Part of being Privileged is not having to think about being Privileged

[Alceste]

I don't see what that would do to improve anything.

It's reassuring. If you were sent off by government edict to a boarding school where you were beaten, raped and starved half to death in an effort to try to turn you white, hearing an official apology from the government might help settle any concerns you might have that they might try to do the same thing to your own kids.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

It's reassuring. If you were sent off by government edict to a boarding school where you were beaten, raped and starved half to death in an effort to try to turn you white, hearing an official apology from the government might help settle any concerns you might have that they might try to do the same thing to your own kids.

Fair enough.

 

[Revoltingest]

Us privileged 1%-ers, I guess, in a bid to bring about a modern version of the Feudal system.

I also know many youngish folk who are buying homes. But they're typically a couple who both work to work to earn the money. This "privilege" can be earned. I've even shot myself in the foot by helping my tenants buy property....then they move out, & I rent to losers. Oh, well.

 

[dust1n]

I suppose, Dustin.

Thank ya for the response.

Well, it does provide some rather interesting foundations for implementing what some might consider to be fairly radical solutions. You can make a case for fair living wages, equality, social justice, et al, by hinging them to the notions of existing privilege and systemic inequality.

Well, we agree here. If 'white privilege' is a buzzword like thousands of others, it could be used in all sorts of cases, many I'm sure wouldn't be too productive. But it's possible many productive things can result. Either way, I fail to see what not acknowledging the existence of said privilege is going to do for anyone.

Furthermore, there is a certain element to the narrative that is not going to be picked up in other manners of examination. Would you trust anyone other then you to describe your experiences, or your being? It's necessary for us to have established narrative to even broach the topic we are discussing. So, I don't think narration is innately useless, though problematic at times.

I do recognize that, Dustin, but the notion of "white privilege" has its roots in CRT.

Sure, but the invalidity to "white privilege" would indicate that the whole of CRT is invalid. It's invalidity would extend only to the aspects that are "white privilege."

They may or may not. Poor folks, across the racial spectrum, have much in common. It's not that the world is out to get them. They're just poor - often through no fault of their own.

I agree with you that poor people of different races have a very much vested interest in working together. In the American past, race and patriotism have often divided the poor, who, in conjunction with one another, have accomplish much.

One person CAN make a difference, Dustin. Try to never let go of that. You don't have to change the world, but you can make YOUR world a little better. By improving your lot, you will automatically help people around you. Then again, perhaps I am just delusional.

Yeah, I don't find that particular narrative useful. A.) I'm not concerned with my world. I, in fact, don't possess one, but I share one with tons of people. I'm not interested in finding a microcosm necessarily. B.) It seems to me that most problems are economic in nature, and making my lot better will entail money being give to people I would never give money to. So, when I could in fact be helping the people around me, I could be worsening the lot, in a small way, contributing to something that is much more effective at worsening lots then improving them. C.) And I disagree with personal modern heroism, in which I should be concerned with which how I succeed in life being measured by how big the boon I, and only I, get at the end of it.

But it does, Dustin. IF this supposed "privilege" is nonexistent and you convince people it is real you harm them by robbing them of motivation. If it IS real, then you simply underscore the hopelessness. Bear in mind that it is almost impossible to prove that such "privilege" exists. You have to skew things just so, to bring it into focus.

But it doesn't [have to do with whether white privilege or not exists], because both of those situations are examining the results of whether or not privilege it exists, but the determiner for whether or something exists is not by measure of the effect it would have on society whether it actually existed or not. Either it exists or it doesn't exist. That has nothing to do with what happens to people who are convinced that's it true.

I'd love to see even a couple of examples of what you are talking about. Bear in mind, I'm Canadian and we have a different set of issues here. From my perspective, for example, things here are not quite how Alceste describes them. Sure, you will get many who agree with her, but there is also many who would dispute her position. It's as clear as mud, really.

All the more reason to determine if such systemic privilege actually exists. I'm all for serious research into the question and sorry, I don't consider "Google" as one helpful poster suggested as being serious research. My bar is a bit higher than that.

I got some stuff to do at the moment, but I'll come back to this part later on.

A bit of a misunderstanding. No, De Bois concepts are fairly complex, but when compared to the complexity of the problems, they are simplistic, imo, of course.

Well, ya, that's true for everything. All concepts are rather simplistic to the meaning attempting to be conveyed.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

Us privileged 1%-ers, I guess, in a bid to bring about a modern version of the Feudal system.

Left unchecked, feudalism may well be where we're headed. Heck, many third-world countries have some form of it.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Left unchecked, feudalism may well be where we're headed. Heck, many third-world countries have some form of it.

