them thinking you are a criminal necessarily.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        stop everyone That's a very different situation which is obviously non-discriminatory. But consider how you'd feel if they just stopped some and waved others through, don't you see the potential for unfairness?
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    The rapidly evolving complexity of your arguments above and below suggests to me your appearance of cluelessness was no more than a rhetorical posture. I have more respect for people who make their strongest arguments up front.
    - flukus 6y ago
      Classic sealioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        It's a pity you're getting downvoted.
      - flavius29663 6y ago
        How did I troll? I started a conversation, it evolved in a way I didn't anticipate. I did write full answers, with both personal experience, data and articles? How is that "trollinhg by asking concerned questions"? I did make my point and tried to support it with (some) data.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    "it would reduce crime considerably" There are several things wrong with this statement: the idea that most crimes are commited by individuals and not corporations, the idea that they are commited on the street, and the idea that searching a person somehow can prevent crime. Firstly a large chunk of crime, is commited by corporates, thats wage theft, consumer law breaches, money laundering, environmental protection, etc. Secondly most crimes are white collar crimes, and we do a very poor job of investigating both. Lastly even for street crime, which is a small percentage of all crime, stop and search is just a populist show of force that does nothing usefull. You know what actually reduces crime? Having competent detectives, investigators and prosecutors who can actualy arrest not the individual weed smoker but the kingpin running the show, or bring a complex case against a major company have it stand up to their highly paid team of lawyers.
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      This is where you are wrong. First of all, I was only talking about violent crimes. Real life experiment, look at Baltimore homicides https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... All the police did was not getting proactively involved on the streets, those stop and search you were mentioning. They still responded to calls and did their investigations. The result is 50% more deaths from homicides, each year.
  - ingleswood 6y ago
    Have you ever been shot and killed by the police?
  - x1ph0z 6y ago
    I mean the past year hasn't shown you that being stopped while being black is could end up being a dangerous situation?
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      not really. Jacob Blake was wanted for rape and he violated a restraining order(approaching the said rape victim). He fought the police and even choke-hold one of them. He was preparing to run away with a stolen car with the kids in it (that he did not have custody of). Their mother was the one that called the police, and the police knew who they were dealing with. If he would have been let go by the police, I assume an amber alert would have been issued. Floyd was being arrested for passing counterfeit bills. Brianna Taylor was shot after her boyfriend started shooting at the cops. The cops were executing a warrant for drug dealing. They didn't find anything, but that is beyond the point. The guy that was shot at Wendy's (Rayshard Brooks -had to look him up)was so drunk that he fell asleep at the drive through, and the employees had to call the police to clear the lane. He had prior DUIs and he fought during the arrest, stole a taser and fired it at the cops. These were the big cases of last year that I can remember right now. None of these were because of mere stops in traffic. The 3 shouldn't have died, sure, but I am addressing your point: It was more than a benign stop for any of the big cases last year. I am assuming there are traffic stops where innocent people died, but BLM of 2020 was not protesting for them.
metiscus 6y ago
It isn't my argument, but as I try to understand all sides I'll do my best to explain the position anyway. The idea goes something like this. You have white privilege because you are visibly white. By being visibly white you gain an automatic differentiation from those who are non-white. The belief is that the system, being largely run by white people will extend courtesy and nicer treatment to those who look like it whilst those who differ in appearance must "earn" the position you are given by the elements of your birth. It's a bit more complicated than that but that's my understanding of the core of it. I am not trying to strawman the argument and if I have it wrong, please explain where I wandered off course.
- golemiprague 6y ago
  I don't think he argued that by being white he might have some advantages, although it can be argued especially these days. His point was that there are million of other parameters that can affect ones life experience, so why just one advantage in the skin colour department makes him priviliged when he had so many other disadvantages in other departments.
  - metiscus 6y ago
    What I was explaining is my understanding of the point of view of the people who believe he does have privilege for his race. It is not my belief but I try to understand all sides of arguments and did my best to represent it. To continue, briefly. The difference between the various other types of benefits vs "whiteness" is twofold but interconnected. It is obvious who is and is not in the group and the group has institutional power. Most other sets of parameters do not work together in this way. Again this isn't my position so if it is yours and I've misrepresented it, chime in please.
    - golemiprague 6y ago
      I don't care whose position it is and I apreciate your effort to explain it, no need to apologise. Regarding the point itself, rich people or higher classes people as a group also have "institutional power", much more than white people as a group. It is pretty easy to differentiate people background after some sentences as the research shows. So the only difference between those two disadvantages is exchanging some words. Even if it is a significant difference, it still doesn't change or cancel other circumstances in a person life and doesn't make this difference overruling any other difference.
throawy-poor 6y ago
