What is white privilege?
- Thread starter Talasour
- Start date
- Status
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 May 2011
- Posts
- 6,274
- Location
- Southampton
And yet the principle of it feeds into academia and informs decisions people, companies, governments make - I can't see how it can be described as politically neutral. It's a very clever description of something that (we agree) exists. Most descriptions about inequality (wealth, education, whatever) use a negative bias - deprived areas, under privileged etc. This doesn't assign the blame to anyone. By flipping it around and saying the inequality is because some people have it too good, have privilege, assigns blame to those people. Privilege itself is also a very loaded word as it is about having status or benefits beyond what you should. I don't think the white privilege movement is about reducing our privilege, its about making everyone else as privileged as white people.
So it's a very clever phrase because it's prompted a lot of discussion. A lot more than a negative biased phrase would I think.
But anyway my point was more about how the phrase assigns no blame to communities that are disadvantaged and this has not been unanimously supported by people in these communities.
Last edited:
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 29 Nov 2008
- Posts
- 13,336
- Location
- London
Cliffnotes:
Hopefully the full episode has more substance to it because those 'arguments' sound like he doesn't really understand what people actually mean when they say 'white privilege'. If that's the video you chose to represent your views on the matter, I'd read the article in the op and do more research to make sure I understood what the term actually means before dismissing it.
While you are correct I think it's obvious what point they were trying to make. We're a lot more aware of how physical disabilities can impact someone and we can see the steps we've taken to assist people in every day life (e.g. ramps, toilets, seating). You are correct in that there's plenty of 'hidden disabilities' that we aren't as clued up on and we still need to do more to help people understand less obvious ways a disability can affect someone.
Why do you have to get it? People should be hired for a job based on their merit. If BAME applicants don't cut the mustard, they don't cut the mustard. Nobody should receive preferential treatment based upon a quality that doesn't influence how well they can do the job.
We look at the evidence and find that it isn't a true statement?
If we take the US where the term comes from we find that, yes, whites do better than blacks, but worse than many other ethnicities (including subsets of the black community).
Looking at data from the UK we find that people with Chinese and Indian backgrounds have higher median incomes than people from White British backgrounds.
(See section 5 of this ONS data set)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...ygapsingreatbritain/2018#ethnicity-breakdowns
So it is quite possible that "black disadvantage" might actually be a more accurate term. Remembering of course that this is on populations not individuals.
I dislike the term "white privilege" because it seems to be inaccurate when applied to data and is of no real use. If I go "I recognise my white privilege" it achieves nothing. If instead we look at what is causing the disadvantage in black communities we may actually get somewhere to do something about it. Not to mention there is no quantifying that value of "white privilege". We may spend a lot of time, energy and effort to find out that, if it is real, it has a very minor effect compared to so many other factors.
What if white people are better? You accept there's a difference. Why can't that be the explanation?
It's a talking point of cultural marxists who more common identify their beliefs on the matter under the heading of 'intersectionaliy'.
There are almost an unlimited number of factors in life that can help or hinder a person in a given scenario.
Sometimes some factors may help in one scenario yet be a hindrance in another.
Many of the factors have some degree of interaction with one another.
Some of these factors are wholly or mostly out of the hands of society were as others are wholly or mostly within the control of society.
A lot of these factors get comparatively very little attention compare to the benefits they can bring.
Being (naturally) attractive is a huge source of (unearned) privilege.
Being tall as a man (but not too tall) is another
In some circumstances, more so historically, being white is of these factors.
But what the focus is on today is so called 'systemic' privilege
I.e factors that are solely or mostly supposed to be within the hands of those humans in power.
Of course people in large swathes of Western Europe of North America with even a casual acquaintance of further education\academia or the work environment knows that being 'white' certainly doesn't appear to be a source of such 'systemic ' privilege, quite the opposite appears to be true, systematically speaking.
Be it outright 'affirmative action' or the more insidious job advert that says something like ' we particularly welcome applicants from under represented groups '
.... What effect are we to imagine this has on hiring practices even where outright racial discrimination is illegal?
Of course the common claim made is of two 'equally qualified' applicants with one being preferred over the other ....
....but anyone that believes this must be rather dim at some level.
As what it actually means is sometimes appointing those barely qualified or sometimes not really qualified at all to a post over someone clearly more objectively suited to the role itself.
The over reliance by the state and organisations on 'white privilege ' as a proxy for privilege in general also really hurts some the least actually privileged members of society in places like western Europe and North America.
In both the US and UK some of the poorest most disenfranchised groups are poor white males. But because they share a sex and superficial skin colour with some other people who are actually privileged they are told that they were born into (relative) privilege when it's palpably obvious that this is not the case.
