Wow, Albill. Does this level of self- satisfaction come to you naturally, or have you been working at it, cause man you are the Charles Atlas of self satisfaction. Those pat yourself on the back muscles are colassal! And you’ve guessed I’m white. Wow. I guess I haven’t outright said I’m white, but I can’t really imagine any other possible conclusion one could draw from what I’ve written. But I don’t suppose you’ve actually read any of it, so kudos on the amazing insight. And albill, thank you for coming here to spread the benefit of your great virtue with me. Your words make it obvious what a joy you are as a person. Thanks just for being you.
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Goodnight Albull. Rest easy in your virtuousness.
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So you deny the historic discrimination against blacks? What a racist you are.
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You seem to be disregarding that this is culturally-specific. Doesn’t it all depend, among other things, where one happens to be? The outlook I encounter here largely falls prey to the exact same tendency which causes the very same problem you are complaining about - assuming a European/colonial world view. I agree that there is a bias towards white people in European culture, but not everywhere. It makes a better case to localize when and where we are talking about, rather than assuming it to be universal.
Not at all. A privilege is an ability, luxury, or allowance formally given to someone by a superior. For instance, if I did a great job at work and my boss let me play golf all day would be a privilege. If I show up to a track meet and my competition’s legs are in splints is not a privilege, it is an advantage. If there are laws which equally favor me or another race, but people pick one of us over the other on basis of race would be a bias, or simply “racism”. If racism is the law of the land, such as with Apartheid, this would indeed be privilege, because it is explicitly bestowing different social status to people.
So, there is IMO a problematic connotation of inequality in the use of the term privilege. The traditional “granted by a superior” part of the definition which has essentially characterized it, and which most seem to presently ignore, does not merely point out inequitable treatment of some people (which would be a constructive thing to communicate), the implicit assumption that there must be a supposedly superior party frames racism as something universal (which would be destructive), and so undermines efforts to encourage people’s awareness about it.
If you cannot frame problems of racism from the perspective of people being of equal worth, then you have no valid argument against racism. You would instead be internalizing these abuses while you argue against them, which would be counter-productive. Apparently I am the only one in any room who thinks the distinction is crucial, and am thus “pissing in the wind”, so I now presently piss off.
Wow, oblivious white defensiveness and fragility in the very first comment. Impressive!
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Not talking about dictionary definitions here. We’re talking about usage. I see the sense in which your set of connotations of privilege is unhelpful and possibly infuriating for some people, but I don’t think that’s most folk’s line of association.
JFC. An ad ran prior to the song that spoke of some horrible thing called “GOP TV”, which did not prepare me well for the music.
It appears your entire issue is with the use of the word “privilege”.
Mirriam Webster dictionary definition of the word
: a right or benefit that is given to some people and not to others : a special opportunity to do something that makes you proud : the advantage that wealthy and powerful people have over other people in a society
You’ll notice that your definition is third, not first. Your definition isn’t wrong, it’s just not the only one, or even the primary one.
Interestingly, a pop-up window I’ve never seen before showed up stating:
Privilege is currently in the top 10% of lookups on Merriam-Webster.com.
Good to see that this issue is causing people to search for info.
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You better start finding some citations for your assertion that, “[p]rivilege until quite recently was most often used as a synonym for ‘wealth’ and the advantages inherent in wealth”, or you are going to have your internet and XBox privileges revoked.
For certain, limited definitions of the term “good” that have nothing to do with DNS entries.
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@#$O*@#O*&@#$ I was just beginning to think we were going to get a new entry on The Great List, and you guys had to kiss and make up!
#@#$&*!
Which is really the way things should work, so: good!
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Well, yeah—privilege is a cultural phenomenon, not an immutable law of physics. That’s what makes it something we can work to change. The comic made it pretty clear which culture was being referred to in this case. Just because there may be places where “white privilege” does not apply doesn’t make it any less real.
Even so you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find many examples of places where black people have a significant social privilege over white people. Even in many sub-saharan African countries where white people are a small minority they are often statistically better off than their black peers.
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Gonna have to stop you right there, because you just made one of the arguments you’ve been getting so sanctimonious about. I hate to tell you to do some privilege checking, but I have to.
