4 ms·

No, I truly believe there is no such thing, it's something made up by the entitled. Why is it that I work alongside many tiny asian women and indian women that

by rfnslyr 13y ago

No, I truly believe there is no such thing, it's something made up by the entitled. Why is it that I work alongside many tiny asian women and indian women that can barely speak a word of English and are in their 30's? You are assuming I go to a nice school and I'm from a nice middle class family that can support all my stuff. I'm not. I dropped out because I had no money and I was born in eastern european ghetto filth. Not have my sexuality be a real risk to my career and health? What do you know about my life, my career, my health, or anything, for you to lay baseless "privilege" assumptions? Being white isn't a ticket to kingdom come and anybody who believes so has to do some deep self reflection. I've been on the wrong side, the very very wrong side. What the fuck do you know about going to prison? Where was my white privilege when my teeth were being ground into the asphalt by 5 guys bigger than me? What do you know about not having SHIT to eat for days at a time? Not seeing your parents for weeks at a time to just bring food to the table? What do you know about spending 5 years travelling through many different countries just to escape a communist regime, to leave your family behind, to have nothing? "Privilege" is something created by the people that are already born into an upper class world and spend their days speculating upon the lives of the less fortunate which in turn sprouted this movement. Do not fucking sit here and spout this poisonous bullshit, because it doesn't exist in the extremes of life, only in the made up comfortable society you've been brought up in, maybe. You don't know shit about me.

