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Forums - Politics Discussion - There is no Such Thing as "White Privilege"

teigaga on 26 January 2016

PerturbedKitty said:

 I agree with the first half of your post. The second half regarding the government giving people things based solely on their demographic is something I will never agree with because I don't believe that race or gender has anything to do with merit. If you can show me a field where demographic has a significant impact on merit, then maybe I can agree for that specific example, but I'm warning you that it would require actual evidence lol. 

To put it shortly, I think people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Not everybody agrees with that, but to each their own I guess. 

But again, the difference between you and how something like the governments operates is that they're looking far into the future, it really isn't about the individual but about the community as a whole. 

The real argument should be on whether you think its an effective way of making positive change and whether it'll benefit America as a whole in the longrun. 



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teigaga on 26 January 2016
PerturbedKitty said:
teigaga said:
PerturbedKitty said:
SpokenTruth said:

To understand it, you have to step back from an individual perspective and look at it from a collective perspective.

You also fail to regonize that the "free ride", scholarship, that any black can claim, so you say, is not privelage, it's your schools attempt to help move that back row forward.  That didn't push your front row back any.  And again, don't look at the rows as individuals but as a collective.

So I shouldn't worry about individuals facing inequalities based on the color of their skin?? lol wow. Absolutely incredible that people who say this stuff are the ones trying to say that they're the ones who are not racist. It sounds incredibly racist to me. You know, I'll just repeat: part of not being a racist is not taking somebody's skin color into consideration. I think people sometimes forget this very basic but crucial point haha

You should of course worry about individuals but equally communities and societies as a whole.  Govenments don't offer out minority driven scholarships simply so that sole individual can succeed, the cost probably wouldn't be worth it. They do it to encourage and enable social mobility, because thereis a real trickle down effect which benefits the community in the long run.

"Over the past 15 years black men have improved their graduation rate from 28 percent to 35 percent.....black women have improved their college completion rate from 34 percent in 1990 to 46 percent in 2005.

Graduation rates play an important role in measuring the success of affirmative action programs.."


Regarding your last point colour blindness is not necessarily intelligence, and can often stray into ignorance.

Man, those graduation rates are really disturbing. Im noticing that black women are so much more privileged than black men. Something needs to be done about that don't you think?

Part of it likely due to gang culture and other cultures which may make the black males devalue the education system. Outside of that I think theres a Universal problem of boys falling behind in education, but I haven't looked much into why that is.





PerturbedKitty on 26 January 2016
SpokenTruth said:
PerturbedKitty said:

No, I don't. "The obvious truth that racial minorities and women are disadvantaged" is not sufficient evidence for me to believe that it actually exists.

What was that I was saying before about the privelaged not knowing they are privelaged or seeing the struggle of those rows behind them?

In truth, I'm not going to be able to convince you here.  This kind of understanding isn't something that reveals itself on an Internet forum.  You'll have to do some objective research (willing to learn about it is often the hardest part of getting others to understand...I'm sure you can see that regardless of the topic).  You're a good person that wants to see people treated equally and that's noble.  We need more of that.  But we also need people to be willing to look at it one step closer.  And I'll admit, it's a damn tought thing to do.

Ok I see how this works. Because of my race and gender, my perspective doesn't mean shit lol. I have absolutely nothing of value to offer here.

Don't worry, even though what you're saying is something that would be incredibly offensive to most people, there is none taken here. Honestly, there isn't. 

But like I said, the obvious truth of disadvantage is not sufficient evidence for me just as "the obvious truth that there is a God" isn't sufficient evidence to convert an atheist. 



Wyrdness on 26 January 2016

On the whole privilege thing if it didn't exist can someone explain why white Americans are simply called American while other ethnic groups are called Afro-American, Asian-American and so on?

I kind of agree with Spoken Truth, tbh.



outlawauron on 26 January 2016
Wyrdness said:
On the whole privilege thing if it didn't exist can someone explain why white Americans are simply called American while other ethnic groups are called Afro-American, Asian-American and so on?

I kind of agree with Spoken Truth, tbh.

People like to be labeled and have something to identify with. I don't think humans fixation on having a group or a label to belong to is evidence of privilege. At least, in my experience that people are very proud of it and celebrate it.