The thing is, while Jewish people still get hit with anti-Semitism, it’s not as if they suffer from it. Quite the opposite; while Jewish people only make up 2% of the U.S. population, they represent 40% of the billionaires in the country, and Jewish median income is double the national. Modern Jewish Americans aren’t suffering. Oh, I know you’ll say that there are poor Jewish people in America. Yeah. And there’s white people living in poverty, but we have a former member of Veruca Salt who wants to explain white privilege to white people in poverty.
If Mister44, growing up eating government cheese, and I, growing up eating the same cheese and peanut butter, spending my weekends helping to haul firewood to keep the house warm, hauling water to my grandma’s house in buckets from the hand pump, and using an outhouse out of necessity, has to check his privilege, surely Jewish people do as well.
BoingBoing ran a story a while back about the anti-Semitic side of college admissions quotas. But the thing is, that happens because Jewish Americans are among the most privileged people in America, and end up being over-represented. If you have room in your uni for 75,000 people and you want more black and Hispanic students, what, keep people out as long as you don’t keep out Jewish and Asian Americans?
Because really, you can’t dismiss people like my grandpa’s family, who had to change their German name to assimilate, Dean Martin (Dino Paul Crocetti), Martin Sheen (Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez), and all those other white people whose groups weren’t accepted…but then say, hey, Jewish people are a different kind of white people altogether. Because really, people like Dean Martin changed their names, because the Klan actually lynched Italians.
Because then it gets tricky; we demand that Hollywood be less white…but excluding Jewish actors would be anti-Semitic. We demand that positions of power be less white…but excluding Jewish candidates would be anti-Semitic. And we’re supposed to forget all those white genocides that have happened in the past (one of them as recently as the 90s)…but forgetting the Holocaust would be anti-Semitic (yes, I realize the scale of deaths is far higher than, say, the Armenian Genocide…but is it really a numbers game? Armenians or Irish don’t get to complain because it was only a million?)
None of this is to say that white people’s recent struggles have been anything like the struggles of non-white people, but for someone who likes to play the “check your privilege” card, I thought you might need to take a moment to check your own.
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I think he’s saying its an ongoing issue. You did see that video where a cop just straight up shot a dude, who was fleeing from him, in the back, right? Then planted a taser on him so he could justify murder? Because that’s not uncommon. It’s just not often caught on tape. That’s the world we’re living in.
Also…
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I was: having to prove yourself the equal of a white man in a world that presumes you aren’t.
It is not a binary state, there are levels and gradients. Reality is complex.
Yes, it is a multi-faceted thing. Reality is complex.
So you think complexity means things are bullshit? So medical science is bullshit? So history is bullshit? So physics is bullshit?
I submit to you that things are complex are not bullshit, as evidenced by those things being complex and not bullshit. Thus, privilege being a multi-dimensional term does not render its use always and everywhere bullshit. It is complex. Complexity and bullshit are not the same thing.
Though one who doesn’t understand the complexity might, out of aggressive ignorance, try to write off something that is complex as bullshit. Thus, your action may be in the same bucket as climate change deniers and anti-vax loonies and Food Babe: because you don’t understand privilege, you call it bullshit.
Lucky for you (and for them) it’s possible to get a better understanding of the world. But you have to want to educate yourself. And the first step toward that understanding is recognizing that you are currently wrong. Once you admit that, and become receptive to becoming a better person, there is hope.
Until you admit that, don’t choke on your bile.
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Never underestimate the fragility, and therefore defensivenss of whites… Little things seem to make most of us nervous… this, for example:
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The ad isn’t an endorsement of it’s politics, it’s a criticism. The Manics would be classed by SJWs and very Cultural Marxist by the usual people, they just think Labour and the Democrats are betraying minorities (Other than the super-rich), the working classes and the left in general.
I don’t know who they want to vote for in the General Election but Nicky Wire was scathing about Labour, LibDem, The Conservatives, Ukip and Plaid Cymru in a recent interview.
Maybe this will help you feel a bit better about the band.
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Mind. blown.
Nobody needs this concept “explained” to them. Those who object to generalizations about “white privilege” object because they reject the moral imperative implied by the the argument. It’s a clever rhetorical trick, assuming that your opponent is simply too dense to understand you and that if she were only a little bit brighter or better educated she would see the irrefutable wisdom you propose. Fucking stop it already.