If you do actually want to reduce unearned privilege there is almost always a better factor to use than race.
For example run a program that offers poor children, who show academic potential, subsidised tuition so they can stand a chance against the rich kids (be they white black or anything else).
If you targeted such a program along racial lines then the daughters of Michelle and Barack Obama would be eligible but the kids of a poor white family in Appalachia would not be.
Detractors of this view will often cite things like police stop rates varying between ethnicities......
So what? Young people are stopped more than old... Men get stopped far more than women. But we don't generally have an issue with this in society as we know there are objective reasons for this.
Few people think young white men are being oppressed because they are far more likey to be stopped by the police than an old Chinese woman.
The rates for different ethnic groups are far more a reflection of the underlying differences in criminality of the various groups and the amount of people actually out on the streets to be stopped at times of higher criminal activity ( vs those who reside in the same areas but don't spend much time at night hanging around the streets)
Then the claim of the detractors commonly shifts to poverty or some influence of some 'historical injustice' often attributed to some combination of colonialism and slavery.
But these claims can be seen from the nonsense they are....
The jews, one of the consistently most persecuted ethnic groups in recorded history, are also one of the most successful despite repeated pogroms and state based discrimination.
There are almost three times as many whites living below the federal poverty line in the US vs blacks by the crime rates don't reflect these overall numbers.
Culture is much more relevant than skin colour when it comes to how successful you may be in life.
The signs are there clearly to see.....For example
Black Africans outperforming whites in UK schools and massively outperforming black Caribbeans
Korean and Indian Americans doing so well in the US
In short if someone comes to you trying to push the theory that white privilege as one of the larger issues around unearned privilege in places like the UK and US and if they then extrapolate this to there being a so called 'white supremacy ' then there is a good chance you are dealing with a racist.
A racist probably hiding behind an Orwellian self appointed title like 'anti racist' but one none the less.
The (academic) focus on ' white privilege' is often just racism with a guilty conscience used by actually privileged people to virtue signal to the actual detriment of some of those far less privileged.
There are almost an unlimited number of factors in life that can help or hinder a person in a given scenario.
Sometimes some factors may help in one scenario yet be a hindrance in another.
Many of the factors have some degree of interaction with one another.
Some of these factors are wholly or mostly out of the hands of society were as others are wholly or mostly within the control of society.
A lot of these factors get comparatively very little attention compare to the benefits they can bring.
Being (naturally) attractive is a huge source of (unearned) privilege.
Being tall as a man (but not too tall) is another
In some circumstances, more so historically, being white is of these factors.
But what the focus is on today is so called 'systemic' privilege
I.e factors that are solely or mostly supposed to be within the hands of those humans in power.
Of course people in large swathes of Western Europe of North America with even a casual acquaintance of further education\academia or the work environment knows that being 'white' certainly doesn't appear to be a source of such 'systemic ' privilege, quite the opposite appears to be true, systematically speaking.
Be it outright 'affirmative action' or the more insidious job advert that says something like ' we particularly welcome applicants from under represented groups '
.... What effect are we to imagine this has on hiring practices even where outright racial discrimination is illegal?
Of course the common claim made is of two 'equally qualified' applicants with one being preferred over the other ....
....but anyone that believes this must be rather dim at some level.
As what it actually means is sometimes appointing those barely qualified or sometimes not really qualified at all to a post over someone clearly more objectively suited to the role itself.
The over reliance by the state and organisations on 'white privilege ' as a proxy for privilege in general also really hurts some the least actually privileged members of society in places like western Europe and North America.
In both the US and UK some of the poorest most disenfranchised groups are poor white males. But because they share a sex and superficial skin colour with some other people who are actually privileged they are told that they were born into (relative) privilege when it's palpably obvious that this is not the case.
If you do actually want to reduce unearned privilege there is almost always a better factor to use than race.
For example run a program that offers poor children, who show academic potential, subsidised tuition so they can stand a chance against the rich kids (be they white black or anything else).
If you targeted such a program along racial lines then the daughters of Michelle and Barack Obama would be eligible but the kids of a poor white family in Appalachia would not be.
Detractors of this view will often cite things like police stop rates varying between ethnicities......
So what? Young people are stopped more than old... Men get stopped far more than women. But we don't generally have an issue with this in society as we know there are objective reasons for this.
Few people think young white men are being oppressed because they are far more likey to be stopped by the police than an old Chinese woman.
The rates for different ethnic groups are far more a reflection of the underlying differences in criminality of the various groups and the amount of people actually out on the streets to be stopped at times of higher criminal activity ( vs those who reside in the same areas but don't spend much time at night hanging around the streets)
Then the claim of the detractors commonly shifts to poverty or some influence of some 'historical injustice' often attributed to some combination of colonialism and slavery.
