Best comment in this thread. Bravo, and thank you for the clarification it provides.
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Why should a white person be thankful that, through no effort of their own, they enjoy certain advantages and heightened opportunities that people with darker skin cannot count on? Why should a man be thankful that ______ that women cannot _______? Why should a heterosexual person be thankful that _______ that LGBTQ people cannot ______?
Sure, we should all be thankful that weâre alive and that the sky is such a brilliant blue and so on, but those arenât the comforting phenomena addressed by those who use the word âprivilege.â
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Think about that for a moment. Think about what life must be like for someone who is not thankful for having been born. Being able to be thankful for your actual existence is a privilege not shared by all, and that is not the fault of the victims.
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The thing that was foremost in my mind when reading your post is that youâve exemplified how the Tea Party has been successful at attracting the white working poor to demonstrate and vote against their interests because they believe theyâre finally being appreciated and understood for all the individual difficulties theyâve experienced in their lives. The term âprivilegeâ really does raise their hackles. It doesnât work as a key to entry for that group. Not saying I know how to express the issues in a way that will draw that group to progressive thinking about themselves and others, but clearly there needs to be a different tactic.
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get a lifre.stop wasting your on matters you can not influence.and most oif all,do not help the rich get richer.do not help them keep the poor ignorant and opressed.this is the reason for all your problems in society.this and religious idiots.
so,start fresh,kill religions,eliminate greed and problems are solvedâŚbut this would require you to give up your fancy way of life,and your fucken carâŚ
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Addressing poverty in general by bringing benefits to poorer areas gives people of all races the feeling that their lives could get better. White people can support that and maintain a feeling of self-interest. Eliminating racial discrimination in an area without adding more opportunities would create something of a zero sum game in that area and directly threaten the way of life of white people there, who may well be suffering more than the rest of the country anyway (even though that would be the most fair local solution). If youâre struggling to get by as it is, it will be hard to convince you that from the point of view of local justice, you donât even deserve a lot of what you do have. Itâs also a big thing to agree that yes, you have some degree of privilege despite being told this by someone who doesnât seem willing to acknowledge their own privilege compared to you (you are playing on easy mode, after all). To some people, the following paragraph shows that Laurie Penny understands what nerds went through and is not dismissing them:
To others, I suspect this section says to them that the woman with a well-paid interesting job who went to the (private) UK school of the year and graduated from Oxford University is trying to claim that she has suffered everything that her white male nerd readers have suffered, and then some. (I donât think she is saying that, but having been to both, I found that nerds in independent schools had a lot higher status than in comprehensive schools - being nerdy was pretty much standard; being poor was more shameful). I think geographically and financially privileged people do need to work harder to demonstrate that they recognise their place in the spectrum and donât just assume that they can quantify everything that a given SWM in the conversation has suffered (even if a woman or person of colour in the same circumstances would have it worse - she isnât that person). This is not to let people off the hook or deny that LP has a strong point, but some people do have a lot more to lose by admitting their own privilege and making that the first step is a big ask.
Whoâs on the money, honey?
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That is, I think, his point. That the people of privilege who refuse to engage with the word âprivilegeâ do not have a problem engaging with the word thankful.
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One point that LP makes that is worth highlighting is the fact that patriarchy does harm men too (relax, this isnât an MRA argument):
Men are shamed for not having sex; women are shamed for having it. Men are punished and made to feel bad for their desires, made to resent and fear women for having denied them the sex they crave and the intimacy theyâre not allowed to get elsewhere. Meanwhile, women are punished and made to feel bad for their perfectly normal desires and taught to resist all advances.
While he was obviously an extreme example with plenty of problems of his own, Elliot Rodger was obviously pretty tormented by the patriarchal paradigm described here. This kind of attitude is incredibly hostile for women, but it attacks both men and women in a way that denies them the ability to have normal relationships and express themselves naturally. This isnât just true if the man is not heterosexual - it teaches people attitudes and practices that are only going to bring pain to themselves and others. Thereâs no question that women are the bigger losers here, but nobody really wins when relationships and roles are framed like this.
