White Privilege (and others)

I think that White people should recognize that our society is still unfair and that we benefit from it. Any thoughtful person should think about how social attitudes and customs benefit some people at the expense of others.

I don't think that feeling guilty is a valid response. I do think that being thoughtful about it, and supporting policies that support a more fair and equal society are valid responses. Considering your own attitudes and the way you treat people around you is certainly a valid response.

In my opinion, racial disparities are still the most damaging part of our society, with the exception of the fear of Muslims (which is mixed up in our ideas of race). This is why I think the focus on race is appropriate.

Race and gender get all the attention (and gender inequality/male privilege gets plenty of attention also) because no one can control the race or gender they were born with and race and gender is completely obvious to everyone at just a glance. There is no doubt the rich have advantages that the average person doesn't, but we all hope to be rich one day. There is certainly discrimination and privilege based on religion, but your religion is not readily apparent and that sword can cut two ways. Discrimination based on race or gender is like discrimination based on eye color. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Please list them for us.

If you're a trans-gendered individual,like Ms/Mr Jenner, it certainly isn't obvious. Ms Jenner ( formerly Mr. Jenner) has a better and far more attractive figure than many other American women and at times, it's hard to remember that Ms Jenner is really a male, who has undergone extensive physical as well as biochemical modifications.

Some racial characteristics can be modified and there's a wealth of money in those pharmaceuticals synthesized for alteration of skin color and modification of hair texture.

More over, various plastic surgery techniques can be (and are) used to modifiy different facial aspects ( eyes, ears, nose, mouth, lips...etc) usually associated with specific races.


A person may be born male and in later life become a female, if he/she so desires. A "person of color ", if he/she desires may become white if they so desire, and of course have the financial resources . And...if a white person should want to become "person of color" and has the financial resources to do so, they may undergo the necessary procedures for this transformation.

Nothing beats a very diverse World.

I don't think there is any connection between racial privilege and gender privilege.

Race in our society has always been a one way thing. Black people were enslaved by White people in our society (never the other way around). Black people had zero legal protection and zero value as human beings. There was no penalty for taking the life of a Black person.

During this time women owned slaves. Yes, there was inequality between men and women where men had the economic and political power. Yet, there were also ways that females were privileged. In polite society men were expected to serve women (at least women with class). Killing a woman was considered a greater crime than killing a man. Killing women was prohibited in war. When ships went down, the women and children were saved first.

There has never been a time in our culture that being a Black man wasn't far worse than being a White woman. The social structures between racial subjugation and gender inequality aren't even comparable... they have different modes of operation and different sociological functions. Although gender roles provided unequal power, women were always considered part of our society and necessary for its functioning. They were never considered the other... the way that other races are.

Around the time that White women were getting the right to vote, many them were expressing some pretty disturbing White supremacist views. I am sure you have heard of Elizabeth Stanton....





You can support both woman's rights and racial justice... but it's a mistake to believe that they are the same thing-- or even that they are related.

Let me tell you about white privilege; I have been trying to find some clarity in what happened to me yesterday, I was in Thorntons on my ten o'clock break trying to get me some food to hold me over until lunch. As I was exiting the store I see a man chasing after a woman, who he then proceeds to grab and jerk around. I jump in between and tell Thorntons employees to call 911. This is domestic violence. She was black and so was he. I am 20 years old. I am white, I am middle class, and I am college educated. I knew I needed to get away from the situation before it worsened. I began walking away, until I look in their car; tucked in his little car seat is an infant, who is left alone while they are forty feet away screaming at each other. I couldn't leave once I saw this baby unattended, so I stood by the vehicle.

The young woman finally runs to her car, hops in, and tries to start it. The male begins to hop in the car, and hen proceeds to grab her in a head lock and chicken the holy hell out of her. I knew it wasn't my place, but I had to intervene and help this WOMAN. I was in a bad area of town. My work is dead center in the middle of a crime infested, black demographic neighborhood. But I had to help her. It wasn't a thing about race, I saw she needed help and I ran to her. After confronting the male he head butts me, so I defend myself and proceed to, in a PC fashioned sentence, put him in his place. As I am pummeling him, I hear a bunch of noise...

