7 ms·

I think that the biggest privilege one can have, at least when it comes to matters of career and finance is being born to middle-class or better parents and hav

by jiggy2011 14y ago

I think that the biggest privilege one can have, at least when it comes to matters of career and finance is being born to middle-class or better parents and having an above average IQ. I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success than a straight white guy from the trailer park/slum who struggles with reading/writing skills. I find it interesting that it is generally considered correct and fair that somebody has better income and quality of life because of high intelligence when this is a factor as much outside your control as race or gender.

unalone 14y ago
> I find it interesting that it is generally considered correct and fair that somebody has better income and quality of life because of high intelligence when this is a factor as much outside your control as race or gender. I don't think it is generally considered correct and fair, which is why so many people are critical of libertarians and Objectivism. Class struggle is a major issue, and post-industrial capitalism is itself often criticized for creating these inherent imbalances. None of that, however, has to do with this particular issue, which is absolutely worth discussing. If you submit a story about the unfairness of upper- versus lower-class opportunities, I'll certainly upvote it.
paranoiacblack 14y ago
I disagree. I think the biggest privilege one can have is a fair start. Being able to live as you'd like without picking up hundreds of years of stigma and injustices or having to work extremely hard to distinguish yourself as someone that can be trusted. > I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success than a straight white guy from the trailer park/slum who struggles with reading/writing skills. Privilege isn't about odds of success, it's about proportional work to become successful. When someone doesn't trust you or has something against you because of your ethnicity or gender, you have to work two or three times as hard for the same success someone else has. That's the problem. > I find it interesting that it is generally considered correct and fair that somebody has better income and quality of life because of high intelligence when this is a factor as much outside your control as race or gender. This is just the American Dream blown out of proportion, as usual.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  If you have a low IQ, the amount of extra work you have to put in in order to successful in a well paying career will be far higher than someone of high intelligence. Being black or homosexual will work against you if you want to work in industries with strong institutionalised stigmas, being dumb will work against you in any industry.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Privilege isn't just your job. It can refer to where you live and shop and hang out. You might work in an industry that has no stigma against gay people. But if your local town does, then you're disadvantaged.
  - unalone 14y ago
    Yes, which is why plenty of people think that capitalism is inherently flawed. A system which rewards production over anything is a system in which those who can't produce as effectively will be punished. Unless you truly believe that production is the end-all be-all of human existence, that's not a fair system. (There's also the problem of capitalism being really bad at properly valuing things but that's neither here nor there.) But what you're missing, Mr. Jiggy, is that the biases we're talking about extend way beyond "industry". They infiltrate every part of our culture. Politics, media representation, religious attitudes, the values we teach our children, on and on and on. This incident with Adria is happening the same week that a number of news organizations were criticized for reporting on a rape trial and sympathizing with the rapists. CNN, NPR, Fox News all ran stories about how much it sucks to have your life ruined for raping somebody. Some even disclosed the name of the 16-year-old victim, so that people could email her rape threats the same way they've been writing Adria. And this wasn't an ambiguous case of "did they rape this girl" – the people shot video of the rape and posted it to YouTube with the tags "rape" and "offensive". Still we had people asking if the raped girl "was asking for it", and writing hatefully that she's just a "slut who ruined two good boys' lives". I get that you feel there are other imbalances at play in society, and believe you me there are! But please don't make this about which particular imbalance is the outright worst one. Ours is a hugely misogynistic culture, and this unfortunate incident is triggering not only a huge bout of anti-feminist sentiment, but also convincing a lot of people that feminists are just assholes who need attention at the expense of innocent men. Which is about the opposite of true. Again, if you want to start a thread to discuss other flaws in the system, be my guest! Hacker News doesn't see nearly enough of that conversation, in my opinion. But that's not really what this post is about.