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Except the power structure is dominated by those very same Euro-colonials. The entire world is awash in Western European ideals. When the US âwonâ the cold war, it meant the logic of the market won out⌠European colonists did not get subsumed into native American culture, they (we_ spent a few centuries fighting for its destruction, while claiming it was just âhistoryâ and âprogressâ.
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Well, this is just about perfect! Thanks for always being so on point and full of smart!
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As mentioned earlier, only a Machiavellian psychopath would do that. The idea is to get people thinking of all the things they forget because who you are is largely invisible to you, e.g. as a white guy store security does not follow me around inside the store thinking I am going to steal stuff.
I find that doing this in a positive way (as I realized that I am thankful for X, I now suddenly appreciate that others may not have X to be thankful for at all) leads to a better outcome and more empathy compared to the implicit us vs. them, constant one-downsmanship of âyou have it so easy, everything was handed to you on a silver platter, you havenât done anything to deserve what you gotâ sorts of privilege discussions.
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I see, that makes sense now, and does seem like a good beginning strategy. Thank you for explaining.
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Indeed! A case in point from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation show Q&A:
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Well, men complete suicide more often than women, but women attempt suicide more often than men. If % who want to die is a proxy for who has it better then men definitely have it better. The reasons for the differences in suicide completion are not usually publicized because they could contribute to suicidal thoughts / suicide contagion (but itâs not that womenâs attempts arenât genuine).
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I donât feel like I have anything to add to this conversation, at this late date, other than my sincere thanks for its existence; this is an issue that I find myself frustrated by and frequently internally conflicted about, and it has been fascinating to follow the back and forth.
In reading along, Iâve been experiencing the same excitement that I get when hearing any good, honestly engaged debate. This is a rare feeling, anymore, even here on bbs.
Seriously. Everyone. Gold stars.
(Not that kind of stars.)
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Erm, the reason for the difference in completion is that men are more likely to use guns and automobiles, whereas women are more likely to use poison or self-cutting, which are more easily interrupted and the suicide prevented. Thatâs pretty well publicized, if by âwell publicizedâ you mean âwidely written about in the professional literature and in the press releases.â
Sorry, do carry on - Iâm far too late to the conversation to say anything about privilege that @anon50609448, @anon15383236, @anon61221983 and others havenât already said excellently, but I can drop in the 2 cents of a licensed therapist.
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If people agreed that this was âthe normâ, then why do so many disagree with this? Norms would be decided through consensus, and the only people who would agree with your consensus would be white Europeans. I am skeptical that white Europeans even have any consensus as to what their own values are supposed to be - or why non-white, non-Europeans should be interested.
Any particular Western European ideals? All of them?
[quote=âanon61221983, post:205, topic:49034â]When the US âwonâ the cold war, it meant the logic of the market won outâŚ
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Itâs logic won out? Is that why itâs so easy for me to hire a logician out of the Yellow Pages? So people âwinâ the right/requirement to engage in commerce?
There are more native Americans now than there have ever been, through the spread of their genes and culture. How do suppose there are more Irish in the US than in Ireland? Itâs the same principle.
You really seem to like to focus on the very broad generalizations which put the responsibilities for cultural values and change elsewhere. Perhaps people here find it easier to believe that some people might actually be more powerful than others, as this relieves them of responsibility. I know that history is rife with this stuff, but itâs worth growing out of. The story was that aristocrats are a ruling class because they were chosen by or descended from The God(s). Perhaps I am in error for assuming that people are not still so gullible. Cultural norms are participatory, they donât just passively happen to people. If people require you to adopt fanciful ideals such as class, economics, property, race, sexism, etc - it is their responsibility to convince you of these things, if they can. But if you give up your agency by going along with such nonsense against your better judgement, thereâs no helping you.
Perhaps this is why egalitarianism seems to be so unpopular, because it doesnât offer anybody an easy way out of assuming that somebody else must know better, or must be able to do more.
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