icebraining 13y ago
Nobody is talking about you specifically, and nobody claims that white people are set for life or that no white people have shitty lives. The claim is that, all else being equal, and on average, being white provides a boost. This doesn't mean that you personally have benefited from this; but my grandfather smoked three packs a day and lived to be 90+, does that mean that smoking doesn't shorten the life expectancy?
- msandford 13y ago
  Sounds to me like that's more a result of your family, smarts, getting into the right college, etc than being white or male. Being white or male might have helped a bit, but I'm a white male and I didn't get paid 500k right out of school. If EVERY white male make 500k starting the day they graduated I'd believe that your theory holds true. But they don't. Perhaps it has less merit than you suspect.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Sounds to me like that's more a result of your family, smarts, getting into the right college, etc than being white or male. Possibly, though being white (or male) has influence on whether you get into the right college (or go to college at all). Being white or male might have helped a bit, but I'm a white male and I didn't get paid 500k right out of school. If EVERY white male make 500k starting the day they graduated I'd believe that your theory holds true. But they don't. This is a baffling claim. So no one has any privilege over anyone else unless they are among the 1% top earners in society? I can't even comprehend such logic. In any case, it's not my theory (I was just explaining it), and it's hardly without merit: this has been demonstrated in studies, such as [1] and [2]. [1] http://d.pr/f/guzI http://d.pr/f/guzI [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
  - doktrin 13y ago
    > If EVERY white male make 500k starting the day they graduated I'd believe that your theory holds true. While we're busy setting absurdly high evidentiary bars, let's make it a cool million.
  - dannypgh 13y ago
    I think your scale is a bit off; you're looking at how far you or others are from a cushy life near the top, but you really should be looking at the distance from the bottom. Take, for only a small example, stop and frisk, and disparate prosecution and sentencing. It should really go without saying that there is a racial element to this -- police officers don't know how much money you make or how much class privilege you can truly bring to bear when they decide to stop you, pull you over, search you, or arrest you. Being black or brown in a predominately affluent (and chances are, predominately white) neighborhood doesn't make you exempt from being bothered - in fact, it makes you look more "out of place" and more likely to be stopped, and I say that both from a casual review of literature but also my personal experiences. And of course, just about every day we hear about all sorts of wealthy black people (Forrest Whittaker comes to mind as a relatively recent high-profile example) who get treated like criminals at stores because overzealous security guards have unconscious (or sometimes even conscious!) biases. The fact that black & brown people are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, and sentenced means that white people are disproportionately not stopped, not searched, not arrested, acquitted, or given lenient sentences. It means that a lot of white kids have been given second chances / have had their illegal habits or decisions overlooked and gone on to still get financial aid (drug convictions can permanently disqualify you for federal financial aid), not be a felon, and get decent jobs in decent neighborhoods when the exact same doors are closed for many people of color who didn't do anything differently. Yes, there is a class component to all of this - being wealthy may make it easier to get off after your arrest - but the biases in the criminal justice pipeline at and before arrest are really more race-based than anything. I don't think that anyone thinks that being white affords white people the kinds of privileges that a $500k/year salary gives you. That's really a pretty absurd suggestion and I think most reasonable people who are not completely ignorant should be aware of all of the white poverty that exists to know that. But, even after controlling for everything else - including crimes committed - it does help to keep you out of prison and the criminal justice system. That's not the only privilege, either. But in our overly incarcerated society, it's an important one.
vinceguidry 13y ago
Yeah, unfortunately "white" in this country excludes eastern Europeans, pretty much anyone with an accent. No privilege for you.
macimumloam 13y ago
I apologize if my previous was worded in way that made it come across as assumptions about you, my intention was more rhetorical questions. No one is saying that any of these characteristics are a free pass to happiness and fulfillment in life. It is just to say that many people do feel the consequences of it within their society and that is unjust. Privilege is most often applied to discuss life in a society that is already well off and thats true. I think this is because no one question the privilege of being born in a wealthy suburb rather then a shanty town. But the betterment of life people within and without of any society are not mutually exclusive goals.
hythloday 13y ago
Link is exactly what it says it is: http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person-shesaid/ http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/explaining-white-pri...
nsxwolf 13y ago
I suppose the "white privilege" folks would just respond "Well, it would have been way worse if you hadn't been white!"
wisty 13y ago
Yes, but you benefit for being in the same class as other white males, who are sometimes very powerful. Because God knows powerful white males like nothing more than helping less powerful white males climb the next run on the ladder. Especially less powerful white males from Eastern European. (and yes, the internet needs a sarcasm tag).
consz 13y ago
Just because you, personally, aren't able to see the benefits of being white/male doesn't mean it's not there. I was getting paid half a million right out of college and the fact that I was a white middle-class male absolutely made a difference -- I don't think I would've broken into the old boys network at my firm without that. Or how about the time I was ticketed for going 105 on a highway in TX with a bag of pot in my car, but the officer decided not to search my car (or even bring up the idea). Or a million other advantages I've received from being who I am.
dobbsbob 13y ago
Welcome to identity politics, it has taken over all discussion and derailed any hope of alternative political movements accomplishing anything except factioning, infighting and bullshit. Even my local anarchist space has been overrun by identity politics (not that I'm an anarchist, just they used to do some interesting things there until privilege spouting dictators took it over to constantly preach about identity politics). I'm thinking about funding an entirely new free space just to get rid of that cancer but I suspect they will just show up to protest how we aren't conforming to identity politics, because the left here cares more about policing and attacking each other than they do accomplishing anything.

by rfnslyr 13y ago

icebraining 13y ago

Nobody is talking about you specifically, and nobody claims that white people are set for life or that no white people have shitty lives. The claim is that, all else being equal, and on average, being white provides a boost. This doesn't mean that you personally have benefited from this; but my grandfather smoked three packs a day and lived to be 90+, does that mean that smoking doesn't shorten the life expectancy?

