I remember one time I’d been doing yard work and had my hair wrapped up to keep dirt and some sweat out of it. I got in the car and went off to my (now) ex’s house. The road ran past that country ass courthouse in the northern part of the county and I got pulled over just in front of it after going through a stoplight that I’d been stopped at so I couldn’t possibly have been speeding. I was like 20 with the life experience of a fundie kid who was discouraged from leaving the house until 18 and stupid as FUCK and for some stupid fucking reason thought it would be cute and / or funny to lean out the drivers window and yell “what could I possibly have done???” The officer literally started stuttering and apologizing and told me “you just went around the corner a little too fast sorry maam drive safe” and got back in his car and sped off. I was so confused. Later it occurred to me that he suddenly realized I was white (I was also really cute to the extent that I’m kind of enjoying the reduction in attention now I’ve gotten older).
When I tell this story to other white people I say that I don’t think I should’ve gotten my ass beat and honestly I probably shouldn’t have gotten pulled over. But I was also being a little bit of a 20 year old little shit. And the moral of the story is that I think everybody should have the right to be a 20 year old li’l shit (just a little, obvs. There’s limits). There are so many times in my life that I have just gotten through by sheer luck because someone gave me the benefit of the doubt. Somebody looked at me and saw a dumb kid fucking up and said,“look, that was kinda shitty of you, here’s how you’re supposed to handle that.” It’s literally saved my life multiple times over. I got my ass beat by the cops during a mental health crisis where somebody who wasn’t some cute little white chick would’ve just got shot. I would not be living the life I’m living now if people hadn’t been so kind to me (or at least gone easier on me than they might’ve otherwise).
And honestly I just think everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt at least most of the time. And it’s not being ungrateful for what I have to say that (because that’s usually how this conversation comes up). In fact, I think a lot of people are really ungrateful for how many times in their lives that someone looked at them and saw someone who needed help when something as small as a darker shade of skin could’ve meant they saw someone malicious.
Anyway that’s my soapbox.
I really like the moral argument that everyone should be treated like a cute little white girl. It’s perhaps a little sad to see that it’s the straightest line between two points, so to speak.
Yeah. I know my audience. I’ve got a couple of innate qualities that kind of person listens to (although I actually got rid of the couple you’re probably thinking of) and when you phrase it as humility and gratitude sometimes you can activate that little shred of goodness they learned in Sunday School at eight years old.
Hearing it like that makes it even sadder, because it shows in an easy way that people discriminate against each other without even being good off themselves.
And none of that holds a candle to privalige of being rich.
I mean, you’ve got the OJ paradox.
Did he get away with murder by throwing money at an army of top lawyers? Absolutely.
Did he get singled out by the LAPD and dragged through what was supposed to be a kangaroo court run by literal Hitler worshipping fascists? Also Absolutely.
Wealth doesn’t completely immunize you against bigotry, particularly from the vile views of other richer people.
It seems more accurate to say “… people aren’t using it to make your life worse.”
Being yourself isn’t a problem unless someone else decides to make it one.
True mostly, although some things may occur regardless of how other people treat you, like feelings of dysphoria from being transgender, since it’s based on your own perception of yourself.
Of course, other people can certainly make it even worse.
I’m not sure “privilage” is the right term in this scenario. For me, the term “privilage” would be more fitting to describe rich people.
I know you have good intent, but if we go around calling straight white cisgender men “privilaged”, that’s just fueling the “culture war” when we really should be focusing on the class war.
I agree with all of the ideas in this meme, but I’ve never been a fan of this wording. “Privilege” in particular. To flip the wording, I’d rather it be “the minority handicap” or something. It almost seems like it’s calling out straight white men as the enemy of these ideas. If straight white men are the problem, then seems like that’s the group you’d be trying to convince. Yet this wording seems to alienate them more.
To flip the wording, I’d rather it be “the minority handicap” or something.