Before I look up there are four middle aged men bashing my head in. At first I didn't feel it, my adrenaline was pumping and I was zoned in on putting this abusive animal in his place. But I could feel my head whipping around from everywhere as I was still laying into this man. Sirens blare, they are still hitting me. A construction worker, a poor beggar that stands outside of the store everyday, and a few more figures I couldn't make out were still hitting me with everything they had. Police pull in and they run away from the scene. I was pulled out of this jumping by my best friend, who is also white, who took a beating just to get me out of there.

This was a one on one fight in the beginning, then it became 5 on 1 as soon as I slammed him on the car hood and started unleashing on his abusive perverse melon. The police questioned us, and a remarkable statement was made by Thorntons employees and my friend: the men that jumped me ran from their gas pumps and from the bus stop, just to hit me. Why is that? Because I'm a white man? I was defending this woman and her child, I was defending myself as he head butted me and proceed to fight. Why was I jumped? Because I am a trained fighter? No, this is irrelevant. Because I stick up for women? I don't think so. Or because there was a middle class white boy, in a neighborhood known for gang violence, beating up a black man. They didn't know the circumstances, they didn't care! I could have been stabbed or shot trying to defend a black woman and her child. I was a victim of a coalition of black men who did not know each other, who just couldn't stand to see their "kind" go down like that. After yelling help to me, the woman who was the victim of domestic violence recants her statement. She tells police he wasn't hurting her, when every body saw him. I stood up for her because of her vulnerability, not because she was black. But because I am white, and her man got taken care of, she makes me look like the aggressor.

Police let him go too! With her! Even after reviewing the store footage and seeing him choke her, head butt me, and me get jumped, they let him go. I haven't even gotten a phone call from police since the incident yesterday morning. So know, tell me, what white privilege do I have? I wasn't allowed to defend myself or this woman, I was beaten. I was the target for a barrage of punches and kicks because I was white. I was doing what I would have done for anyone being abused and I am rewarded with injury. Please tell me what privilege I have. I am dying to know. My nice paying job? I went to college and graduated in deans list for that. My beautiful wife and two sons? I earned that. My money? I worked for that. But I can't even defend a woman shading an abusive black boyfriend without getting my head kicked in by people who never even knew this guy. This guy lived in another county! He was here for a job interview! They Beat me because I was white and he was black.

Let's pretend I believe your story (which I don't) but let's say I do for the sake of argument.

You were a white man attacking a Black man in a Black neighborhood. You say you had a good reason for attacking this Black man, but the other people who jumped in had no way of knowing this... all they saw is you attacking someone else.

You claim it was 5 on 2... and yet you walked away with no serious injuries (other than a hurt pride).

If you were a Black man in a fight in a White neighborhood, you would have at least been arrested (if not shot). Trayvonn Martin was attacked and shot for simply being in a White neighborhood, he wasn't attacking anyone, he was just being there.

Do you see the difference?

You're a 20 year old college graduate with a wife and 2 kids?

awesome

A slight correction: It doesn't make any sense.

Do you believe the stuff you write?

Max may not always be right, but he got this one right.

Seriously? There was a trial you know and they had facts and stuff.

In my opinion, does white privilege exist, well yes in some ways, and no in others. I have read the statistics about employers being more preferential to a white job applicant over a black applicant with the same resume. At the same time, some minorities, because of affirmative action and quotas, will get jobs and into schools over more qualified Caucasians and Asians. That is minority privilege. However, racial profiling does exist, so you are more likely to get pulled over if your black. Whilst, you cannot tell me a homeless white man living in a cardboard box is more privileged than billionaire, Oprah Winfrey. I don't think a majority of the whites on here are more privileged than her. And if you want to talk about being born with a silver spoon in you mouth, how about Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith: 17 and already a multimillionaire, movie and music star because of daddy and mommy.
I really think this whole privilege game is just a distraction and it is divisive. I think the bigger divide is between the .01% wealthiest and everyone else, and I think that is what we should be talking about. The ruling class use the media to go on about this to get the lower and middle class pissed at each other. I mean who is more privileged than the rich Caucasians who own the media. They're billionaires. Yet they are never exposed and believe me they don't feel guilty about their privilege. MSNBC will expound all day long about white privilege, but look whose doing the expounding. The owners and the anchormen and women, black and white, are more privileged than almost all of us. I mean, they make huge salaries, and they have this medium to express their opinions to the whole world. Basia, you don't have that. So don't feel guilty.