you will get some replies with the depth of "it would be worse if you were not white." I think there is only the smallest amount of truth there. Here are things that have happened to me, a poor white kid from california (and this is just off the top of my head): I could never join a sports team in school or other extra curricular, that shit's expensive. I had to steal food to get enough to eat. I've been pulled over multiple times, nearly every case because my car was shitty and the cop was shaking me down. I've been stopped by cops for walking through a hospital parking lot to go visit a friend. I've had a cop pull a gun out at me and order me to the ground. I was 14. I was told at a young age to follow cop orders exactly and be non threatening else I may get shot. My mom didn't come to a complete stop at a side street stop sign. Pulled over and the entire car tossed. The cop told my mom she likely stole it and they will find out what she did. A white buddy got the shit beat out of him by a cop. His crime was being poor and skating. I've seen a lot of nice cars going to a car race and then there was my buddy and I in a shitty car. We got pulled over and harassed. I was constantly excluded from most of my peer group because I was poor. I had to work multiple jobs to put myself through college -- little financial aid there. I spent over a decade scraping by because I didn't have a single role model on how to grow my career (or even really start one). Living in a low socio-economic area makes it hard to earn enough to get out. I was the first and only person in my family to go to college. I've been ghosted on interviews, called racist names, and hell, my wife had rocks thrown at her as a kid because she was one of like 5 white kids at her inner city school. Classism is elephant in the room nobody seemingly will acknowledge. But, hey, I'm white, so it can't be that bad, right? /s
- rednerrus 6y ago
  As someone who grew up poor and white, this was similar to my experience.
- epgui 6y ago
  Nobody can take these experiences away from you or discount the difficulties you went through. But saying that you don't have white privilege because you grew up poor is not quite right either. The thing with privilege is that there's more than one kind, and they all add up (and most likely they interact as different factors, so they're more than additive). * If you're non-white in the US, you're underprivileged. * If you're poor, you're underprivileged. * If you have a disability, you're underprivileged. * If you have a health problem, you're underprivileged. * If you're an immigrant, you're underprivileged. * If you're a minority group, you're underprivileged. There's no neat division between totally privileged and totally underprivileged people: it's a multifaceted and highly textured aspect of human experience, and all of the above statements are true. If it helps, don't think of it as privilege "adding" anything to your life. Think instead of the opposite: being underprivileged subtracts from the opportunities you're given.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sopp 6y ago
> accused of being guilty of white privilege Maybe "accused" and "guilty" are not the right framing here - you inherit white privilege because of your ethnicity, it doesnt necessarily make you guilty of anything, but you benefit from it whether you want it or not. You can think of it in the same way that the wealthier people you mention have inherited a better social class by just being born. They can profit from the privilege of their wealth, while suffering from racial discrimination. You can suffer from poverty, while not being hindered by your skin color. People are multi-dimensional. I think a fairer way to compare would be to compare people from the same social class when looking for privilege and inequality here. Is a poor white person doing better than a poor black person? Is a rich black person doing better than a poor black person? Is a white rich female doing better than a white rich male? Etc...
- zpeti 6y ago
  If people are multi dimensional, why are you grouping people by race and saying they have inherent characteristics based on race? Going by your second paragraph, a black person born from wealthy parents who send their kid to harvard, has much more priviledge than a trailer park white kid. So why are you grouping "whites" together as priviledged? What the hell does race have to do with anything?
RHSeeger 6y ago
There are many vectors by which one can measure privilege: race, class, money, educational opportunity, parental guidance/availability, physical ability, and many more. It is entirely possible to benefit from one of those things without another.
slothtrop 6y ago
> so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege The articles beating this drum are actually overwhelmingly written by white people. I think the term was popularized precisely because it is needlessly incendiary, as controversy means better click-bait. If you ignore the blanket term entirely and focus simply on meaning, people mostly agree with one another. For instance, it's uncontroversial to suggest that most white people will not face racial discrimination on the level that black people do in America. It's uncontroversial to suggest that there is a disprivilege by virtue of discrimination. But the term "white privilege" is employed to convey that all white people get "special treatment". That is literally what privilege means, after all. And of course people don't respond so well to that. If you ask a proponent of the term whether they would tell a homeless white man they have "white privilege", they will hem and haw, finally suggesting that it would be "impolite" but that they do indeed have it. *Why the hesitation* if it's innocuous? Cognitive dissonance is why. When they have to explain it to people, white privilege is typically defined in terms of black dis-privilege, but the literal meaning is that every white person gets special treatment. Of course that will be met with resentment. All of which to say, if use of language isn't well designed to create an understanding, it's not designed to further social causes. It's designed to create friction.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  Very well put. This whole BLM and white priviledge movement looks like it's setup to cause trouble, not solve issues. I think it's detrimental to the black cause too, so I wonder who and with what purpose is pushing this messaging? Like you said, it would have been so much easier for everyone to acknowledge the black dis-priviledge. In the current state of affairs, the poors of Appalachia are somewhat privileged? That's laughable, they haven't had a good chance in generations.
  - Dma54rhs 6y ago
    It's being pushed by the corporations are politicians so they don't have to treat the real cause, or give away their own wealth, in order to solve the class problems. It's easier to blame some random redneck with low intellect as the root cause instead of watching into their own wallets.
vmception 6y ago
privilege is a misnomer when its really freedom from some distractions nobody is going to call the police on you for simply walking in a neighborhood nextdoor and facebook groups arent going to have messages from vigilant bored housewives just because you walked down the street sundown towns and the ideas that reinforce them don't exist for you but saying “privilege” suggests other things are handed to you that wouldn't necessarily be true
- sahila 6y ago
  What I find interesting in all your examples is it feels the cause for issues are power imbalances and racism. The people calling the cops are likely the white neighbors on their black neighbors and not the other way around. In your nextdoor example, it's not just "bored housewives", it's "white bored housewives". I don't suppose you feel that black bored housewives are also posting those messages.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Correct. Did you need that validated or I am missing the point of your post….? Not sure how to respond, you know that we are agreeing, like 100%?
    - sahila 6y ago
      No response needed, but I think it's interesting that you (and others) use safe language to describe the perpetrators, like "nobody" and "nextdoor groups", when really it's just other white people.