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Wyrdness on 26 January 2016
outlawauron said:

People like to be labeled and have something to identify with. I don't think humans fixation on having a group or a label to belong to is evidence of privilege. At least, in my experience that people are very proud of it and celebrate it.

 

Really because from my experience people don't like to be labelled, here in the UK we simply say someone is British regardless of their ethnicity, I think you may be mixed up here on being labelled and people being proud of their heritage. Labelling is a means of separating people into groups, why are whites simply American when born in the US but everyone else has their ethnicity tagged on to it, many black Americans have never been to Africa to be called Afro-American and if you're going by heritage shouldn't caucasians be labelled as Euro-Americans.



DonFerrari on 26 January 2016
teigaga said:
DonFerrari said:
Puppyroach said:

Except Sweden has one of the lowest debt-per-GDP in the world at something like 40%. We also had a gdp growth last year of 3,9% which is amazing considering how much turmoil we have in the world right now.

From what I know the trend is that of a growing debt.

teigaga said:
DonFerrari said:

Jews had it a lot

Whats the context? Genocide versus 150 years of slavery and social deprivation are not comparable when looking at the generational impact on american communities.

Unless the Jewish experienced a recent century of basic reading+writing abilities being trained out of them, we really shouldn't be comparing the two. Not in the context of this discussion.

Besides having 6M MURDERED? Being despised and hunt in Germany for decades before, being hunted on Spain and Portugal for centuries (perhaps other european countries as well during the middle age), being slaves on Egypt and a lot more... yes jew had it easy.

Where did anyone say they had it easy and Where are you responding to my point?

The Jewish enslavement in Egypt  pre-dates the bible. Why are we comparing that to slavery which is recent enough for children of actual slaves to still be alive today in America? It makes no sense, which is why context is key.

Equally you can't just compare different 2 atrocities and treat them as the same. A key component of recent African American history was the removal of literacy in the last 2 century's. A means of the community to nurture itself and grow. In the west the community has never had strong pockets of wealth, power and influence like the Jewish. The community also never recieved reperations, whereas the jewish did. You're comparing apples and pears.

And you choose to ignore the persecution/prejudice against jew in Europe from before 1500 going all the way up to 2 WW?

How did Europeans removed literacy of the Slaves if their tribes were iliterate to begin with? And during slavery most of white people were iliterate as well.

Reparation of jewish for being exterminated I'm mostly sure didn't even equate to how much of their possessions were robbed from them on the nazi germany, but certainly no one looked for reparation for all the rest prior to that, and was done to the people that were directly abused not to all jews alive. How do you want to calculate a debt from someone who didn't commit a crime to someone that didn't suffer that crime on an expectation of what may have happened 150 years before and not even involve both? In Brazil it's show that something between 90-98% of population have black/african heritage, how do you want to calculate the debt? By looking at how dark a skin is?

SpokenTruth said:
PerturbedKitty said:

How does their race tell you anything about their individual circumstance? You keep making this distinction between individuals and collectives, yet you just contradicted it here by saying their race informs you of their circumstance and is something to be considered. 

Dude you're literally telling me that I have to treat people different based on their race. Not once when I interact with people do I remind myself "ok, I'm speaking to an African American male right now" and you know what, I shouldn't ever have to think about that. Part of not being a racist is not considering someone's race when you're talking to them. Treating them as an equal, not as someone who is disadvantaged or in some way handicapped. I would hate it if somebody thought they had to talk to me differently because I'm white. Those are the kind of people I'd like to stay away from. I want to be around people who treat me as an equal and don't consider my race or gender, and youre taking it upon yourself to make a declaration for the entire black community.

What if black people dont want people to keep in mind that they're black and that they have this different experience that they cannot understand? Sure im sure that there are some black people who would love it if every white person they encountered would think this way, but I bet that most of them do not. I bet most of them do not want the people they are talking with to consider their race as some sort of significant factor in how they interact with them. I believe my fellow humans want to be treated and seen as equals.

Let me put it another way.