But these claims can be seen from the nonsense they are....
The jews, one of the consistently most persecuted ethnic groups in recorded history, are also one of the most successful despite repeated pogroms and state based discrimination.
There are almost three times as many whites living below the federal poverty line in the US vs blacks by the crime rates don't reflect these overall numbers.
Culture is much more relevant than skin colour when it comes to how successful you may be in life.
The signs are there clearly to see.....For example
Black Africans outperforming whites in UK schools and massively outperforming black Caribbeans
Korean and Indian Americans doing so well in the US
In short if someone comes to you trying to push the theory that white privilege as one of the larger issues around unearned privilege in places like the UK and US and if they then extrapolate this to there being a so called 'white supremacy ' then there is a good chance you are dealing with a racist.
A racist probably hiding behind an Orwellian self appointed title like 'anti racist' but one none the less.
The (academic) focus on ' white privilege' is often just racism with a guilty conscience used by actually privileged people to virtue signal to the actual detriment of some of those far less privileged.
Last edited:
Fairly and well argued regarding the description to be fair.
I would dispute the last sentence though.
I spent the evening with a very good friend of 20 odd years the other night, and this is one subject we have never agreed on.
It's not just about economic success either.
As I said to him, when was the last time you gave 1 second to thinking 'can I go there?' when invited to a thing?
For some black people, that is a part of life, imagine how debilitating that must be from a mental health perspective. It's in no way on the same scale, but it's a minor and lifelong version of lockdown in a way, every trip out is a little more considered and risky.
Another friend of mine who is Nigerian came up in Feb just before lockdown, and yes, I did consider where I would be able to go for a drink without risking some sort of reaction.
Corrrrr........
Pull the pin. Close the door.
By pointing out that some people are so disingenuous to acknowledge that within the 'not white' category' that there are some groups that considerably outperform 'whites' across many meterics.
Culture matters..... some cultures are inferior to others when it comes to success in life....
Some ideas and the cultures that follow from collections of them are clearly more antithetical to achieving economic success than others.
When the National Museum of African American History and Culture from the Smithsonian recently updated their pages about race they decided to provide a 'helpful' guide on "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States"
Apparently 'aspects and assumptions of whiteness' (and hence implicitly those to be differentiated from other groups) included
* 'hard work being the key to success"
* 'Objective, rationale, linear thinking
* Delayed gratification ('work before play')
* 'Planning for the future'
* 'Self reliance'
and timeliness 'follow rigid time schedules'
This isn't some crank individual on the internet its the supposedly prestigious Smithsonian.
So if you are black in the USA and not 'acting white' according to the authors of this piece you are not hard working, irrational, unable to control your impulses, reliant on others and rarely arrive on time for appointments. If you were to follow such a life would it really be so surprising that you end up poor?
Of course many black Americans don't follow such a corrosive path and many white Americans do follow parts of such a destructive creed and the results they achieve in life are reflective of this.
The difference is that there is a powerful well financed section of society, embodied by people like the authors of the above piece, telling black people that if they fail to succeed in life then its down to racism, typically now supposed 'white' racism.... which is apparently that really bizarre form of racism where certain non white groups consistently seem to outperform whites!
Strangely the cultures these people come from often seem to stress the importance of things like hard work and learning.
People need to learn and practice the concept of ceteris paribus. White privilege exists because, ceteris paribus, being white gives a person certain advantages. Anyone denying is usually cherry picking scenarios which do not leave other things as equal and is pointing out a false equivalence. This is either because they don't understand how to think logically, or because they think they have a vested interest in preserving the status quo (because they're racist) or, like your man in the video, monetise the sharing and promotion of those views.
Apparently, nobody likes to be called a racist, so if you think there's no white privilege and you think you're not racist, I'd suggest one takes a look at the logic you've used to get to that particular position.
Apparently, nobody likes to be called a racist, so if you think there's no white privilege and you think you're not racist, I'd suggest one takes a look at the logic you've used to get to that particular position.
Come on then explain why groups like Indian's often outperform whites in places like the UK and US? Whats the 'unequal' bits there that explain the disparities we see in their apparent favour?
Can you name any apart from coming from cultures that place a higher emphasis on things like hard work, family and education?
Or is supposed white privellege not the deciding factor when it comes to a wide range of metrics with culture being far more important?
Last edited:
So how do you explain systemic differences in society? Getting stopped more often, getting longer sentences for same crimes etc?
There's a great example in the USA where police stop black drivers more often (as a proportion) during the day, but it's equal at night time when you can no longer see what colour the driver is.
Coming from a culture and having parents that inculcate a strong academic and work ethnic is a massive one.
Careful now, strong academic conviction and work ethic is white supremacy talk these days.
- Status