And what exactly is going to stop it?

 

[DallasApple]

Why do you think you must apologize for being white?

I have certain "priveledges"!

Im a cracka!white woman breast feeding vaginal birther!


I guess I don't think much about it...

BUT I got a right to be wrong!

[youtube]9ynh9JC_NeI[/youtube]
Joss Stone - Right To Be Wrong - YouTube

 

[Penumbra]

I've heard it said that part of being privileged is not having to think about how you privileged.

If you're White, you don't need to think about -- and you can even deny without consequence to you -- that 80% of the police stop and searches in your neighborhood happen to young men of color.

If you are a male in a society that does not allow women to drive, you need not reflect much on how inconvenient, limiting, or infantilizing that might be for a female in your society.

If you're rich and live in a neighborhood with access to full line grocery stores, you do not need to be aware of how limited the food options are to poor people living in neighborhoods with no full line grocery stores.

It seems that there are few, if any, negative consequences to being ignorant of your own privileged position in society.

Or are there? What do you think?

When I go through my day, I never have to think about not being disabled. I don't have to plan anything about my day due to being in a wheelchair, for example. I rarely have to sit down and realize how able-bodied I am. When I book a hotel room or decide to go some place, I don't have to worry about whether or not they have appropriate physical accommodations for wheelchairs. As an able-bodied person, I just to get assume that wherever I go, it's designed for me.

As a white person, with a white name, I don't have to worry if the name on my resume sounds too black. I don't have to wonder if my resume is identical to a white person's, it'll get much fewer callbacks and be equivalent to having 8 fewer years of experience if it has a name like Lakisha instead of Lyn. Instead, I just get to assume that my name is in no way a disadvantage to my job prospects.

I don't have to worry about getting pulled over specifically because of my race. I don't have to worry about an employer deciding not to hire me due to bias against gay people. I don't have to fight the system to get an appropriate gender ID on my official documents. People generally don't view me as being a threat to their property just by being near it; that's always nice. When I watch movies or read books and stuff, most people look like me.

Instead, I get to relax, and point out that technically, all of those people can still make things work out. There's no hard limit against them. If they work harder than me and get luckier than me, they may work their situation out to a similar way that I have. If they don't, I can just say it's their fault, that we had equal access, that privilege doesn't exist. Who cares about facts and statistics when I get to ignore them?

 

[Reverend Rick]

Good points Lyn, but I believe we all become aware of injustice when our black friend or disabled family member experiences it. The fact that you see straight whites marching in gay pride parades or on MLK day says something about the fact that we are aware of these problems.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

When I go through my day, I never have to think about not being disabled. I don't have to plan anything about my day due to being in a wheelchair, for example. I rarely have to sit down and realize how able-bodied I am. When I book a hotel room or decide to go some place, I don't have to worry about whether or not they have appropriate physical accommodations for wheelchairs. As an able-bodied person, I just to get assume that wherever I go, it's designed for me.

As a white person, with a white name, I don't have to worry if the name on my resume sounds too black. I don't have to wonder if my resume is identical to a white person's, it'll get much fewer callbacks and be equivalent to having 8 fewer years of experience if it has a name like Lakisha instead of Lyn. Instead, I just get to assume that my name is in no way a disadvantage to my job prospects.

I don't have to worry about getting pulled over specifically because of my race. I don't have to worry about an employer deciding not to hire me due to bias against gay people. I don't have to fight the system to get an appropriate gender ID on my official documents. People generally don't view me as being a threat to their property just by being near it; that's always nice. When I watch movies or read books and stuff, most people look like me.

Instead, I get to relax, and point out that technically, all of those people can still make things work out. There's no hard limit against them. If they work harder than me and get luckier than me, they may work their situation out to a similar way that I have. If they don't, I can just say it's their fault, that we had equal access, that privilege doesn't exist. Who cares about facts and statistics when I get to ignore them?

The bold part in your post is a very good summary, IMO.

I think people are misunderstanding the use of the term "privilege". It somehow implies that materials, money, anything that can be measured is simply handed to them by some higher authority. I approach "privilege" as an immunity to broad civil rights injustices. Racial profiling at airports or DWB (driving while black) simply does not happen to entire demographics. I see this kind of privilege as the immunity, the buffer, a cultural birthright to certain liberties that others don't.

