All white people are racists...or "white fragility" ??

[Faith No More]

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But that's the thing.  We are all privelaged when it comes to our skin color.  A white person may grow up in a life we wouldn't consider privelaged, like growing up in poverty, but they are privelaged in the sense that they are in a better position to overcome their adversities compared to a black person growing up in the exact same scenario.  That's the kind of stuff we need to be aware of.

But I can think of a scenario where it wouldn't put a person in a better position to be a white person.  A white person in a poor neighbourhood and he is targeted for being different because there's a large demographic of another race within that neighbourhood.

Statistically yes it would be correct to say you're more likely to be privileged if you're white.  But it's incorrect to say if you're white you are privileged.

But that's really besides the point anyway since I don't think the article did say that all white people are privileged.

I can pin point the statements that did annoy me and form less of a strawman exaggerated type argument than my other post.

 The arrogance of white people faced with questions of race is unbelievable.

We're all arrogant when it comes to questions of race, not just some white people, every white person on this thread who commented on the question of race answered it unbelievably arrogantly, not necessary arrogantly if a black person is answering the question though, it's ok in that situation.

Why White People Freak Out When They're Called Out About Race

So any white person reading this, do you freak out when being called out about race?

SAB: Something that amazes me is the sophistication of some white people’s defensive maneuvers. I have a black friend who was accused of "online harassment" by a white friend after he called her out in a harsh way. What do you see going on there?

It couldn't be that the black person was calling the white person out in a way that was harsh enough to constitute harassment, it's just a case of white people's sophisticated defensive manoeuvres.

 Yes. One of the things I try to work with white people on is letting go of our criteria about how people of color give us feedback. We have to build our stamina to just be humble and bear witness to the pain we’ve caused.

At this point it just sounds condescending to the "People of colour" The article is talking about.  Why shouldn't white people standards of how "People of colour" give us feedback?  I'd have standards of how other white people give me feedback and how other white people speak to me in general, "People of colour" don't have special needs in this area.
Also white people need to be humble and bear witness to the pain we've caused?  I've done nothing more than have light friendly chat with the few black people I've met and I'm being told as a white person I must be quiet, humble and bear witness to the pain I've caused.

They (people of colour) cannot always share their outrage about the injustice of racism. White people can’t tolerate it. And we punish it severely—from job loss, to violence, to murder.

In this part he's saying black people must trust him because they're willing to express their anger of racism to him.  I wonder how he managed to tame the people of colour into trusting him not to fire them from their jobs or kill them?
It's phrased in a way that's just idiotic.  SOME white people do kill black people and punish them unfairly in certain situations, but you don't say white people kill black people, white people punish black people unfairly, as if that's just something we all do.

What if someone wrote an article saying "Black people can't resist white women, they rape them, they can't stay awake on the job they just fall asleep."  It's phrased wrongly, it's a stupid blanket statement and it's insulting.  Some black men might rape white women in certain situations, some black men might fall asleep on the job, but you don't say that's what black people do.

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I get that some people's approach to this is wrong, and much of what people say on race is phrased poorly. I think, however, focusing on the phrasing is missing the forrest for the trees, and if we choose to focus on that instead, we will fail to address the underlying problems at hand.

[Catholic_Lady]

In today's culture, being a straight white male is an impediment to speaking freely and substantively about identity. The notion of "White Privilege" is used as a weapon to invalidate the opinions, attitudes, and contributions of European descendants.

I get that there are people that go overboard, like the people that say only whites can be racist, but when your opinion is so blinded by the fact that you haven't had to face adversity because of your privelaged positions and fail to put yourself in the shoes of others, you need to be called out on your privelage.  For instance, when you're a dumbass moron like Bill O'Reilly and talk about straight, white males being under attack, you're going to be told to check your privelage, because what we're seeing is not an attack on white males but a leveling of the playing field, which will inevitabley lead to the number of white males in positions of prominence dwindling.

Look, it's a tough subject, and there are dumbasses of all races weighing in on the issue. But despite the fact that you have idiots on Tumblr saying ridiculous shit about racism, that doesn't mean that white privelage isn't a legitimate concept that you need to be aware of when you form your opinions.

So if someone is born dirt poor to the point of not even having a bathroom in their home, they are still considered privileged  people just because they are white? I think the Obama girls are extremely privileged. They're not white. I'd be inclined to think privilege has more to do with social class, money, and coming from a good family, than it does skin color.

[drfuzzy]

"So if someone is born dirt poor to the point of not even having a bathroom in their home, they are still considered privileged  people just because they are white? I think the Obama girls are extremely privileged. They're not white. I'd be inclined to think privilege has more to do with social class, money, and coming from a good family, than it does skin color."   --  CL

I'm with you there CL.  I used to work in a high school that was in a VERY low-income demographic.  The school didn't get the funding it needed.  The kids - - - so many didn't have opportunities for all sorts of reasons:  one-parent home, parents out of work, neither parent graduated from high school (and so don't value education), they have to babysit younger siblings while parents work, they have to work at McD's in order to help parents pay the rent . . . and on and on.  It was terribly sad.  I saw a huge waste of great potential.  

Privilege is privilege.   HOWEVER . . . a greater percentage of African-Americans (and Latinos?) live in poverty. 

I was raised white, lower middle class.  And yet, I had access to more educational opportunities, more scholarships, etc., than most kids living in poorer conditions had. Yes, there is privilege.  And yes, a lot of people whose parents could afford to pay for extracurricular activities and pay for college degrees don't see that they had big opportunities that a large percentage of the population do not have.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Lol at all the butthurt over minorities asking white people to check their privelage.