What are your opinions about Asians?

At least one juror was quoted as saying they had to let the guy get away with murder, because of the way the trial played out. Doesn't seem like they wanted to acquit him.

Believe it or not, that is your choice. My busted lip and bruised head tells the story. Btw it is an associates degree, and I have one child, one on the way. But nevertheless, I am not racist by any means. I just find it funny that the black community yells "white privilege" every time a white person succeeds and they don't. Discimination exists, but understand the stigma behind it. Look at cities like Chicago, a crime infested city where black men are killing black men everyday. Where gangs runs wild and cops get shot. This is why there is a stigma. The black community has become so obsessed with being oppressed that they systematically cause chaos and blame the white man. Trayvon Martin was killed for no reason I agree, but the stigma that the black community fuels is the reason he died.

In my situation, which I don't understand why one would post his first comment on this website only for it to be a lie, it still is true and applies to this discussion. The difference here is that in a white neighborhood, white people wouldn't have ganged up on the black guy. I haven't seen a single white kid ever jump a black man for beating up another white kid in my life time. I haven't even seen a black man fight a white man without a crew behind him. The difference here is that contrary to your racist belief, white people do not hate black people. They are skeptical of them in most circumstances. Let's see why: most muggings, robberies, gang violence, and gun violence occurs in the black community. When you turn on the tv you see streets flooded with black protesters who are assaulting cops and raiding stores. But it is okay for them to do so right? It is for a cause right? But when you look at the reservation of land that white people are camping in, I believe in Oregon but I might be wrong, they have threatened to use deadly force if they do not vacate the land. What is the difference? We are insane white people, but the black community can protest a teenager assaulting a police officer and feel as if the cop is he bad on because he pulled the trigger? This is black privilege. We all have privileges. You can say I am privileged because I drowned myself in student loans to go to college for two years. You can say I am privileged because my family raised me in a good neighborhood. You can even say that I am privileged because I can walk outside of my house and feel secure. That's fine. It is your privilege to do so because I can't say the same things about you without being persecuted. This is a multi faceted and complex problem we are talking about.

But I beg you to answer honestly to this one question, would you have jumped into a fight between a white Woman and her man because she was being choked? Would you have helped her and he child to stop being put through this set of circumstances? Or would you have walked away? Would you have said "I am not getting involved with their problem?" Ask yourself that.

I'm Asian, and I'm not aware of "white privilege" being mentioned. This is the very first time on this thread I've heard that term.

Yes, it's a silly game the SJW 'social justice warriors' play, and it really accomplishes nothing but creates more tension between the races. If anything, racism is at an all-time low in this country. I mean the only color capitalists care about is green. They only care about making money. They don't care whose making them that money.
There are the SJW true believers, which is a good thing. Who in the 21st century is against women's rights and equality of the races? Not as many as you'd think. But there are very vocal SJWs who are really about power and control. They want to control what you think, do and say and censor anyone who criticizes them. I can post videos of them on here if you'd like. In the name of ending racism, they're racist against whites, in the name of ending sexism, they're sexist against men. They're rude, You see them getting in peoples faces at protests, being bigots themselves. The strange thing is many of the SJWs complaining about white, male privilege, are privileged white males. It's ironic. They're at universities funded by mommy and daddy. And they're going to tell you to check your privilege. But the most vocal of them aren't going into poor inner cities and setting up after school educational programs. No, they're just being loud, protesting, getting degrees and trying to get into positions of power and they're getting it. And you're fooling yourself if you think they care about racism, they care about themselves.
As I mentioned, the real struggle of the 21st century is going to be that between the wealthiest .01% and rest of us. The middle class is disappearing, jobs are going overseas, where the .01% can pay someone in China to manufacture something for $1 a day. The main stream media (owned by 6 billion dollar corporations) just tries to divide the 99% with all of this white privilege propaganda. The middle and lower class whites and blacks get mad at each other, instead of focusing our energy at the .01% who are getting richer and spreading their wealth and power to the rest of the globe at our expense. It's time to unite people and stop this nonsensical bickering.