anigbrowl 6y ago

Sure you can. You're less likely to be pulled over in most of the US than a black person driving the same car and wearing the same clothes.

flavius29663 6y ago
I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll walk away and go to work and back home. Why is being stopped by police such a big deal? I think the police should do more of that in the US, it would reduce crime considerably.
- lucian1900 6y ago
  Black peoples in the US are far more likely to be summarily executed when interacting with police.
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. There are 32 million traffic stops each year. In 2019 the police shot 14 unarmed black Americans. I think every death is unforgivable, but let's not pretend that going to work and back as a black person you're putting your life at risk when meeting the police. There is a bias, sure, but it's just that, a bias. I fail to see the evidence for widespread discrimination. Police should do more stops and preventive interventions, look at Baltimore https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... I'm deviating, but my point is that police is not a suppressor for the black community, but a helper and an enabler for the honest working people. It can be intimidating and demeaning interacting with the police, but it's still 100x better than interacting with the gangs of Baltimore.
    - vmception 6y ago
      I’m familiar with these talking points and what influences you would have to regurgitate them. That talking point still assumes that the killings of armed people was necessary. It doesn't tell you if they were legal holders, responsible concealed carry holders, the type of weapon or anything. Supporting this frame of thought requires being too much of an apologist for an institution that just has too many options with too little accountability. It is a false dichotomy to simplify it to more police or less, the same goes to people saying defund the police. Accountability is an overarching theme. Overpolicing certain areas is a self fulfilling prophecy that even pollutes your own stats. Black and white people commit arrestable crimes at a similar distribution while the areas black people live in are policed more, or enforced more.
      - flavius29663 6y ago
        I don't think police should kill as many people as they do. They are way too trigger happy. I was making an argument that the police is about as shitty for whites and blacks. It's not a matter of racism, but of bad policing. I want police to be better to everyone, not just black people. If we don't address the root of the problem (and racism isn't it), you just end up with other Baltimores. For example just the other day I saw in the news that NYPD is losing officers at twice the rate since 2020.
        zpeti 6y ago
        And in fact the solution is more money and training to the police. Police don't get trained, especially in high pressure situations, which creates even more mistakes. People upset with the police should be asking for funding the police and more training, not defunding them.
    - bjourne 6y ago
      > not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. ... Think about it. How does higher levels of crime among black Americans explain why more unarmed black Americans are killed by police? Think about it ...
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    They're more likely to be roughed up and about equally likely to be shot https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    An unfortunate myth that is easily disproven after a quick glance at the data. Yet, it persists.
- metiscus 6y ago
  Let's work through a hypothetical. Say that drug use is evenly distributed regardless of race across a group of people. If orange people get searched more frequently, even if every search is equally justified, then the number of orange people being prosecuted for drug infractions would be disproportionate. Note: I am not making a statement about the propriety of this, but merely working through an example of applied statistics.
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    I see the problem, but I fail to see what you're suggesting? Are we supposed to let criminals go free? Don't deal drugs, is it that hard? If black people wouldn't deal drugs, they wouldn't be targeted by police officers. Think of the east Asians, they are discriminated and mocked maybe even more than black people, but they are less likely to commit crimes, so police doesn't target them.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      If I’m Muslim I should be OK with being profiled because some reprobates think it’s still the 7th century AD? It’s a little more complicated than “Was drugs your dealer?”
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Actually, there have been quite a few studies on this and there are marginally fewer black drug users than white drug users, and roughly equal rates of drug dealing in the white and black populations https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and...
- snypher 6y ago
  Because one should have the freedom to continue about their day without being detained for no reason. Can you support your claim? In my city people who have outstanding warrants (arguably having met a standard of having committed a crime) are regularly released after being stopped by police. It seems to me that being stopped by the police doesn't result in the detention of people actually charged with crimes - so why should an average citizen be subject to that or worse?
