Is white privilege real? To what extent?

[paulpablo]

Go make a "is privilege real" thread. I've no interest in bickering with you..in this thread..over your not so subtle equivocations.

I'm not bickering I'm asking what the definition of privilege is.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because you can't argue against white privilege, and you know it.

[paulpablo]

Because you can't argue against white privilege, and you know it.

I've always thought of white privilege as being related to privilege.

[Neo-Scholastic]

To be clear, most white privilege isn't something that white people are guilty of, or something they're actively doing. Rather, it's tiny little things in our society that build up. It comes to a boiling point when people start talking about it openly, and when social media can so easily bring people with common experiences together. It becomes harder to maintain the ruse that it's just me, or just my city/state.

Why do people always get defensive about it? It's so weird to me.

My white female privilege:

I can get out of pretty much any traffic violation just by existing.
People assume I know how to have an intelligent conversation with basic vocabulary and grammar skills before I start speaking.
No one thinks I'm going to steal stuff when I go shopping.
If I walk down a dark street people ask me if I need help instead of being afraid of me.

I'm sure there's more that I don't even notice.

My white guilt: none

No one asks to be born whatever race they are born. White privilege isn't about putting white people down or calling white people racists. Little things that make life easier that are not earned but instead just kind of happen because you're white.

I bet that you pretty much always exit an elevator first too.

[Excited Penguin]

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.

I don't know much about the subject but I know enough to know that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. How about you look it up before further making a fool of yourself?

[FatAndFaithless]

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.

I don't know much about the subject but I know enough to know that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. How about you look it up before further making a fool of yourself?

Well, just off the top of my head...

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...constructs

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...sts-argue/

http://minerva.stkate.edu/people.nsf/fil...cience.pdf

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arch...ct/275872/


There's no genetic basis for any 'race.'  As I said before it's just phenotypes that are arbitrarily grouped together by societies.

You were saying about making a fool of oneself?

[Mister Agenda]

Why should "we", reference any colour when most, if not all of us have subscribed to Darwins theory of there being only one race, and not 6 or 8, just as Carl Linnaeus proposed?

Biologically speaking, a race is a regional variation within a species. The human species has those. There seem to be a lot of people using 'race' and 'species' interchangeably. They're not actually interchangeable. The regional differences among humans are superficial, not nonexistent.

[Excited Penguin]

I don't know much about the subject but I know enough to know that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. How about you look it up before further making a fool of yourself?

Well, just off the top of my head...

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...constructs

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...sts-argue/

http://minerva.stkate.edu/people.nsf/fil...cience.pdf

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arch...ct/275872/


There's no genetic basis for any 'race.'  As I said before it's just phenotypes that are arbitrarily grouped together by societies.

You were saying about making a fool of oneself?

 The first article is unscientific, an opinion piece, the second one is written by a journalist about the remarks of a professor of public health. Whoopty fucking do. I'm not even going to waste time on the other ones.


Now let me tell you something else. There hasn't been any conclusive research in this area, even though it looks promising in a strictly scientific sense, precisely because of the amazing stupidity of the human race, stupidity perfectly exampled by you in this very moment.

Have a good day.

[FatAndFaithless]

Yeesh.

[Mister Agenda]

-And?  Firstly, you might be ignoring the brute force of demographics.....secondly...how does that speak to white privilege?

It's no longer a white privilege to be less likely to go to prison if you're more likely to go to prison if white than if you're asian.

What does it mean to ignore the brute force of demographics?

Perhaps it means saying a white person being less likely to go to prison than a black person is not privileged because an Asian person is even less likely to go to prison than either of them.  Only one race gets to have any privileges? White privilege isn't a statement that there's no such thing as Asian privilege.

But even Asian privilege in regard to being shot by cops is in the context of how mostly white cops perceive the threat level of Asians.