Societal debuffs.
That was my thought. If my race isn’t making it worse it seems like that should be the standard. It’s more like a non-white disadvantage, which I admit doesn’t roll of the tongue as well.
Maybe “Minority Oppression”?
I suppose, I’ve always felt weird about minority as the term to use just because it doesn’t work on all levels. Like I’ve been the minority in areas I’ve lived in. I get I’m still in the majority nation wide, but it’s not how you feel every day. I dunno, I’m probably reading way too into it.
I agree. Privilege definitely exist, but it’s kind of a burned word. If you call someone privileged, you’ve made sure, that the person gets defensive and will not think about in any way.
I think it’s more accurate to speak of resources. Everyone has some of them, but other people don’t. Inherited money, having good relationships to your parents, having a stable upbringing, living in a good neighborhood and not being homeless, being perceived as competent, being physically or mentally healthy, are all valuable resources and everyone should try to see what resources they benefit from, where others can’t. Sadly prejudice and racism/sexism/… exists, so your skin color is also a resource, making it easier to be perceived as trustworthy/competent/… which is a huge benefit.
Social privilege is 100% a thing. You can bet that the fact that a white person doesn’t receive subconsciously ingrained doubt and xenophobia from literally everyone else pretty much ensures that a white person will be subconsciously favoured. (edit:) this doesn’t mean that they will necessarily receive a cornucopia of riches, but it pretty much guarantees that they’ll be first pick for the football team, so to speak.
Same goes for Maleness™ and Cis-ness (?), they are perceived as defaults, as standards. It also applies in the neurotypical-neurodivergent face-off.
In short, as long as there is any kind of “other” and one is not perceived as part of it, one is intrinsically privileged.
(edit 2:) And the only thing which trumps social privilege is money.
Absolutely there is social privilege, and Im sure white trash living in a trailer park are loving their social privilege of being shit on by everyone and assisted by no one.
This kind of shit is why the left keeps driving people away and is losing. This used to be called discrimination. It was easy to understand and uncontroversial. So of course the left had to reframe the issue, play stupid word games and try to alienate as many people as possible.
If you want to talk about word games, you should probably look up the history of the term itself. You might be surprised at how old it is and who used it more than half a century ago.
I don’t think there is any issue reframing. Rather, I think you’re trying to reframe the issue because you don’t want to recognize that white privilege and discrimination are different things. To be more precise, we are talking about racism, not discrimination in general. And precision matters, because when we use these kinds of words to talk about systemic problems, we’re trying to describe things accurately and as simply as we reasonably can.
So then it comes back to the standard question. Why don’t you like the expression? That’s always the delicate point, isn’t it? A lot of white people don’t want to admit that they were lucky when they got that skin color. Part of that is pride, of course. And that’s natural, but it doesn’t mean it’s good. And then part of it is plain old racism…
In the end, I agree with you: racist assholes definitely drift away from the left. Good.
I’m well aware of the history. You know who isn’t? The 90+% of the population who don’t consider themselves leftists or progressive. If you have to tell them, ”It’s not as bad as it initially sounds, let me spend several paragraphs explaining”, then you have already lost them. If they don’t know the precise academic definition and read something like “even homeless white people are privileged”, they’re going to think you’re insane. Why give yourself that handicap when you can just choose different words to convey the same ideas?
If you want to prioritize feeling superior, go for it. Just don’t be surprised when the left continues to be impotent and ignored.
No, it was always privilege. Discrimination is something else. Also you’re concern trolling and you gotta stop that now.
They’re two ways of framing the same issue. Privilege is the absence of prejudicial discrimination. Those who are discriminated against lack privilege.
The difference is that every single time I’ve seen privilege discussed in the last 20 odd years since I noticed it become a popular term in leftist spaces, someone gets alienated because they take offense at being called privileged despite having a shitty life. It’s happened in this very thread.