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    I honestly don't understand this argument. Please help me do so, because I keep hearing it. If you're doing crimes, you're paying for them. Now the police, the argument goes, lets white people walk away with warrants. In the same time, they let less black people walk away. Is that the argument? This might be true, but my problem is the letting people walk away in the first place. I don't want the police to do that at all. If the crime is not too bad, then don't emit warrants to begin with. But if there is a warrant, then that should be enforced. I don't see how not enforcing warrants for black people or criminals of any color will make things better. It won't make things better for the society at large or for the black community. I believe the hard working black people also want less crime on the streets. There is a problem with longer sentencing for black people, from what I heard. That is not a police issue. Police violence is a police issue, for all races. But police trying to arrest based on a warrant is not an issue, even if it devolves in violence. What am I getting wrong?
  - zpeti 6y ago
    In my city (non US), the police block a bridge over the river, stop everyone, and check the levels of alcohol in their breath. I don't make a fuss about it, because it probably keeps me safer as a lot of idiots won't drink and drive because of this being done regularly. Deal with it. The police stopping you is not them thinking you are a criminal necessarily.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      stop everyone That's a very different situation which is obviously non-discriminatory. But consider how you'd feel if they just stopped some and waved others through, don't you see the potential for unfairness?
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  The rapidly evolving complexity of your arguments above and below suggests to me your appearance of cluelessness was no more than a rhetorical posture. I have more respect for people who make their strongest arguments up front.
  - flukus 6y ago
    Classic sealioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      It's a pity you're getting downvoted.
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      How did I troll? I started a conversation, it evolved in a way I didn't anticipate. I did write full answers, with both personal experience, data and articles? How is that "trollinhg by asking concerned questions"? I did make my point and tried to support it with (some) data.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  "it would reduce crime considerably" There are several things wrong with this statement: the idea that most crimes are commited by individuals and not corporations, the idea that they are commited on the street, and the idea that searching a person somehow can prevent crime. Firstly a large chunk of crime, is commited by corporates, thats wage theft, consumer law breaches, money laundering, environmental protection, etc. Secondly most crimes are white collar crimes, and we do a very poor job of investigating both. Lastly even for street crime, which is a small percentage of all crime, stop and search is just a populist show of force that does nothing usefull. You know what actually reduces crime? Having competent detectives, investigators and prosecutors who can actualy arrest not the individual weed smoker but the kingpin running the show, or bring a complex case against a major company have it stand up to their highly paid team of lawyers.
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    This is where you are wrong. First of all, I was only talking about violent crimes. Real life experiment, look at Baltimore homicides https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... All the police did was not getting proactively involved on the streets, those stop and search you were mentioning. They still responded to calls and did their investigations. The result is 50% more deaths from homicides, each year.
- ingleswood 6y ago
  Have you ever been shot and killed by the police?
- x1ph0z 6y ago
  I mean the past year hasn't shown you that being stopped while being black is could end up being a dangerous situation?
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    not really. Jacob Blake was wanted for rape and he violated a restraining order(approaching the said rape victim). He fought the police and even choke-hold one of them. He was preparing to run away with a stolen car with the kids in it (that he did not have custody of). Their mother was the one that called the police, and the police knew who they were dealing with. If he would have been let go by the police, I assume an amber alert would have been issued. Floyd was being arrested for passing counterfeit bills. Brianna Taylor was shot after her boyfriend started shooting at the cops. The cops were executing a warrant for drug dealing. They didn't find anything, but that is beyond the point. The guy that was shot at Wendy's (Rayshard Brooks -had to look him up)was so drunk that he fell asleep at the drive through, and the employees had to call the police to clear the lane. He had prior DUIs and he fought during the arrest, stole a taser and fired it at the cops. These were the big cases of last year that I can remember right now. None of these were because of mere stops in traffic. The 3 shouldn't have died, sure, but I am addressing your point: It was more than a benign stop for any of the big cases last year. I am assuming there are traffic stops where innocent people died, but BLM of 2020 was not protesting for them.