I know you'd brought up in another thread how transgendered people can offer a very unique view to stratified and specific gender roles. I also know personally what hetero-normative culture does to same sex couples not just at a legislative level, but a day-to-day cultural level, too. When I was in a long-term committed relationship with another woman, it was nothing like my long-term relationships with other men. The fact that I'm married to a man and have a family with a man is expected. I don't have to consistently prove myself worthy of having a household, having a legal marriage, and raising children. I can just have a household, enjoy my marriage, and raise our children without any extra baggage heaped on us.

In other words, the fact that I'm married to a man magically grants me complete immunity from harassment in many areas. I am simply able to relax and live life in a hetero-normative culture and government. Same sex couples do not have this privilege that i have, and I certainly did not have the same opportunities when I was in a long term relationship - and wanting a deeply committed life long relationship - with another woman.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Yes indeed, the white people here are privileged:
Tuskegee syphilis experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tuskegee syphilis experiment[1] was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government.[1]
The Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began the study in 1932. Investigators enrolled in the study a total of 600 impoverished sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama; 399 who had previously contracted syphilis before the study began, and 201[2] without the disease. For participating in the study, the men were given free medical care, meals, and free burial insurance. They were never told they had syphilis, nor were they ever treated for it. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the men were told they were being treated for "bad blood", a local term for various illnesses that include syphilis, anemia, and fatigue.
The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards; primarily because researchers knowingly failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease they were studying. Revelation of study failures by a whistleblower led to major changes in U.S. law and regulation on the protection of participants in clinical studies. Now studies require informed consent (with exceptions possible for U.S. Federal agencies which can be kept secret by Executive Order),[3][not in citation given] communication of diagnosis, and accurate reporting of test results.[4]
By 1947, penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Choices available to the doctors involved in the study might have included treating all syphilitic subjects and closing the study, or splitting off a control group for testing with penicillin. Instead, the Tuskegee scientists continued the study without treating any participants and withholding penicillin and information about it from the patients. In addition, scientists prevented participants from accessing syphilis treatment programs available to others in the area.[5] The study continued, under numerous US Public Health Service supervisors, until 1972, when a leak to the press eventually resulted in its termination on November 16.[6] The victims of the study included numerous men who died of syphilis, wives who contracted the disease, and children born with congenital syphilis.[7]
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, cited as "arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U.S. history,"[8] led to the 1979 Belmont Report and the establishment of the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).[9] It also led to federal laws and regulations requiring Institutional Review Boards for the protection of human subjects in studies involving human subjects. The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) manages this responsibility within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).[10]

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

I'm not black... Lol I'm a racially mixed mutt but I look like your stereotypical Islander Latino (I'm mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican).

You look kind of Arab to me (just saying)

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Anti-white racism :biglaugh:

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

You look kind of Arab to me (just saying)

Could explain why I spend so much time in airport screening lol. For the most part people know I'm Hispanic, specifically from the Caribbean, but I've heard Arab before too. I had a roommate from Morocco; everybody at the bar we frequented thought we were related. I'm truly a mutt. Puerto Rican (descended from Basque ancestors, not Spanish), Eastern Band Cherokee, Dominican, and Italian.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

Could explain why I spend so much time in airport screening lol. For the most part people know I'm Hispanic, specifically from the Caribbean, but I've heard Arab before too. I had a roommate from Morocco; everybody at the bar we frequented thought we were related. I'm truly a mutt. Puerto Rican (descended from Basque ancestors, not Spanish), Eastern Band Cherokee, Dominican, and Italian.

Me too, as in I'm a mutt also.

 

[Alceste]

Me too, as in I'm a mutt also.

It's funny how darker skinned people are thought of as mutts when they're the progeny of a variety of ethnicities. I'm Russian, English and Irish. You'd think that would make me a mutt as well, but I get to just be "white".

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

It's funny how darker skinned people are thought of as mutts when they're the progeny of a variety of ethnicities. I'm Russian, English and Irish. You'd think that would make me a mutt as well, but I get to just be "white".

It is how we have come to define race, well mainly a white social definition of race, like if one of your parents are black you are JUST black but sold at a higher price. It is because the brown races are seen as "other."

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

But then again if I was half Jamaican and half Nigerian I wouldn't be seen as a mutt because both are of black African descent. So because you are of white European descent no one will view you as a mutt.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

And then also in some cultures it is your tribe that is your race and marrying into other tribes is a big no no! Even if they are from the same country.

 

[Aquitaine]

It's funny how darker skinned people are thought of as mutts when they're the progeny of a variety of ethnicities. I'm Russian, English and Irish. You'd think that would make me a mutt as well, but I get to just be "white".

Right, aren't we all "Mutts" at the end of the day?