Is white privilege real? To what extent?

[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.