And I’m not concern trolling. We’re about to have a fascist in the White House and several other countries are very likely to fall to them in the near future. We need to be discussing how to convert people to the left, because what we’ve been doing has not worked.
“don’t talk about these subjects because it will drive potential allies away” is the definition of concern trolling
I was born in a very poor section 8 district right outside of Philadelphia city. My parents were neglectful and abusive, so I went outside and roamed the town alone as a small child. I was beaten senseless multiple times by fellow kids. I asked them why and their reply was always because of the color of my skin and that their parents told them to hate my kind. Eventually I stopped trying to go outside or make friends because I was socially ostracized everywhere I went.
Nobody wants to hear about my traumatic experiences with racism or xenophobia that lead to long term damage to my social skills, or upbringing in a broken home never experiencing an ounce of love, or living with extreme poverty having to work for every scrap. Im white so it doesn’t fit their narrative. My experiences are automatically invalid because of the color of my skin. Its socially acceptable to hate on white people because we ‘deserve it’. All of us must be so privileged, come from middle or upper classes, never experiencing an ounce of suffering for the color of our skin or if we do its fair and deserved.
Many people don’t want equality or peace for all, what many really want is vengeance and retribution for themselves even if it perpetuates the cycle of hatred. They want to be the new protected class.
The question is whether privilege is the right word for this.
Privilege kinda describes something above what’s deserved or something unearned.
You’re describing basic human decency I think which everyone deserves
I have been arguing this for years now and all I get is the “bUt tHeY’re BEtTeR oFf sO ThEy arE prIviLeGeD”
OK, and look at all the people you’re calling “privileged” who don’t agree with you because of your characterization of them. If changing the word gets them on your side isn’t that worth it?
Well, it’s an unearned advantage, isn’t it? What else would you call such an advantage other than a privilege?
No one did anything to deserve a growing up safely, being healthy, inheriting money, having white skin or even growing up in a certain nation. No one starts from zero, and it’s just an obvious lie if you say otherwise. We as a society, should work on making these differences less relevant, when it comes to success and life satisfaction, wheather that’s through public education, social benefits or reducing racism and prejudice.
There’s a man standing on a cliff, and a man hanging off another cliff by his hands, would you consider the man on the cliff to have an advantage, or the man hanging to have a disadvantage?
I can see it, you tell someone whos also living paycheck to paycheck that just because they’re not queer they are “privileged”, they’re gonna be like, “no, im not”.
We need better terminology, sticking with this one is just self serving and kind of narcissistic, don’t create culture war, this still boils down to class war
I understand what you’re saying, but I highly doubt that swapping out that word would solve the problem. What if we instead said that white people are lucky because they were born white. Instead of white privilege we can call it white luck. Does anyone honestly believe that would solve the problem? And if it wouldn’t solve the problem, then the vocabulary is not the issue.
This is what I believe. I believe that people who have a privileged background are often resistant to recognizing it, because they want to believe that they got to where they are entirely because of their own hard work, but subconsciously they know that’s not true. So then there’s some cognitive dissonance, and rather than deal with it, why not just complain about the terminology that’s used in modern society? It’s much easier to complain about how someone else speaks then it is to confront your own insecurities or racist values.
How about none of the above, how about focusing on the bastards who actually put these racist systems in place instead of focusing on any nomenclature that’s literally only point is “make white cis man feel bad for being white cis man”
You’re literally drawing a line in the sand and saying “this doesn’t mean anything, but also you’re not allowed on this side of the line” while rich ass hats build a brick wall around both parties.
You sir, are propagating a culture war, and this infighting isn’t going to be tolerated much when we rise up against the rich people stepping on their common man.
I suggest you get with the times or get run over,
You’re literally taking the opposite lesson you should. People aren’t being offended because you’re taking away their achievements, which you are, you’re also telling the majority of white people that they’re worse than (insert race), because with their privilege they should be more successful than (insert race).
