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> the word "privilege" is really poorly chosen The 'white' part is just as problematic. There are many other things that make life hard too. Having a mental illness, for example, or being molested/abused as a child. Yet no one talks about non-mentally-ill privilege or unmolested privilege. Just because skin color is something that can't be hidden when we go out in public doesn't elevate it above all the other difficulties or challenges in life. I've known people from all those groups and would say that depressives, schizophrenics and victims of molest have far more challenges in life than do minorities. Which is not to say that there aren't people who have more than one set of challenges, just that the focus on race and the implication that life is easy for someone who's white is not productive and frustrates people with other legitimate challenges in life. This is, to me, why many reasonable people have a problem with identity politics. In an effort to bring awareness to the struggles of some, it actually ends up making others feel marginalized and their experiences minimized and is confrontational in nature. Empathy is about envisioning yourself in someone else's situation. The way we do identity politics today, it's the reverse. Instead of the desired, "I imagine myself in your position and I see how hard it must be" it's "I imagined myself in your position and, trust me, it's easier than mine." I have a parent who is a psychologist. Growing up, I was taught that the right way to handle conflict was to always talk about your personal experience. Saying, "you're being insensitive" is accusatory, controversial and bound to cause an argument. Saying, "I feel unappreciated" is an unequivocally correct statement that can't be argued because no one else can know how you experience something. The only way to sort of refute that is to say, "I don't intend to make you feel that way." The problem with the term "white privilege" is that it's not a personal experience term. It's a term that encapsulates a projection of the white experience from the perspective of minorities. Anyone who doesn't feel they lead a privileged life will instinctively reject it. We need to be using terminology that's in line with the "I feel..." way of expressing oneself...terminology that helps convey the difficulties that some people face rather than the lack of difficulties everyone else faces. |
Actually yes, we do talk about that stuff as well. The things that you hear most - racial, gender, wealth and religious privilege - are talked about more simply because they affect proportionally more people.