Is white privilege real? To what extent?

[The Grand Nudger]

Many, many moons ago......my buddies and I decided to get stoned on hash and do something really stupid.  We settled on the following.  

Right around sunrise, we hit the beach to charge tourists rental on hotel cabanas.  We skipped between hotels on the stretch milking tourists, smoking bowls, firing bottle rockets at seagulls through a pvc pipe....out of the window of a white trash limo.....a used grey camaro.  Now me, between the heat and the hash..I'm passed out by noon.  My buddies paintball in the yard.  Some windows are busted....I wake up alone, sweating and greasy underneath my mattress.  My buddies come back, nervous..to drop off the paintball guns.  Apparently, they hit an off duty cop with a frozen red paintball, on an inlet.  They had to pass by him several times to find their way back out to the causeway.  So he get's their plates.  I put em up in my closet then we all load back up and head out for the sunset repeat.

OFC we get pulled over by a state trooper out at De Soto Park.  He's looking for a male in a grey camaro, which had multiple reports of the discharge of a weapon and a possible officer shooting.   Property damage (we'd been ramming peoples dumpsters and mailboxes right after sunrise), endangering pedestrians, petty fraud, etc.  The driver is screwed.  Cuffed, towed.  The passengers, on the other hand, deny their involvement.    They're patted down on principle, the officer misses a cleverly grundled bag of weed, and are driven to their respective homes by a second car.  The conversation is pleasant..the beach is beautiful on the ride home.  The cop was a cute blonde.  

Which one of my buddies, do you think, is white?  The one that went home in the car with me, or the one that went to county for a little corrective rehabilitation?

[Excited Penguin]

Maybe white privilege is real. To what extent though? Who knows?
It's a reductive way of viewing society.

There are no biological races - race is a social construct.
What about someone who considers themselves Latino or black but they pass as white. Do they have white privilege?
Do people who are known as (the highly derogatory term) white trash enjoy white privilege too?

Wealth and class are far bigger issues and confer way more privilege but the powers that be want us to fight each other on race issues to distract us and keep us from picking up our torches and pitchforks and getting rid of our elite overlords.

Race is just a social contract? I'm not sure that's quite right, let's not get unscientific here for the sake of PC.

[FatAndFaithless]

Maybe white privilege is real. To what extent though? Who knows?
It's a reductive way of viewing society.

There are no biological races - race is a social construct.
What about someone who considers themselves Latino or black but they pass as white. Do they have white privilege?
Do people who are known as (the highly derogatory term) white trash enjoy white privilege too?

Wealth and class are far bigger issues and confer way more privilege but the powers that be want us to fight each other on race issues to distract us and keep us from picking up our torches and pitchforks and getting rid of our elite overlords.

Race is just a social contract? I'm not sure that's quite right, let's not get unscientific here for the sake of PC.

Construct*  And yeah, it pretty much is.  In fact, science is what shows us it's a largely social construct.  Not sure where your 'let's not get unscientific for the sake of PC' statement came from. There's no genetic basis for what we identify as 'race,' just phenotypes that societies identify and categorize based on their preferences.

[mlmooney89]

You know the world isn't just America?

I feel like I should step away from this conversation. You're basically saying 'guilty by association of 'colour' and hence justifying anti racism as a new racism. "It's retaliation" is effectively "an eye for an eye."

That's about as far away from progressive as you could possibly be, so I'm out.

What the world doesn't revolve around America? WHAT? That is insane! I didn't know that. It's weird but seeing how I am American I can't really vouch for other countries and their racism level so I comment on the things I am familiar with. America is a melting pot of every other country so we see all levels of racism. I am not saying the retaliation is the way we need to go I'm saying the worst of the problems stem from white people. If I hadn't of been like that the guy wouldn't have said those things and we may have even dated. In the southern US the confederate flag flies all over and it is a constant, bitter, reminder of race issues. Our white privilege lets too many of us have big heads and egos and makes others resentful. If whites, at least here in the southern US since I obviously hafta clarify, could let it go and move on I have no doubt that things would calm down. I grew up in a military town where the majority was black and Hispanic kids. I can tell you right now I caused more racist problems than they did.