That’s what’s offensive, besides ignoring racism when it doesn’t fit your narrow definition.
This is… so not just a class war, though. It’s intersectional, everything is linked to everything else, class, racism, sexism, homophobia, everything! And sugarcoating the truth just leads to the same thing, over and over and over again.
No, semantics aren’t the issue here, the issue is that nobody’s explaining anything anymore. Everyone just expects to have their meaning understood through five words or less, then starts arguing semantics without analysing the context.
It is a privilege to be a white male. And, yes, as long as you’re not part of the 1%, you’re getting shafted regardless. The two are most certainly not mutually exclusive, the privilege being that white guys get less shaft.
Semantics are everything, if you want people on your side you need to start by not using alienating terminology
No concern trolling. There’s nothing wrong with the terminology.
Basic human decency, including not having who you are used against you, isn’t something people should have to earn.
I agree, that wasn’t what I was arguing against.
But in how things currently are, the very point is that we are not all equally treated with decency and many do, indeed, have who they are be used against them. Thus, it’s currently a privilege to be part of those who are not besieged by the above-mentioned.
That’s the idea of the “other,” as long as it exists, we cannot apply the average as being “decent.” Because it’s utterly inhuman when you average the two sides. I’d go as far as to say barbaric.
I think my point is perhaps more around semantics than politics.
Privilege as a word suggests one group has something they don’t deserve. Whereas the problem I see is that the other group doesn’t have what they deserve.
I’m aware this could trend dangerous close to that “all lives matter” nonsense which tried to deny the inequality and inequity of life, this is not my point at all.
My point only works if we’re in agreement that the “thing” we’re talking about is basic human rights, respect and dignity. If that changes then the conversation changes with it.
I understand what you mean, but I am of the opinion that arguing raw semantics in political contexts is like analysing love from a strictly neurochemical standpoint, if that makes sense.
In this specific situation I’d still call it a privilege. I agree that the default should be decency and fairness for everyone, but, again, it isn’t. Because we as humans have decided to apply different standards to different groups of people. And as long as the norm isn’t decency for all, existing on the “right” side of the divide is a privilege - I was born white, I didn’t bleach myself to get here (I mean no offense through this).
In the hopes that my point is made clearer, I’d use an analogy (deprecated, see edit): what we have now is the equivalent of playing Monopoly with someone who’s allowed to reroll their dice at least once every roll if the numbers aren’t to their liking, and the process of choosing who gets to reroll is weighted by subjectively defined specifications.
Edit, because I’ve realised I’ve botched the example: it’s like playing Monopoly, but one of the players has a starting handicap applied (less money distributed, weighted dice which favour smaller rolls, having to pay more for Rent on owned slots, etc.). The rest of it stays the same, in that the process of selection is purely subjective and decided by a third party for everyone else involved.
Stop this racist, sexist, heterophobic thinking.
What you’re thinking of is ‘majority privilege’ not ‘white’ privilege. A white person would experience the same things elsewhere in the world. It’s natural for communities to want some sense of normalcy and to strive for most of their populace to conform. And “cis” being the default state of things is why you were born in the first place to spout these stupid shitty ideas. You come from a long long line of cis-gendered people. Being straight is the default. It will always BE the default. It’s a requirement for the survival of the species.
Being straight will always BE the default. It’s a requirement for the survival of the species.
Three different arguments against that:
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Why wouldn’t bi people be the “default”?
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Who says the survival of the species needs to be the standard by which we decide what is default?
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You’re ignoring technology like artificial wombs. Assuming technology continues to advance, I could see the population thriving even if 100% were gay.
- very rare in other species to have predominantly bi populations pointing to lower evolutionary advantages
- semantics, default is the expected state
- doesn’t exist and won’t change the evolutionary pressures for a predominantly heterosexual population
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This is an interesting discussion, because my understanding of “whiteness” suggests that it isn’t limited to anglos. It’s more of a bias in favor of lighter or fairer skinned individuals in any and all cultures. I believe it’s due to the expectation that darker skinned individuals work outside for a living (e.g. the fields), whereas lighter skinned individuals have less sun exposure due to not needing to work outdoors (due to wealth).