Would you be ok being born black?  Or any minority?  Or a woman?  Would you be OK dealing with the extra crap they have to deal with in life?  Now if you were, how would you want people to address you and your circumstances?  Would you want them to ignore your history, your culture, your differences?  I can assure you that people do not like to have that ignored.  Does that mean your interaction between people of different races and cultures will be drastically different?  Probably not.  But there should be some subtle differences but that goes the case with all interactions anyway...even if you're not consciously aware of it.

Yes I would. I'm white skinned while my brother would be considered black. We both were born from like 6/8 of our ancestors being slaves 4 generations ago (more or less) with the other 2/8 being from Italian that were in slavelike conditions when immigrated to brazil and my wife is japanese decendent. Family history show that as soon as one in each branch decided studying were important the next generation were improving leaps and bounds.

People ignore all my history, culture and differences to say I'm privileged, why should I consider any individual to have a more meaningless heritage or relevance than myself to say they deserve special threatment? The only people I care about their experience or would think should care about mine are people that I have close connections to.

All the other I would say is indiferent, if I don't have their history I can only evaluate by what he represent.

So am I the privileged one because my skin is lighter than my brother or sister?

Wyrdness said:
On the whole privilege thing if it didn't exist can someone explain why white Americans are simply called American while other ethnic groups are called Afro-American, Asian-American and so on?

I kind of agree with Spoken Truth, tbh.

Because Afro-American, Asian-American and Native-American don't like to be called black, yellow, red... while white american don't fuck care to be called white or caucassian, so they just use American. You are barking at the wrong three.

I'm Brazilian... white skinned... I have 3/4 black african blood, 1/4 italian immigrant blood (know relatives). Should I call myself Afro-Euro-Brazilian? Nope I'm Brazilian, but black people don't want anyone to say they are brazilian or have dark skin they want to be called Afro-Brazilian.



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Tigerlure on 26 January 2016

For someone who says they go to school, you must not be learning anything. Take a basic Sociology course. You'll learn that it's a real thing. I'll spell out specific examples for you.

White privilege is having generational wealth because your family after World War II was not forced into segregated, red-zoned neighborhoods. 

White privilege is using that wealth to get access to better schools and a better education because your family can afford to pay the high property taxes.

White privilege is using drug at the same rate as African Americans, but not being dispropotionately targeted by police.

White privilege is not being pulled over by police for driving a nice car while being black/latino.

White privilege is not getting your resume thrown out, when you're just as qualified as the next white applicant but are discriminated due to a foreign sounding name.

Those are just a few examples. Some are defensive about white privilege because they take it to mean that they haven't worked hard for what they earned. That is NOT what white privilege is. No one is saying you haven't earned what you've worked hard for. What we're saying is that there are conscious and subsconscious biases in society that give you certain advantages.



outlawauron on 26 January 2016
Wyrdness said:
outlawauron said:

People like to be labeled and have something to identify with. I don't think humans fixation on having a group or a label to belong to is evidence of privilege. At least, in my experience that people are very proud of it and celebrate it.

Really because from my experience people don't like to be labelled, here in the UK we simply say someone is British regardless of their ethnicity, I think you may be mixed up here on being labelled and people being proud of their heritage. Labelling is a means of separating people into groups, why are whites simply American when born in the US but everyone else has their ethnicity tagged on to it, many black Americans have never been to Africa to be called Afro-American and if you're going by heritage shouldn't caucasians be labelled as Euro-Americans.

I can only speak from my experiences. I live in part of the country where people take on their ethnicity as part of their culture and identity. I just said that I don't see the terms existance as evidence of privilege. 



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

Wyrdness on 26 January 2016
DonFerrari said:

 

Because Afro-American, Asian-American and Native-American don't like to be called black, yellow, red... while white american don't fuck care to be called white or caucassian, so they just use American. You are barking at the wrong three.

I'm Brazilian... white skinned... I have 3/4 black african blood, 1/4 italian immigrant blood (know relatives). Should I call myself Afro-Euro-Brazilian? Nope I'm Brazilian, but black people don't want anyone to say they are brazilian or have dark skin they want to be called Afro-Brazilian.

 

Yet in places like the UK you don't see any of that, only people I've seen here say they're African are actual Africans themselves for example so I don't fully buy what you're saying, here if they're British they just say British. It's also tree not three btw.