The butthurt is when people like you invalidate and dismiss the opinions of people like me because of their race. You are basically saying white people are excluded from serious two-way discussions about racial identity simply because they are white. It's condescending.

[abaris]

The butthurt is when people like you invalidate and dismiss the opinions of people like me because of their race. You are basically saying white people are excluded from serious two-way discussions about racial identity simply because they are white. It's condescending.

As far as I know, nobody is invalidating your opinions because of race. They're invalidating them because of the absence of value.

[Aroura]

I'm not quite sure what you're upset about, no has said you're racist. The article has said that privilege needs to examined and the effects of privilege on people beneath whiteness in the social hierarchy.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...ot-helping

http://news.discovery.com/human/psycholo...150825.htm

I don't think Aroura was implying that the article is calling white people racist, just that her friend thinks all white people are racist, and used the article to illustrate why. I could be wrong...

Yes, that is correct.

My friend seems to think all white people are born racist, and she was using this article to try to prove her point.

Sorry if I was unclear.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Lol at all the butthurt over minorities asking white people to check their privelage.

The butthurt is when people like you invalidate and dismiss the opinions of people like me because of their race. You are basically saying white people are excluded from serious two-way discussions about racial identity simply because they are white. It's condescending.

You can see my picture in my avatar-photo space. I'm white. I'm half Cajun (French Acadian), on my mother's side, and my father's parents are an immigrant from Germany and a son of immigrants from England. You basically cannot get "whiter" than I am.

And yet, my grandmother came here from Germany because her parents were fleeing the Nazi suppression of intellectuals/academics, and they had nothing but their degrees. (That's a serious "but", of course... one of the privileges with which they began life in the USA.) My Cajun family came here as political refugees after the Seven Years' war turned into a literal genocide against our people (because we were Catholic and French, both anathema to the British-American colonists, and then we refused to fight for England after they conquered our pacifist colony in what is now Nova Scotia, then called l'Acadie, or Acadia in English). We were scattered to the winds, those of us who survived, and we settled on the most inhospitable land in the United States, specifically because no one else wanted to live there. It's how our modern culture emerged as the "swamp people". To this day, with the exception of those who work in the oil fields, we are one of the poorest overall ethnicities in the United States. But despite all that, because I am white and in America, I have privileges that helped me rise, and gave me advantage in numerous ways.

So, then, all that said... what "people like you" and "people like me" are you talking about?

Who better than your fellow white guys to say, "Whoa, brother, perhaps we have been going about this the wrong way and looking at this from an angle that ignores the perspective of others, to our and to their detriments."?

You realize, of course, that the fact that you assumed the people criticizing the white race were not white makes you a racist, right?

[MentalGiant]

Lol at all the butthurt over minorities asking white people to check their privelage.

Sure, teaching colorblindness is great, but that is not the reality minorities live in.  It's easy for white people to say we should teach colorblindness, because we live in a world where their skin color isn't an impediment.  The fact is that skin color still creates a huge divide in how people are treated and the opportunities available, and insisting we just teach colorblindness is ignoring the fact that minorities constantly face obstacles that white people do not.

That may not be the popular opinion here, but that's my $0.02.

In todays world, in first world nations like the US, UK, AU, Canada ext... opportunity to succeed is available to everyone IF they work hard and make good decisions. In fact, more so to minorities born into negative circumstance than white people born into negative circumstance (think scholarships only open to certain races/ethnicities of certain socioeconomic status). That may not be true in the developing world or unstable countries, but I don't think those places are the issue being discussed here. Unfortunately, some people make have to work harder than others, but skin color doesn't determine if you will be born poor, be put into foster care, have drug addict parents, be raised around violence, not have enough to eat, have to work harder in school because stuff doesn't come as easily for you as other students or whatever other shitty life circumstance makes life difficult. I think society does a great disservice to minorities brainwashing them into believing they are all victims by birth because they were born a certain color. It's simply not so in first world nations in todays world. I think half the problem is that minorities perceive EVERYTHING negative that happens to them being about their race/ethnicity when more often than not, it has NOTHING to do with what they look like. Growing up with the perception you will fail in life and be hated for no good reason in life is much more likely to make it so (self fulfilling prophecy) than being raised with the perception you CAN succeed, you CAN overcome negative circumstances and you are only a victim of your own poor choices if you fail in life. 

And yes, there is racism, but it's not exclusive to white and racists of any color/ethnicity are in the minority (as in, very few of them). Most of those people aren't good people in general and contribute little to society anyways. Why should we all focus so much on such a limited number of people deliberately stirring up so much trouble instead of ignoring them whilst all the intelligent contributors who don't care what everyone else looks like move forward?

[Neo-Scholastic]

You realize, of course, that the fact that you assumed the people criticizing the white race were not white makes you a racist, right?

I would be if I had actually said that but I did not. You filled in the blanks on your own. That's part of the problem. Some people project their preconceptions onto what others say and thus simple conversation has to be filled with all kinds of cumbersome and truly unnecessary qualifiers just to avoid being misunderstood. When I say "people like you" I mean "people like you who ask whites to check their privilege". "People like me" means "people like me who find that attitude condescending."

BTW I'm more white than you: Dutch-English and a Mayflower decendent no less. ;-P
And I live in a Chicago Neighborhood that is 90% African-American, 8% Hispanic, and 2% White.

[abaris]

BTW I'm more white than you: Dutch-English and a Mayflower decendent no less. ;-P

Kind of explains the religious fundie angle. The Mayflower people left the island because it was too liberal for their liking.