[paulpablo]

Because it is all in retaliation. I mean yes technically there is white racism but the majority is just fighting back for the racism whites are dishing out. I grew up with very racist views (which I have changed my ways once I got away from my step father and I feel awful for how I acted when I thought it was funny) There was one time in high school a black guy was 'courting' me and he found out that I was racist which is why I was ignoring him. He went off saying fucking white girls are this and that and just racial slurs. I was shocked and going omg he is just as racist the fuckin hypocrite. No that wasn't the case. He was just retaliating. I bet if the whites let it go about Mexicans and blacks things would be a lot different.

He was being a hypocrite. If you call me fat then I say "don't judge people based on their body type you skinny twig bitch" it's retaliation but it's still hypocritical and it's still being prejudice.

I've met black people with a similar attitude as yours who believe they can't even be racist to other none white people, I was going out with a black girl who said "he's just a paki" which is racist slur in England, pretty controversial to use. And when I said it's a racist thing to say she said "I can't be racist anyway I'm black" to me that pretty much sums it up.

Personally I don't understand how words got to be so offensive but if we're going to have a set standard of what racism is then let's not be racist about how it's applied. If it's racist for a white person to say nigger it's racist for a black person to say paki.

[mlmooney89]

I never once said blacks couldn't be racist. I even admitted that there was anti white racism. I only said that most of it was fueled by what we as whites do to provoke it. My whole point is that white privilege is very much a thing and is used a lot.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

You know the world isn't just America?

I feel like I should step away from this conversation. You're basically saying 'guilty by association of 'colour' and hence justifying anti racism as a new racism. "It's retaliation" is effectively "an eye for an eye."

That's about as far away from progressive as you could possibly be, so I'm out.

What the world doesn't revolve around America? WHAT? That is insane! I didn't know that. It's weird but seeing how I am American I can't really vouch for other countries and their racism level so I comment on the things I am familiar with. America is a melting pot of every other country so we see all levels of racism. I am not saying the retaliation is the way we need to go I'm saying the worst of the problems stem from white people. If I hadn't of been like that the guy wouldn't have said those things and we may have even dated. In the southern US the confederate flag flies all over and it is a constant, bitter, reminder of race issues. Our white privilege lets too many of us have big heads and egos and makes others resentful. If whites, at least here in the southern US since I obviously hafta clarify, could let it go and move on I have no doubt that things would calm down. I grew up in a military town where the majority was black and Hispanic kids. I can tell you right now I caused more racist problems than they did.

I understand and I recognize your position. I was responding to the initial idea that you can't be racist to whites, indeed that racism against whites is somehow justified on the pretense of a nebulous concept of almost 'revenge'.

I'm an espouser of an eye for an eye not being the solution to crises of race, religion, politics etc. all too often on this very forum we stand up to those who say we wish to see religion destroyed, and theists harmed or abused etc. why do we do that? We do it because we recognize that emulating the 'sins' or transgressions of the past as a justification of current is neither rational nor logical. Neither is it conducive to solving the very complex and multi-faceted issues that surround discourses of religion.

So why are people so quick to do it with race and civil rights? It perplexes me, as a white person, that I am a legitimate target for racial abuse by virtue of my skin color which I can't do anything about, and indeed by the presupposed actions of my forefathers (whom I don't know anything about and have no idea how they related to race relations. For all I know my great great great great grandfather could have been William Wilberforce). I've even seen the retort in this sort of discussions of "well, now you know how we feel." Is that the sort of discourse that can successfully harmonize relations between peoples?

I remain skeptical.

Edit: please excuse grammatical errors. Phone and all that.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Short women are VERY privileged. My gender is never questioned. I'm always considered plenty feminine. No has ever felt uncomfortable with me wearing heels. No has ever turned me down for a date because "it would look weird". And clothes for tall women are a real struggle. As are stylish shoes.

My wife is 4'9" She has a terrible time finding shoes in women's size 5 and clothes cost more because petites are twice as expensive or we must pay for tailoring. She cannot reach things on the high shelves at grocery stores, etc. But that’s life, we deal with it. The mass market serves the statistical average – everyone else must pay. Life isn't fair.