metiscus 6y ago

It isn't my argument, but as I try to understand all sides I'll do my best to explain the position anyway. The idea goes something like this. You have white privilege because you are visibly white. By being visibly white you gain an automatic differentiation from those who are non-white. The belief is that the system, being largely run by white people will extend courtesy and nicer treatment to those who look like it whilst those who differ in appearance must "earn" the position you are given by the elements of your birth. It's a bit more complicated than that but that's my understanding of the core of it. I am not trying to strawman the argument and if I have it wrong, please explain where I wandered off course.

golemiprague 6y ago
I don't think he argued that by being white he might have some advantages, although it can be argued especially these days. His point was that there are million of other parameters that can affect ones life experience, so why just one advantage in the skin colour department makes him priviliged when he had so many other disadvantages in other departments.
- metiscus 6y ago
  What I was explaining is my understanding of the point of view of the people who believe he does have privilege for his race. It is not my belief but I try to understand all sides of arguments and did my best to represent it. To continue, briefly. The difference between the various other types of benefits vs "whiteness" is twofold but interconnected. It is obvious who is and is not in the group and the group has institutional power. Most other sets of parameters do not work together in this way. Again this isn't my position so if it is yours and I've misrepresented it, chime in please.
  - golemiprague 6y ago
    I don't care whose position it is and I apreciate your effort to explain it, no need to apologise. Regarding the point itself, rich people or higher classes people as a group also have "institutional power", much more than white people as a group. It is pretty easy to differentiate people background after some sentences as the research shows. So the only difference between those two disadvantages is exchanging some words. Even if it is a significant difference, it still doesn't change or cancel other circumstances in a person life and doesn't make this difference overruling any other difference.

throawy-poor 6y ago

you will get some replies with the depth of "it would be worse if you were not white." I think there is only the smallest amount of truth there. Here are things that have happened to me, a poor white kid from california (and this is just off the top of my head): I could never join a sports team in school or other extra curricular, that shit's expensive. I had to steal food to get enough to eat. I've been pulled over multiple times, nearly every case because my car was shitty and the cop was shaking me down. I've been stopped by cops for walking through a hospital parking lot to go visit a friend. I've had a cop pull a gun out at me and order me to the ground. I was 14. I was told at a young age to follow cop orders exactly and be non threatening else I may get shot. My mom didn't come to a complete stop at a side street stop sign. Pulled over and the entire car tossed. The cop told my mom she likely stole it and they will find out what she did. A white buddy got the shit beat out of him by a cop. His crime was being poor and skating. I've seen a lot of nice cars going to a car race and then there was my buddy and I in a shitty car. We got pulled over and harassed. I was constantly excluded from most of my peer group because I was poor. I had to work multiple jobs to put myself through college -- little financial aid there. I spent over a decade scraping by because I didn't have a single role model on how to grow my career (or even really start one). Living in a low socio-economic area makes it hard to earn enough to get out. I was the first and only person in my family to go to college. I've been ghosted on interviews, called racist names, and hell, my wife had rocks thrown at her as a kid because she was one of like 5 white kids at her inner city school. Classism is elephant in the room nobody seemingly will acknowledge. But, hey, I'm white, so it can't be that bad, right? /s

rednerrus 6y ago
As someone who grew up poor and white, this was similar to my experience.
epgui 6y ago
Nobody can take these experiences away from you or discount the difficulties you went through. But saying that you don't have white privilege because you grew up poor is not quite right either. The thing with privilege is that there's more than one kind, and they all add up (and most likely they interact as different factors, so they're more than additive). * If you're non-white in the US, you're underprivileged. * If you're poor, you're underprivileged. * If you have a disability, you're underprivileged. * If you have a health problem, you're underprivileged. * If you're an immigrant, you're underprivileged. * If you're a minority group, you're underprivileged. There's no neat division between totally privileged and totally underprivileged people: it's a multifaceted and highly textured aspect of human experience, and all of the above statements are true. If it helps, don't think of it as privilege "adding" anything to your life. Think instead of the opposite: being underprivileged subtracts from the opportunities you're given.