beatpanda 14y ago
But the point is, you're just imagining those things, which is what causes you to set up this neat little world where a black lesbian has an Ivy League education just because she's smart, ignoring all of the extra obstacles that would be in her way compared to someone with more social privilege. You're able to do this by comparing different kinds of circumstances — the person born with white and male privilege but little money or academic skill (and indeed, these are handicaps!), and the person born into the world with similar handicaps, who has already overcome them, preventing us from actually comparing their circumstances. When oppressed people reach recognizable pinnacles of success, like an Ivy League education, it's because they worked harder than lots of other people might have had to, despite other advantages they might have had.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  If you are born with a high IQ and a wealthy background that is more due to luck than any extra effort you have put in. Your ancestors effectively overcame these obstacles on your behalf, so in essence that is a form of privilege; just a different type.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Just because you have privilege doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's not your fault. You shouldn't really feel guilty. It's just luck a lot of the time. Luck can take away privilege as well. One unluck car accident can make you paralyzed. There goes your able bodies privilege then. And not everyone has the same obstacles (that's the point of privilege), so you can't say for sure that your white ancestors had the same struggles (say) to get university educated as a current black female person today.
    - jtbigwoo 14y ago
      No one has argued in this thread that you and I are bad peeple because we're priviledged. What they're saying is that if we are not aware of that priviledge you are living in ignorance and should not be surprised when less priviledged people don't take us seriously. Take Rosseau's famous example of priviledged ignorance: "If the peasants have no bread, let them eat cake." If we are not aware of our priviledge we appear just as ridiculous as that French princess. Also, I'm pretty sure my white ancestors never turned on the tv and saw a state governor standing at the door of a university trying to block white people from getting in.
rmc 14y ago
I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success Sure. The lesbian black woman has class privilege (and/or wealth privilege). But just imagine this, the straight white cis male who lives next door to the black lesbian and goes to the same school etc. has an added advantage. In many 'social justice' spaces, being "classist" is also frowned upon (just like being sexism, racist, etc.)
Steuard 14y ago
Others have responded to parts of this already, so I won't repeat their points. But one issue that I haven't seen anyone comment on is that race and sex are very overt traits, while family wealth and IQ are a good bit less obvious at a glance. Being born in a poor family makes life much harder, no question, but (e.g.) if a straight white man from a trailer park does get into a good college then the people around him won't immediately guess his background (and judge him for it). A lot of them will make the high-probability assumption that his family is similar to their own, and that implicit sense of kinship will go a long way toward making him a welcome part of the community. A person who's black or female in that same environment could hardly expect to have the same experience: those traits are in most cases obvious at a glance. If a teacher or a peer has a prejudice against both "blacks" and "people from trailer parks" (consciously or unconsciously), the black student will definitely suffer from it while the poor white student may luck out. And there's little chance that privileged white guys will unthinkingly assume that a black student is actually white or that a woman is actually a man and thus feel that implicit sense of kinship.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  But the straight white guy from the trailer part won't get a good educated because he will be discriminated against for being dumb.
  - sophacles 14y ago
    Only if he advertises his "trailer park" background. The point is, he can "pass" for not being from a trailer park with no difficulty (just get setting appropriate clothes and don't say "I'm from a trailer park" all the time).
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      The discrimination will come in the form of standardized examination. If you aren't born with the intellectual ability to pass exams you can't go to harvard. It's not always easy to pass for upper class when you are not, this is especially true in the UK where you will be judged on your accent.