This occurs in numerous societies around the globe. In areas where darker complexions are rather common (africa, india), skin lightening treatments are apparently quite popular.
There’s some truth to your statement (such as white farmers in south africa having their land repossessed post apartheid), but i think it’s a more complex bias than most realize.
Let’s do, indeed, stop with the racism and sexism, and heterophobia, I think, is not the thing most people who argue against Cis privilege encompass.
Honestly, sounds to me like YOU need to have a default more than nature does.
For the ones who love without such “privilege”, I’m sure the word fits just fine.
But I think I get where you’re coming from. Whether the dictionary definition applies or not, some words just wreck havoc with effective communication. And the larger the group of people, the worse this effect will be.
Unfortunately, that’s probably by design…
This is a motte-and-bailey argument, in which one term has two definitions. You have the definition in the OP which gets brought out whenever someone argues against the idea of “privilege”. It’s designed to be hard to disagree with and so it just states the obvious. However, it’s not the definition that people who talk about privilege actually use in any other context. Otherwise why would they talk about dismantling privilege? Or refuse to talk about the privilege of of anyone except straight/white/cis people (usually men)?
I don’t like it when people make a controversial claim and then pretend that they aren’t doing that if anyone challenges them, rather than defending the claim.
This is really the only definition I’m aware of. What do you imagine these other people mean then?
I think that in other contexts, they present privilege as a property of groups rather than of individuals. So, for example, white people as a whole have white privilege and so any particular white person has it because of his race, not because of anything he personally has or has not experienced.
They also present it as something that the privileged groups have unfairly, at the expense of other groups. “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” If privilege is simply the state of not having your life made worse, why would it feel different from equality? Why would anyone want to dismantle it?
I don’t really understand how these ideas are in conflict with the meme here. You could be living a perfect life in a material sense but still be miserable if you are clinically depressed.
Privilege takes many forms. Some are just not being subject to oppression or violence that these other groups face, but some can also be benefiting from the oppression of those groups.
For example, having class privilege can mean benefiting from cheap labor to fulfill your desires. If a billionaire was deprived of all or most of the labor of the people who support their lavish lifestyle, I have to imagine this could cause them considerable distress, at least temporarily. In that case, I think it’s fairly easy to see how equality could feel like oppression.
Another example is that some people just like having a higher social status in society. It feels natural and empowering for them to be “above” other people in some sense. When this is upended, it feels bad.
But again, none of this implies that these people are living good lives in the current system. It just means they either benefit from it or aren’t harmed by it in some way, small or large. For most people, I think the benefits are small and may even be outweighed by other benefits they would receive in a more equal society. But there are those who would lose more, and they tend to be the loudest opponents of equality. They also tend to be wealthy and influential in the media and they influence many other people to adopt their viewpoints, even when those viewpoints aren’t in those people’s best interests.
All that said, this seems to be a common and recurring issue, so it may be that the concept of privilege needs reframing to avoid triggering people who don’t understand what it means. I am open to suggestions but we also need to be careful not to minimize or erase the struggles of oppressed people in our language.
Some groups take shit for existing, and some individuals are not in those groups.
Do you need a diagram?
I got all three of these, lucky me.
https://www.wordnik.com/words/privilege
I agree with what the poster is trying to say, but you can’t just change the meaning of words to fit your argument
A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste. synonym: right.
Say what now?
Is a special advantage synonymous with a right? Sounds like it’s only a synonym in certain contexts, which is probably why it’s a bad word to use.
Like that famous quote about how people interpret respect and it’s used differently in the same sentence. Give me a sec to find it.Ok, famous is maybe a bit generous as it looks like it’s from Tumblr