…in America, as a black person, you have no clue what you're talking about…By and large, white people do not have to deal with a lot of the systemic injustices that are a part of everyday life for people of color…”
[quote='SteelCurtain' pid='1333430' dateline='1468545998']…regularly people act surprised at how well spoken I am…

My formative years happened in a rural all-white culture where very few people were college educated. Our grade school teachers went great lengths to correct the bad grammar and lazy talk we learned from our parents etc. Teachers constantly reminded us that “ain’t isn’t a word”; there’s difference between have and got; and the saying “whattcha” or “gotta” was lazy. In short, they expected us to learn and use American Standard English.
Compare this with my wife’s experience as a white classroom teacher in an all-black school. In that environment the teachers, who were also black, did not attempt to correct the bad grammar of the students, because apparently it is culturally insensitive to teach black children how to conjugate the verb “to be”. At the same time, she could not adopt the poor grammar of the students or teachers for obvious reasons.

My point is there are/were different of expectations between various ethnic groups with respect to language use. As a white person, I would rightly be considered ignorant for consistently using bad grammar and poor pronunciation. At the same time it seems that no such high expectation strictly applies to black people. In fact sometimes it is often embraced as a sign of authenticity and group identity. In the board room black professionals may speak one way then among themselves they might “turn the black on”. In the same way my Hispanic co-workers will sometimes speak Spanish among themselves. And I am okay with that. Early programming is hard to overcome and people should feel at-ease in informal settings.

So while I can understand you feel slighted when told how “well spoken” you are, you may want to consider interpreting such statements as misguided signs of admiration. From their perspective, you chose not conform to the stereotype and may have taken great pains to overcome a negative cultural influence - the same kind of negative cultural influence operating on whites who grew up in blue-collar non-educated communities.

As it relates to the OP, one could consider the above an example of “black privilege”. Poor grammar and idiosyncratic pronunciation among blacks is considered a sign of authenticity; whereas whites using non-Standard American English are held in contempt.

…if you wear your hair the way it naturally grows out you might not get a job or might be pigeonholed into a cultural meme are all examples of white privilege.

This isn’t 1963. Maybe there is some unconscious bias. It doesn’t nearly compare to the prejudice and blatant racism suffered by my elderly neighbors. There will always be natural evolved tribal impulses. And no doubt ethnic minorities have unique difficulties because of that. Life isn't fair and it isn't possible to entirely eliminate unconscious bias. At the same time it’s unfair that you (presumably) and I were born in an affluent society and not in Calcutta. Nevertheless we are privileged to be Americans and live in a country where, however imperfectly, we strive as a nation to overcome instinctual tribalism.

…The most telling aspect is that black people are saying, "hey--pay attention, you guys by and large don't have to deal with this crap all the time." And a lot of white people are seriously just dismissing this out of hand, like "no you don't" or "it's not that bad, get over it." This is the most invasive type of privilege.

It is also a privilege to claim unique exceptions for a group based on so-called victim status.

[Whateverist]

Yeah it's a privilege not to be shot in the back because I have a pistol in my pocket while a white guy can stand out in public with an AK 47 giving shit to the cop who comes to investigate. It's also a privilege not to fit the description and therefore be pulled over at a much higher rate than black drivers. I also feel privileged not to be incarcerated at a much higher rate. Receiving more lenient sentences from judges who feel more empathy for a young guy that reminds them of themselves or someone they knew, some might say that was a privilege. In the U.S., it is a much easier row to hoe being white and much easier to think that conditions are the same for everyone else. I don't assume the situation is the same everywhere else in the world.

[paulpablo]

I never once said blacks couldn't be racist. I even admitted that there was anti white racism. I only said that most of it was fueled by what we as whites do to provoke it. My whole point is that white privilege is very much a thing and is used a lot.

I'm saying her attitude was similar to yours because you're taking away responsibility from black people by saying what they do is in retaliation.

And in the case of the black guy you knew who was being a racist hypocrite just because he is doing it in retaliation doesn't absolve him of responsibility.

If you call me fat and I retaliate by calling you skinny were both making prejudice remarks