[AlexWest]

But that's really the whole point of privilege - belonging to the group is enough to grant you the advantages of it. Period. It doesn't mean your life is great, it doesn't mean you don't have problems, but the members of a privileged class absolutely possess those privileges - that's how it works.

[TrevorJ]

The problem with that definition is that it's nearly impossible to apply that to an individual without bias.

It predisposes us to assume that the privileges possessed by an individual are one of the primary drivers of the experiences they have had in their life. Privilege isn't uniformly distributed across all members of a group.

Let's say that group Y enjoys a much higher college acceptance rate. Due to their privilege, 80% of applicants from group Y are accepted to college. Do the 20% of applicants from group Y who were denied also posses the privilege of greater rates of college acceptance? Is it right for me to assume that since an individual belongs to group Y, they have personally benefited from this particular privilege?

Let me be clear: I think that taking a hard look at inequalities between groups and seeking to ameliorate them is the right thing to do, and something we should all be doing. What I find problematic is using broad statistics to make assumptions about individual people.

[Retra]

It's not 'nearly' impossible; it is impossible. It's impossible to make any decisions without bias. The important thing is knowing what your biases are and knowing what decisions you're actually making and the effects they actually have.

People like to imagine that they don't actually make policy decisions, then they have no influence on the world. That's really not the case, and the best course of action is to be aware of the influence you have, and make sure your biases aren't influencing things in a negative way.

[jnbiche]

Did you not read all the comments here from people from poor, rural families for whom the post resonated? Many, if not most of them are likely white (some even explicitly stated it).

What exact privilege does growing up desperately poor in rural West Virginia bring you? A person from a middle class black family in NYC would have much more opportunity.

Yes, each person would face their own set of challenges (ie, the black person vis-a-vis the police, although believe me that unjustified police brutality happens to white people too). But it's wrong to judge one as being "privileged" based solely on their skin color, without knowing anything about them.

Sadly, I noticed that most of the people shouting "privilege" at others themselves come from very privileged backgrounds, and have learned this attitude at some expensive private liberal arts college. I'm not sure what is driving their crusades (guilt?), but again, I was raised that it's not right to judge people based solely on their skin color, regardless of the rational behind it. And fail as I may sometimes, I will continue to strive toward that goal.

Finally, what about those of us coming from a mixed-race background, with a grandparent or great-grandparent from a "non-privileged" group? If you look hard at some of us, you can see evidence of that group. Are we partially privileged? Or is being privileged a discrete state?

[refurb]

Yes, but people don't belong to one group.

I would argue that height, intelligence, general health, economic class, propensity for addictive behaviors, wealth of your parents, children rearing skills of your parents, closeness of extended family, social network of your family, family religion, access to nutrition, country of birth, access to healthcare (I could go on and on) all help/hurt your potential in life.

Saying that "you're [white, male, rich] so you're privileged" is ridiculous when it only one of probably thousands of different factors that can impact your success in life. It's lazy thinking.

[Domenic_S]

I get it, but I don't buy it. Rather, I don't buy that it's so cut and dried as to be accepted with "period". When you're part of the largest demographic, you're basically invisible: Generic 30s Middle Class White Guy #87473674282.

The term just isn't nuanced enough.

[Frondo]

Well, that's part of the point, the invisibility.

Like, for example, there are those studies that show how people with names that sound traditionally black don't get called for job interviews nearly as often. Take the name off the resume and they get called with parity to traditionally white-sounding names.

Or, for another example, it used to be that orchestral auditions were conducted where you could see the player as they played. Orchestras of the period were heavily male-dominated. After they switched to blind auditions--that is, the player plays behind a partition, so you can't see whether they're male or female--suddenly a lot more women started getting hired for orchestral musician positions. The gender balance has begun approaching parity, when the listeners can't see who's playing.

You're right that generic white guy is "invisible," but another way to look at it is, we're the standard. We fit the type everyone wants already. We don't stand out, because we're basically the accepted definition of an acceptable person. We are who you hire, put in your tv shows, give housing loans to, etc.

[marknutter]

Or maybe it's just human nature to identify with those who possess similar qualities. This isn't "systemic racism/sexism", it's perfectly natural. Minorities often favor other minorities in their own circles, women definitely favor other women, but because they're in the minority the behavior somehow becomes ok. If people are upset about broken job interview processes, then maybe we should fix the fucking broken job interview process rather than scream "racism" or "sexism" and force people to hire for quotas.

