| >You clearly don't understand the concept of privilege. You're purposely equivocating on the the concept. At one end you're giving me the dictionary definition to argue the point. But then you're simply falling back on the ideological definition - the one that I actually argued against and the one that is used in practice to push policy and browbeat those who disagree with you (this includes your responses and arguments). >If you define "the West" as those places without extreme injustice, it's just circular logic I define the West as however it is commonly understood. What circular logic? >White men in our society do, in general and vast majority of situations, have some privileges over the experience they would have with darker skin or being labeled female. Like what? Asians have the highest personal and house-hold income in America. When controlled for the difference in single vs two-parent households in black and white populations, the income disparity between blacks and whites disappears as well. There are more whites in prison and in poverty than all other groups combined. Race makes for great politics, but it isn't a factor to success. Nobody gets breaks. You have to go to work, bust your ass, and pay rent. If you don't pay rent, you get evicted. Bill Gates doesn't hand out stipends because you match his skin tone. >Are you saying that merely mentioning a concept like "white privilege" is an ugly characterization of someone? Yes. It is a loaded, ideological term that isn't based on reality. It is exclusively used by those who want to push a particular extreme ideology and dehumanize 'THOSE OTHERS'. If I get a group of people with varying skin colors, give you no other information, and I ask you to tell me about their life, their struggles, about what they believe, and if they are a good person, or an evil person or a criminal, or intelligent - you would be able to say nothing. And yet, here we are, you tell me how much 'headwind' the whites in the group got and how much easier their life is due to all their white privilege. Urgh. >Yeah, I get that certain online mob-mentality identity-politics young folks are making words like "privilege" toxic to many because they have an aggressive and simplistic ideology around it. I don't know about those 'young folks', but everything you've written thus far is on about the same level of toxicity. >Imagine a context in which you happen to be surrounded by Scientologists. You sometimes try to argue with them about scientific reasoning and point out how exploitative and absurd their "religion" is. But they keep using illogical bullshit that their dogma teaches them. When you get out of that milieu, you commiserate with your friends who talk with you about how absurd the Scientologists are. One day, you interact with someone who happens to be into Buddhist-style Consider that you're the Scientologist in your analogy. >But your reaction is just assuming anyone who uses the term or talks about equity and injustice as real issues are automatically those people. I'm just going by what you said. |
Come on. At least make an attempt at fair statistics. The percentage of blacks in prison and poverty is far higher than whites. That's what matters, not absolute numbers.
> Race makes for great politics, but it isn't a factor to success.
Race is totally unrelated to success in terms of causation, but it is correlated to success on a statistical basis such that it can be used to predict things with better-than-average success. In other words, we do not live in an ideal color-blind world where race isn't predictive of anything outside of basic genetics-related factors.
If you want to argue that the causation behind the correlation is something like a counter-productive victim-hood culture, that's a legitimate hypothesis to discuss. But there's no room given facts on the ground to deny the correlations between race and various factors like education, success, wealth etc.
Thankfully, we indeed live in a world with far less racism and race-based privilege than historic times, and there are definitely cases where other privileges outweigh the issues in race. But if you believe we actually are in a world where there's no privilege to being white or Asian versus being black, you really aren't making a sincere effort to study the evidence.
You can point all day to the non-straw-men who actually make ludicrous arguments about race and privilege. That doesn't disprove reasonable arguments. As an analogy, Piltdown Man was a hoax, but it doesn't disprove the facts of evolution.
> It is exclusively used by those who want to push a particular extreme ideology and dehumanize 'THOSE OTHERS'.
Well, now you're just wrong. I used the term "white privilege" and I don't believe the extreme ideology and don't aim to dehumanize anyone. I also know many others who use that term without the extreme ideology.
Your claims that I could say nothing about a group of people based on race is also wrong. I can't honestly just apply stereotypes to an individual, but you can make guesses and be statistically right more often than chance. I can guess a bunch of things about experience based on someone's race. I can guess that a black guy has experienced things like white folks crossing the street when they are out walking or other subtle things like that. I can guess that they at least know many people who have single parents and that they know people who have spent time in jail or prison. Those guesses can be wrong, but they will be right more often than chance.
> you tell me how much 'headwind' the whites in the group got and how much easier their life is due to all their white privilege
You seem to even misunderstand the terms. Having privilege is like having a tailwind. And you're putting a lot of assumptions and words-in-my-mouth that I never said. I never said anything like a claim that whites all have easier lives.
> Consider that you're the Scientologist in your analogy.
That's ludicrous. That's like saying to the Buddhist that they are a Scientologist and refusing to listen to anything they actually claim about their beliefs. You seem totally convinced that anyone who even uses the language that so viscerally offends you necessarily believes a bunch of nonsense. You're not even willing to consider the possibility that my beliefs are different from your assertions.
What you're doing is a good job of validating the crazy people's views. You're so willing to jump to conclusions about my beliefs, this conversation will be read by any of the extreme P.C. folks as proof that people like you are just racists at that core. I don't believe that. I don't really know what you think. I just am reading that you are willing to make emotionally-based and incorrect assumptions about my views, so that leads me to discount whether you might be an intellectually reasonable person generally.
> I'm just going by what you said.
No, you're going by imagining a bunch of stuff behind what I wrote that isn't there. From the beginning, you made assumptions, and you aren't (re)considering how I could write the things I did without believing the things you assume I believed.