unalone 14y ago

> I find it interesting that it is generally considered correct and fair that somebody has better income and quality of life because of high intelligence when this is a factor as much outside your control as race or gender. I don't think it is generally considered correct and fair, which is why so many people are critical of libertarians and Objectivism. Class struggle is a major issue, and post-industrial capitalism is itself often criticized for creating these inherent imbalances. None of that, however, has to do with this particular issue, which is absolutely worth discussing. If you submit a story about the unfairness of upper- versus lower-class opportunities, I'll certainly upvote it.

paranoiacblack 14y ago

I disagree. I think the biggest privilege one can have is a fair start. Being able to live as you'd like without picking up hundreds of years of stigma and injustices or having to work extremely hard to distinguish yourself as someone that can be trusted. > I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success than a straight white guy from the trailer park/slum who struggles with reading/writing skills. Privilege isn't about odds of success, it's about proportional work to become successful. When someone doesn't trust you or has something against you because of your ethnicity or gender, you have to work two or three times as hard for the same success someone else has. That's the problem. > I find it interesting that it is generally considered correct and fair that somebody has better income and quality of life because of high intelligence when this is a factor as much outside your control as race or gender. This is just the American Dream blown out of proportion, as usual.

jiggy2011 14y ago
If you have a low IQ, the amount of extra work you have to put in in order to successful in a well paying career will be far higher than someone of high intelligence. Being black or homosexual will work against you if you want to work in industries with strong institutionalised stigmas, being dumb will work against you in any industry.
- rmc 14y ago
  Privilege isn't just your job. It can refer to where you live and shop and hang out. You might work in an industry that has no stigma against gay people. But if your local town does, then you're disadvantaged.
- unalone 14y ago
  Yes, which is why plenty of people think that capitalism is inherently flawed. A system which rewards production over anything is a system in which those who can't produce as effectively will be punished. Unless you truly believe that production is the end-all be-all of human existence, that's not a fair system. (There's also the problem of capitalism being really bad at properly valuing things but that's neither here nor there.) But what you're missing, Mr. Jiggy, is that the biases we're talking about extend way beyond "industry". They infiltrate every part of our culture. Politics, media representation, religious attitudes, the values we teach our children, on and on and on. This incident with Adria is happening the same week that a number of news organizations were criticized for reporting on a rape trial and sympathizing with the rapists. CNN, NPR, Fox News all ran stories about how much it sucks to have your life ruined for raping somebody. Some even disclosed the name of the 16-year-old victim, so that people could email her rape threats the same way they've been writing Adria. And this wasn't an ambiguous case of "did they rape this girl" – the people shot video of the rape and posted it to YouTube with the tags "rape" and "offensive". Still we had people asking if the raped girl "was asking for it", and writing hatefully that she's just a "slut who ruined two good boys' lives". I get that you feel there are other imbalances at play in society, and believe you me there are! But please don't make this about which particular imbalance is the outright worst one. Ours is a hugely misogynistic culture, and this unfortunate incident is triggering not only a huge bout of anti-feminist sentiment, but also convincing a lot of people that feminists are just assholes who need attention at the expense of innocent men. Which is about the opposite of true. Again, if you want to start a thread to discuss other flaws in the system, be my guest! Hacker News doesn't see nearly enough of that conversation, in my opinion. But that's not really what this post is about.

beatpanda 14y ago

But the point is, you're just imagining those things, which is what causes you to set up this neat little world where a black lesbian has an Ivy League education just because she's smart, ignoring all of the extra obstacles that would be in her way compared to someone with more social privilege. You're able to do this by comparing different kinds of circumstances — the person born with white and male privilege but little money or academic skill (and indeed, these are handicaps!), and the person born into the world with similar handicaps, who has already overcome them, preventing us from actually comparing their circumstances. When oppressed people reach recognizable pinnacles of success, like an Ivy League education, it's because they worked harder than lots of other people might have had to, despite other advantages they might have had.

jiggy2011 14y ago
If you are born with a high IQ and a wealthy background that is more due to luck than any extra effort you have put in. Your ancestors effectively overcame these obstacles on your behalf, so in essence that is a form of privilege; just a different type.
- rmc 14y ago
  Just because you have privilege doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's not your fault. You shouldn't really feel guilty. It's just luck a lot of the time. Luck can take away privilege as well. One unluck car accident can make you paralyzed. There goes your able bodies privilege then. And not everyone has the same obstacles (that's the point of privilege), so you can't say for sure that your white ancestors had the same struggles (say) to get university educated as a current black female person today.
  - jtbigwoo 14y ago
    No one has argued in this thread that you and I are bad peeple because we're priviledged. What they're saying is that if we are not aware of that priviledge you are living in ignorance and should not be surprised when less priviledged people don't take us seriously. Take Rosseau's famous example of priviledged ignorance: "If the peasants have no bread, let them eat cake." If we are not aware of our priviledge we appear just as ridiculous as that French princess. Also, I'm pretty sure my white ancestors never turned on the tv and saw a state governor standing at the door of a university trying to block white people from getting in.

rmc 14y ago

I would imagine a lesbian black woman with an Ivy league education has much greater odds of success Sure. The lesbian black woman has class privilege (and/or wealth privilege). But just imagine this, the straight white cis male who lives next door to the black lesbian and goes to the same school etc. has an added advantage. In many 'social justice' spaces, being "classist" is also frowned upon (just like being sexism, racist, etc.)

Steuard 14y ago

Others have responded to parts of this already, so I won't repeat their points. But one issue that I haven't seen anyone comment on is that race and sex are very overt traits, while family wealth and IQ are a good bit less obvious at a glance. Being born in a poor family makes life much harder, no question, but (e.g.) if a straight white man from a trailer park does get into a good college then the people around him won't immediately guess his background (and judge him for it). A lot of them will make the high-probability assumption that his family is similar to their own, and that implicit sense of kinship will go a long way toward making him a welcome part of the community. A person who's black or female in that same environment could hardly expect to have the same experience: those traits are in most cases obvious at a glance. If a teacher or a peer has a prejudice against both "blacks" and "people from trailer parks" (consciously or unconsciously), the black student will definitely suffer from it while the poor white student may luck out. And there's little chance that privileged white guys will unthinkingly assume that a black student is actually white or that a woman is actually a man and thus feel that implicit sense of kinship.

jiggy2011 14y ago
But the straight white guy from the trailer part won't get a good educated because he will be discriminated against for being dumb.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Only if he advertises his "trailer park" background. The point is, he can "pass" for not being from a trailer park with no difficulty (just get setting appropriate clothes and don't say "I'm from a trailer park" all the time).
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    The discrimination will come in the form of standardized examination. If you aren't born with the intellectual ability to pass exams you can't go to harvard. It's not always easy to pass for upper class when you are not, this is especially true in the UK where you will be judged on your accent.