4 ms·

I have — eg, people who accuse me of having “White Privilege”, even though I grew up in Rainier Beach, Seattle and was one of ten White kids in a school of 600,

I have — eg, people who accuse me of having “White Privilege”, even though I grew up in Rainier Beach, Seattle and was one of ten White kids in a school of 600, where not only did I suffer from the same issues of gang culture and poverty, I had the “privilege” of being robbed and beaten for my race by the dominant ethnicity in the neighborhood. The problem with “anti-racism” is that it’s racism: engaging in institutional discrimination against me, based on that statistical truth about a race I happen to belong to. The whole concept of “anti-racism” is (in practice) rich Whites excusing their privilege by engaging in “cleansing” racism against poor Whites.

aSanchezStern 5y ago
Hmm, but saying that you have privilege is not the same thing as saying you've done something wrong or are guilty, right? Even if you were born into an overall advantage, it wouldn't mean you had done anything wrong.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  It is about liability not guilt. The end goal for a large part of the anti-racist movement are reparations.
- zmgsabst 5y ago
  Saying that due to my skin, regardless of my actual life and heritage, I have some “privilege” for which it’s okay to discriminate against me as an institution is the definition of institutional racism: Racial bias + power. I’m uninterested in your semantic game to justify that racism.
  - aSanchezStern 5y ago
    I think if you could be a little more specific about what institutions think it's okay to discriminate against you in particular, it would really help.
    - emerged 5y ago
      I think we are starting to get sick of even playing these gaslighting games. There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t know this whole game is bullshit and you’re trying to reinvent language to justify racism against whites, sexism against men, and so on for every category of persons who made it on the fair game hit list. You’re not communicating with authenticity or decency, it’s just rhetoric all the way down. It’s at the breaking point where we all know you aren’t a good faith actor.
    - LanceH 5y ago
      Let's say you had a company which only hires 9 people. You decide that your next hire will be of a specific race and gender and not other candidates need apply. Would that be discrimination?
- dariusj18 5y ago
  This is a result of theirs and others' complete lack of understanding of what "privilege" means in the context. It is certainly a "both sides" kind of issue, where those with privilege think that their current standing is not commensurate with the having of privilege, as well as those who interpret it as these people need to give something up to make up for their leg up.
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  It is irrelevant insofar as it build expectations on the basis on your skin color. I do think that being white provides advantages even today, but it is an arbitrary criterion. Being born in the US offers vastly more privilege than being born in Afghanistan, even if you are white. So it is just another approach to frame a distribution debate between groups, which is not too conductive for any solutions and in the worst case is just an expression of real racism, which I start to assume that it is.
tomrod 5y ago
Growing up, I was formerly a member of a high demand religion, in an area where it had minor representation. I took a lot of flak for that as a kid -- targeted and environmental. Fights, physical abuse, verbal harassment, hostile work environment and more were common. I can empathize with your plight, having experienced it similarly. That said, I have the "right" color of skin and didn't have nearly as much issue once I removed myself from the area I grew up in (and, later, contravened that religion by exiting and keeping my worldviews private). I completely acknowledge racial privilege can exist, and that I am a beneficiary of the setup as such, much like the dominant religions in my childhood hometown had religious privilege and the "good ole boys" network is built to serve their adherents locally. It SUCKS to be the target of negative interaction, it sucks 100x worse for it to be environmental. My take on the entire state of race relations is that the median person wants interruption of the "good ole boys" entrenchment. This does mean privilege gets reduced for some, which feels like persecution and evokes fear like we see from folks rallying against "CRT in schools" (though it's typically just general history being railed against). Then we see disconnected takes like PG's "Heresy" recently, which takes the extremist positions on both ends of the horsehose as representative of the median. I learned pretty early on that most people are fairly banal in what they want -- food to eat, roof overhead, available recreation, build a nest egg and something resembling a family. These things are at risk these days due to class division and economic uncertainty; people in the well-to-do side of things are perfectly happy to see the stress taken off themselves and projected into racial and ethnic divisions because they can afford something like security provisions. Apologies for rambling, your comments just elicited a lot of things I don't think about all that often.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

aSanchezStern 5y ago

Hmm, but saying that you have privilege is not the same thing as saying you've done something wrong or are guilty, right? Even if you were born into an overall advantage, it wouldn't mean you had done anything wrong.

macinjosh 5y ago
It is about liability not guilt. The end goal for a large part of the anti-racist movement are reparations.
zmgsabst 5y ago
Saying that due to my skin, regardless of my actual life and heritage, I have some “privilege” for which it’s okay to discriminate against me as an institution is the definition of institutional racism: Racial bias + power. I’m uninterested in your semantic game to justify that racism.
- aSanchezStern 5y ago
  I think if you could be a little more specific about what institutions think it's okay to discriminate against you in particular, it would really help.
  - emerged 5y ago
    I think we are starting to get sick of even playing these gaslighting games. There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t know this whole game is bullshit and you’re trying to reinvent language to justify racism against whites, sexism against men, and so on for every category of persons who made it on the fair game hit list. You’re not communicating with authenticity or decency, it’s just rhetoric all the way down. It’s at the breaking point where we all know you aren’t a good faith actor.
  - LanceH 5y ago
    Let's say you had a company which only hires 9 people. You decide that your next hire will be of a specific race and gender and not other candidates need apply. Would that be discrimination?
dariusj18 5y ago
This is a result of theirs and others' complete lack of understanding of what "privilege" means in the context. It is certainly a "both sides" kind of issue, where those with privilege think that their current standing is not commensurate with the having of privilege, as well as those who interpret it as these people need to give something up to make up for their leg up.
raxxorraxor 5y ago
It is irrelevant insofar as it build expectations on the basis on your skin color. I do think that being white provides advantages even today, but it is an arbitrary criterion. Being born in the US offers vastly more privilege than being born in Afghanistan, even if you are white. So it is just another approach to frame a distribution debate between groups, which is not too conductive for any solutions and in the worst case is just an expression of real racism, which I start to assume that it is.

tomrod 5y ago

Growing up, I was formerly a member of a high demand religion, in an area where it had minor representation. I took a lot of flak for that as a kid -- targeted and environmental. Fights, physical abuse, verbal harassment, hostile work environment and more were common. I can empathize with your plight, having experienced it similarly. That said, I have the "right" color of skin and didn't have nearly as much issue once I removed myself from the area I grew up in (and, later, contravened that religion by exiting and keeping my worldviews private). I completely acknowledge racial privilege can exist, and that I am a beneficiary of the setup as such, much like the dominant religions in my childhood hometown had religious privilege and the "good ole boys" network is built to serve their adherents locally. It SUCKS to be the target of negative interaction, it sucks 100x worse for it to be environmental. My take on the entire state of race relations is that the median person wants interruption of the "good ole boys" entrenchment. This does mean privilege gets reduced for some, which feels like persecution and evokes fear like we see from folks rallying against "CRT in schools" (though it's typically just general history being railed against). Then we see disconnected takes like PG's "Heresy" recently, which takes the extremist positions on both ends of the horsehose as representative of the median. I learned pretty early on that most people are fairly banal in what they want -- food to eat, roof overhead, available recreation, build a nest egg and something resembling a family. These things are at risk these days due to class division and economic uncertainty; people in the well-to-do side of things are perfectly happy to see the stress taken off themselves and projected into racial and ethnic divisions because they can afford something like security provisions. Apologies for rambling, your comments just elicited a lot of things I don't think about all that often.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]