msandford 13y ago
Sounds to me like that's more a result of your family, smarts, getting into the right college, etc than being white or male. Being white or male might have helped a bit, but I'm a white male and I didn't get paid 500k right out of school. If EVERY white male make 500k starting the day they graduated I'd believe that your theory holds true. But they don't. Perhaps it has less merit than you suspect.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Sounds to me like that's more a result of your family, smarts, getting into the right college, etc than being white or male. Possibly, though being white (or male) has influence on whether you get into the right college (or go to college at all). Being white or male might have helped a bit, but I'm a white male and I didn't get paid 500k right out of school. If EVERY white male make 500k starting the day they graduated I'd believe that your theory holds true. But they don't. This is a baffling claim. So no one has any privilege over anyone else unless they are among the 1% top earners in society? I can't even comprehend such logic. In any case, it's not my theory (I was just explaining it), and it's hardly without merit: this has been demonstrated in studies, such as [1] and [2]. [1] http://d.pr/f/guzI http://d.pr/f/guzI [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
- doktrin 13y ago
  > If EVERY white male make 500k starting the day they graduated I'd believe that your theory holds true. While we're busy setting absurdly high evidentiary bars, let's make it a cool million.
- dannypgh 13y ago
  I think your scale is a bit off; you're looking at how far you or others are from a cushy life near the top, but you really should be looking at the distance from the bottom. Take, for only a small example, stop and frisk, and disparate prosecution and sentencing. It should really go without saying that there is a racial element to this -- police officers don't know how much money you make or how much class privilege you can truly bring to bear when they decide to stop you, pull you over, search you, or arrest you. Being black or brown in a predominately affluent (and chances are, predominately white) neighborhood doesn't make you exempt from being bothered - in fact, it makes you look more "out of place" and more likely to be stopped, and I say that both from a casual review of literature but also my personal experiences. And of course, just about every day we hear about all sorts of wealthy black people (Forrest Whittaker comes to mind as a relatively recent high-profile example) who get treated like criminals at stores because overzealous security guards have unconscious (or sometimes even conscious!) biases. The fact that black & brown people are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, and sentenced means that white people are disproportionately not stopped, not searched, not arrested, acquitted, or given lenient sentences. It means that a lot of white kids have been given second chances / have had their illegal habits or decisions overlooked and gone on to still get financial aid (drug convictions can permanently disqualify you for federal financial aid), not be a felon, and get decent jobs in decent neighborhoods when the exact same doors are closed for many people of color who didn't do anything differently. Yes, there is a class component to all of this - being wealthy may make it easier to get off after your arrest - but the biases in the criminal justice pipeline at and before arrest are really more race-based than anything. I don't think that anyone thinks that being white affords white people the kinds of privileges that a $500k/year salary gives you. That's really a pretty absurd suggestion and I think most reasonable people who are not completely ignorant should be aware of all of the white poverty that exists to know that. But, even after controlling for everything else - including crimes committed - it does help to keep you out of prison and the criminal justice system. That's not the only privilege, either. But in our overly incarcerated society, it's an important one.

vinceguidry 13y ago

Yeah, unfortunately "white" in this country excludes eastern Europeans, pretty much anyone with an accent. No privilege for you.

macimumloam 13y ago

I apologize if my previous was worded in way that made it come across as assumptions about you, my intention was more rhetorical questions. No one is saying that any of these characteristics are a free pass to happiness and fulfillment in life. It is just to say that many people do feel the consequences of it within their society and that is unjust. Privilege is most often applied to discuss life in a society that is already well off and thats true. I think this is because no one question the privilege of being born in a wealthy suburb rather then a shanty town. But the betterment of life people within and without of any society are not mutually exclusive goals.

hythloday 13y ago

Link is exactly what it says it is: http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person-shesaid/ http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/explaining-white-pri...

nsxwolf 13y ago

I suppose the "white privilege" folks would just respond "Well, it would have been way worse if you hadn't been white!"

wisty 13y ago

Yes, but you benefit for being in the same class as other white males, who are sometimes very powerful. Because God knows powerful white males like nothing more than helping less powerful white males climb the next run on the ladder. Especially less powerful white males from Eastern European. (and yes, the internet needs a sarcasm tag).

consz 13y ago

Just because you, personally, aren't able to see the benefits of being white/male doesn't mean it's not there. I was getting paid half a million right out of college and the fact that I was a white middle-class male absolutely made a difference -- I don't think I would've broken into the old boys network at my firm without that. Or how about the time I was ticketed for going 105 on a highway in TX with a bag of pot in my car, but the officer decided not to search my car (or even bring up the idea). Or a million other advantages I've received from being who I am.

dobbsbob 13y ago

Welcome to identity politics, it has taken over all discussion and derailed any hope of alternative political movements accomplishing anything except factioning, infighting and bullshit. Even my local anarchist space has been overrun by identity politics (not that I'm an anarchist, just they used to do some interesting things there until privilege spouting dictators took it over to constantly preach about identity politics). I'm thinking about funding an entirely new free space just to get rid of that cancer but I suspect they will just show up to protest how we aren't conforming to identity politics, because the left here cares more about policing and attacking each other than they do accomplishing anything.