CNN accuses black man of having white privilege

[_Chap]

It is pretty well undisputed that walking around the streets and pursuing one's life and work with a grey-pink skin (OK, OK, 'white' then) leads to more rewarding outcomes in terms of measurable things like salary, and even longevity, for the same amount of effort and personal achievement, compared with a person with a darker skin. We may note, too, that those in a position to make decisions that affect other people's salaries in a society like the US are overwhelmingly white.

it's reasonable to call that state of affairs 'white privilege'

Only an idiot would assume that this means that every white person is better off than a person with a darker skin. And some white people no doubt do worse in particular situations than equally deserving black people.

On the other hand, if (for instance) a well-paid white person suggests that the reason black college graduates with good grades end up earning less than their white equivalents is because black people are lazy or less committed, it is reasonable to suggest that that person's view may be the product of their 'white privilege'.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Ajax's position, to me, is as undefinable and nonsensical and arbitrary, as is the assertion I enjoy White privilege. It's a vast and ambiguous term that can easily change to fit whatever narrative is being pushed in the moment, kind of the flipside to White supremacy.

Sure, I benefited in a particular situation due to the whiteness of my skin. Ok. 50 points for Slytherin. However, I was subject to the demands of executive order in another where others were promoted ahead of me due to the color of their skin. 100 points to Hufflepuff.

The assumption that my starting line was further ahead at the track or I had a seat at the dining table are facile and can never take into account the inherently unmeasurable and biased realities we all experience. Since no hierarchy of suffering exists, and it would be absurd to attempt it, that in of itself demonstrates the inherent injustice of the concept of privilege and why Liberalism is viewed as hypocritical. Flogging economically disadvantaged white people while pointing at wealthy Conservatives while holding onto their own privileges like a drowning man valuing air only serves to underscore the absurdity of the Leftist idea on the matter.

When White Liberals give all of their wealth, positions of power, and economic connections over to Brown people then they'll capture my attention. They'll have excised themselves of their privilege. Otherwise they're just blathering hypocrites.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Also, a good example of the absurdity of white privilege is the question of when is the mission, so to speak, of executive order and other social justice programs, accomplished? What are the standards, the unbiased and quantifiable standards of social justice achieved? When is equality achieved?

My argument, since we're human and humans are inherently self-interested, is that it'll never be achieved, and that using arbitrary and undefinable terms like white privilege to enact 'fairness policies' for protected identities only serves to keep us divided, especially when one protected group starts to gain more advantage (whatever that is in the moment) over another. Rather than unifying a body politic this kind of thing only serves to continually divide.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

Hierarchies of suffering do exist. That we can't quantify them into a simple number doesn't mean that we can reasonably say that group or person A has it worse off than group or person B. It was, in fact, better to be a German than a Jew in Nazi Germany. This remains a fact even though we can point to examples of Germans who died in the holocaust and Jews who lived in relative safety. That's a fundamental confusion in your thinking here Doc. You keep arguing positions that commit you to radical views I don't believe you actually think, so I'm sitting back and waiting for you to clarify what you are attempting to say. White privilege isn't "undefinable." It has be defined for you. White privilege does not mean, as you imply, that every single white person is or ought to be presumed better off in every way than every single non-white person. Again, it just refers to a set of societal advantages that exist, on average, for being white. (Or, more perhaps more accurately stated, being thought of as white.) Some of them affect a small number of people and some of them are pervasive. You have less to fear in an innocent traffic stop than a black person does, but how much fear you actually experience compared to a random black person is hard to know. That the social advantage exists is not. It's useful to know about that social advantage and how it affects people on average. It's also something worth addressing for fairness reasons.

My bigger suspicion is that you are confused about how and why racial privilege is used as a concept, and this is in part driven by conflating good and bad uses of it.

[_ajax18]

"Actually, it should be called black privilege." He lives in an alternative universe.

Yeah, a universe where one doesn't conclude based on a radio conversation that someone has benefitted from white privilege only to find out later that the person they're accusing of benefitting was in fact black. In my universe 2+2 still equals 4 and not every white man I meet benefits from white privlege just because of the amount of pigmentation in his skin.

In your universe David Webb would certainly be a beneficiary of white privilege, at least until you find out he's black, proving how faulty your reasoning about the world really is. It's as if you get angry call me a racist for not believing you when you try to tell me the sky is red. But in your universe I suppose 2+2=5 and the sky is whatever color you say it is.

[_EAllusion]

Yeah, a universe where one doesn't conclude based on a radio conversation that someone has benefitted from white privilege only to find out later that the person they're accusing of benefitting was in fact black.

I'm shocked that you'd generalize a single bad experience to a negative trait that defines a group you don't like as a whole. That's so out of character for white supremacists.

In your universe David Webb would certainly be a beneficiary of white privilege, at least until you find out he's black, proving how faulty your reasoning about the world really is.

1) I am literally describing your previous posting history in which you have argued that minorities, and blacks in particular, are significantly advantaged in American society due to benefiting from substantial discrimination on their behalf and against whites. As it turns out, this is not true at all, and it is so insanely incorrect that it implies that you inhabit an ideological world that is divorced from fact.

2) No, I don't assume people are talking from a position of white privilege without basis to do so.

[_EAllusion]

A "white privilege" statement could be something like, "I don't understand why black parents have to sit down and have a talk with their children about how to behave around police so they aren't put in serious danger. All my interactions with police have been friendly. They are our protectors. Those parents are teaching their kids to be unnecessarily fearful of police!"

There's a real good chance if a white person is saying that, it's because they are speaking from the experience of someone who doesn't have to worry about a persistent threat of police violence against them on the basis of racial prejudice. Maybe not, but it's likely enough that it could be worth pointing out that they consider they are speaking from a place of white privilege.

Further, and more importantly, white privilege can be a handy concept to explain why there might be different attitudes in racial groups to these kind of statements on average.

Sometimes people do use "check our privilege" bromides to shut down debate, etc. That doesn't mean that's what the concept is. Once you have a handle on it, you're in a better position to know when it is being used aptly and being misused.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

- Doc

[_Chap]

So, basically we are agreed that if (up there in the pre-existence) you have a choice between two existences with identical initial life chances in an advanced western country (parental income, intelligence, area where you live, quality of local schools, gender ..), but then you just have to choose between 'black' and 'white', you will on average end up having a better life all round if you choose 'white'.

So that's settled, then. On average, if you set out to make the most of the cards life has dealt you, it's an unearned advantage to be white rather than black. Obviously a white individual will sometimes do worse than a black individual with the same or less merits, but on average the breaks tend to go to the white guy.

Being white and comfortably off is not a moral fault, (I'm white and doing fine, so that's good to know). But pretending that my current life-style would have been, for the average guy in my situation, just as easy to attain if I had been black, would certainly open me to legitimate criticism.