(July 15, 2016 at 3:35 am)abaris Wrote: For most people, I guess, it wouldn't even cross their minds to invoke white privilege. But as long as there's still a substantial minority discriminating against other races, white privilege is very real, stupid or not, since even the ones being above it, profit by proxy if they happen to be white.
I'm hoping it will now work in my favour when I next look for work in Germany, which I found to be far more sexist than the UK. I know the Germans are somewhat behind in this area, they still ask for photos on CVs (resumes) for example. I once spoke to a Romanian woman at a lady's coding meet-up who complained that she couldn't find a job because everyone assumed that Romanian was the same as Roma. Nor are Brits perceived in the same way as the Slavs for example.
But now they've let in loads of immigrants interviewers might think that a white British woman with a half way decent German accent is better than a male Syrian. I've been putting a lot of work into my German accent because my experience of moving from England to Scotland in the 90's when the place was still raw with anger at Thatcher taught me how important it is in whether you are perceived to belong. The only problem is that people then assume that my German is much better than it is and that I'm just stupid when I stand there with a confused expression on my face.
Or maybe Germany's institutionalised sexism will be stronger than their racism? I'll be interested to find out.