Just like you mention, blind auditions boiled the interview down to the only thing that matters - the music. And if they were truly better at playing than the others, the orchestra was hurting itself by not hiring them in the first place. Other competing orchestras could implement the blind-audition approach and play much better music and get more audience members as a result.

The last thing you want, however, is to swing the other direction and give people jobs based primarily on their minority status. That's as bad as nepotism/cronyism and it rots organizations in the same way.

[Frondo]

Thanks for not denying that privilege exists, and for pointing out that some of it is likely due to the unconscious bias we can politely dub "human nature"! E.g. we hire people who look like us, even if they're not the best people for the job...

You know, in situations like this I'm often reminded of that Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I think a lot of the pushback against awareness and understanding of privilege comes from that idea.

Being told that you're getting some lucky break because you're a hetero white dude, whether it's preferential treatment in job interview callbacks or orchestra hiring or any of the million other things that have been so insanely thoroughly documented.. well, kinda draws attention to the possibility that, if we were living in a meritocratic world, suddenly all us lucky white dudes would have to compete with a much wider group of people. A man's salary and all that.

As far as swinging the other way and preferring people for their minority status, quite frankly, I'm totally ok with doing so for a generation or two, since I would at least be trying to compensate for hundreds of years of systemic bias against those beleaguered groups of people. Forever? Naw. For now? Sure, even if it means I personally would lose out on contracts or whatever.

But our disagreement here is something to work out in the political arena, not something I think it makes sense to try and bridge from first principles or anything; I at least used to feel the way you do, and came to change my mind about it only through a lot of life experience that told me it made sense to change my mind.

[Domenic_S]

I'd like to see some of those insanely documented things and look at them critically. For example, the job callback thing pertains to people with black-sounding names, not whether the the applicant is actually black. Perhaps that speaks to cultural privilege instead of racial.

Consider scholarships: if you're a white male, you have to be exceptional vs your cohort in some other way (academics, athletics, etc) to find a scholarship. If you're a minority, you have to... be a minority. That's a disadvantage of being Generic White Male #434242.

To be clear, I fully recognize that real, actual race-based discrimination on a systemic scale happened fairly recently in the US, and to an extent still happens today. 100% no argument there.

The problem with "privilege" as a label is that it describes a population, yet is applied consistently - sometimes weaponized - to individuals.

[Frondo]

Frankly speaking, It kinda sounds like you're so invested in the idea of privilege being fictional that my guess is nothing anyone says to you via the internet would ever change your mind.

Which, funnily enough, is one of the benefits of it, you can ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, because the bias it implies wouldn't effect you anyway.

I don't try to convince climate change deniers either, because I learned long ago that you can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into.

[13thLetter]

"hetero white dude,"

So just curious: what's with referring to men as "dudes" when you're trying to make points about inclusive behavior and language and such? I'm seeing this a lot, and this weird language tic really detracts from whatever point the person is making. You don't refer to women as "chicks," do you?

[pdkl95]

> you're basically invisible.

That's the point - being invisible is a privileged state. Black people are not invisible the US, where some people (not all) will inevitably treat them with suspicion (or worse).

[jnbiche]

> That's the point - being invisible is a privileged state.

So compared to a rich, white expat in some African or Asian country, the typical resident of said country is privileged? Because in that country, compared to the expat, the resident is essentially invisible, and the white expat is decidedly not invisible.

And many people will treat the expat with suspicion, or worse. Are all of those people "privileged", and the expat "not privileged"?

[pdkl95]

> expat in some African or Asian country

There may have been some confusion as I apparently left out a word ("/in/ the US"). I'm only discussing privilege in the US.

I have no idea how these things work in Africa or Asia. Presumably there are similar situations in other countries, though that is a guess. Your scenario sounds reasonable - yes, the natives would have the privilege of starting with the "default" level of suspicion while the (white) foreigner has to overcome an extra scrutiny.

Privilege can be overcome. You specified a rich expat, and money can be a very effective way to make problems go away. However, a similarly rich native will probably have to spend somewhat less money in similar situations because of their privilege.

[marknutter]

People with high IQ's are privileged. Tall people are privileged. People with happy demeanors are privileged. People who are beautiful are privileged. Yet I don't hear many people telling tall, beautiful, intelligent, or happy people to "acknowledge their privilege" and do something about those who don't possess it. I'd rather be black than be short, be female than be stupid, be beautiful than be rich, and be homosexual than be clinically depressed. And I don't hold it against those who possess those desirable qualities or expect them to make up for my lack thereof.