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sopp 6y ago

> accused of being guilty of white privilege Maybe "accused" and "guilty" are not the right framing here - you inherit white privilege because of your ethnicity, it doesnt necessarily make you guilty of anything, but you benefit from it whether you want it or not. You can think of it in the same way that the wealthier people you mention have inherited a better social class by just being born. They can profit from the privilege of their wealth, while suffering from racial discrimination. You can suffer from poverty, while not being hindered by your skin color. People are multi-dimensional. I think a fairer way to compare would be to compare people from the same social class when looking for privilege and inequality here. Is a poor white person doing better than a poor black person? Is a rich black person doing better than a poor black person? Is a white rich female doing better than a white rich male? Etc...

zpeti 6y ago
If people are multi dimensional, why are you grouping people by race and saying they have inherent characteristics based on race? Going by your second paragraph, a black person born from wealthy parents who send their kid to harvard, has much more priviledge than a trailer park white kid. So why are you grouping "whites" together as priviledged? What the hell does race have to do with anything?

RHSeeger 6y ago

There are many vectors by which one can measure privilege: race, class, money, educational opportunity, parental guidance/availability, physical ability, and many more. It is entirely possible to benefit from one of those things without another.

slothtrop 6y ago

> so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege The articles beating this drum are actually overwhelmingly written by white people. I think the term was popularized precisely because it is needlessly incendiary, as controversy means better click-bait. If you ignore the blanket term entirely and focus simply on meaning, people mostly agree with one another. For instance, it's uncontroversial to suggest that most white people will not face racial discrimination on the level that black people do in America. It's uncontroversial to suggest that there is a disprivilege by virtue of discrimination. But the term "white privilege" is employed to convey that all white people get "special treatment". That is literally what privilege means, after all. And of course people don't respond so well to that. If you ask a proponent of the term whether they would tell a homeless white man they have "white privilege", they will hem and haw, finally suggesting that it would be "impolite" but that they do indeed have it. *Why the hesitation* if it's innocuous? Cognitive dissonance is why. When they have to explain it to people, white privilege is typically defined in terms of black dis-privilege, but the literal meaning is that every white person gets special treatment. Of course that will be met with resentment. All of which to say, if use of language isn't well designed to create an understanding, it's not designed to further social causes. It's designed to create friction.

flavius29663 6y ago
Very well put. This whole BLM and white priviledge movement looks like it's setup to cause trouble, not solve issues. I think it's detrimental to the black cause too, so I wonder who and with what purpose is pushing this messaging? Like you said, it would have been so much easier for everyone to acknowledge the black dis-priviledge. In the current state of affairs, the poors of Appalachia are somewhat privileged? That's laughable, they haven't had a good chance in generations.
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  It's being pushed by the corporations are politicians so they don't have to treat the real cause, or give away their own wealth, in order to solve the class problems. It's easier to blame some random redneck with low intellect as the root cause instead of watching into their own wallets.

vmception 6y ago

privilege is a misnomer when its really freedom from some distractions nobody is going to call the police on you for simply walking in a neighborhood nextdoor and facebook groups arent going to have messages from vigilant bored housewives just because you walked down the street sundown towns and the ideas that reinforce them don't exist for you but saying “privilege” suggests other things are handed to you that wouldn't necessarily be true

sahila 6y ago
What I find interesting in all your examples is it feels the cause for issues are power imbalances and racism. The people calling the cops are likely the white neighbors on their black neighbors and not the other way around. In your nextdoor example, it's not just "bored housewives", it's "white bored housewives". I don't suppose you feel that black bored housewives are also posting those messages.
- vmception 6y ago
  Correct. Did you need that validated or I am missing the point of your post….? Not sure how to respond, you know that we are agreeing, like 100%?
  - sahila 6y ago
    No response needed, but I think it's interesting that you (and others) use safe language to describe the perpetrators, like "nobody" and "nextdoor groups", when really it's just other white people.