Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Test0129 1319 days ago
I object to the use of "white privilege" on first principles:

Interpreted literally, it implies all whites are privileged. This is categorically untrue.

It encourages racism through associating an immutable trait with a negative word. "White privilege" is no more true than saying "Jewish privilege" or "Asian privilege" when referring to trends that do not reflect the whole. For the latter two one would be accused of anti-semitism or racism but for the former it's common parlance. Therefore, to be logically consistent, "white privilege" must also be racist. Associating a negative trait of a minority of a race with the entire race, is in fact, the very definition of racism.

To further exemplify the point whites still hold a majority in the US. This means, by the numbers, there are many more disenfranchised whites than literally any other race. Consequently, there are more very disenfranchised whites who are probably experiencing the same, if not worse, conditions as others races. The right wing gets it wrong, the largest welfare recipient group is in fact low income whites. This makes sense when you actually look at the numbers.

The entire structure of the term "white privilege" is designed first to divide and then to discourage. During the BLM riots you had white people groveling, begging for forgiveness, like this so-called "privilege" is some sort of original sin (which is how it is sold) that can only be cleansed through constant, deliberate self-flaggelation. This repentance ceremony is further promoted (and even incited) by the bigoted and racist Kendi and D'Angelo. Both suggest the only solution to this privilege is constant, deliberate, self-flaggelation. CRT is rightly criticized because being encouraged to denigrate yourself for some alleged (in reality, manufactured) original sin is simply gaslighting.

No one should be made to feel this way on the basis of their skin color. It is simply the race hustlers promoting such terms to sow further division. Division among races means they cannot unite and focus on class issues. Racism, as a tool, is the perfect way to induce this division. "White privilege" is one of many examples of this racism.

3 comments

Why do you believe "privilege" is a negative word?

Also, assuming you mean Robin DiAngelo, what of hers have you read? She's pretty clear in both White Fragility and Nice Racism in advocating against "constant, deliberate, self-flaggelation" because they center the person doing it and take energy away from productive action.

Not the person you were replying to, but do you have positive associations with the word "privilege?"
My associations are mostly neutral. It can even be positive in certain contexts, like "It was a privilege to meet him".
Even then, it's not entirely positive, is it?

It's essentially saying 'It was an honor to meet him;' that could mean that you were undeserving, or simply that it was something unusual that most people didn't get to do; if it were common, it wouldn't be a privilege, would it?

In the thread's context, usually it's associated with not granting the privilege to someone else, as well - you have a privilege that others do not, one that you do not do anything to deserve.

I don't know about you, but I don't really believe that 'white privilege' is intended as a positive. It's intended to have a negative connotation, otherwise there would be no impetus for change.

I agree that it denotes an imbalance.

I also agree that terms like "white privilege" are intended as criticism. However I don't see them as criticism of the individual who has the privilege, but rather of the society whose circumstances gave them that privilege. The term is an attempt to promote systems thinking.

> It's essentially saying

> In the thread's context

> but I don't really believe that 'white privilege' is intended as a positive

It's not. Within the context of CRT it has a pretty tight definition: "undeserved benefits"

"White privilege" means that you fit in the particular mold that American society pours and casts people out of. Nothing more and nothing less. If you want to object to the jargon on the grounds of being jargon, fine, but I've yet to find better terminology than this.

It doesn't mean that all white people are rich, it means that poor white people are in less of a shitty situation than equally-improverished black people. It could be as simple as just living in a better ZIP code with more opportunities in it[0], for example. But it's still a shitty situation, in the same way that third-degree burns are bad but different from a broken arm.

The constant self-flaggelation approach is actually opposed by a lot of anti-racists specifically because it takes focus away from the victims of racism and to people who benefit from it.

[0] Thanks, Robert Moses.

>If you want to object to the jargon on the grounds of being jargon

"Jargon" like that is not accrptable. Would you allow it for any other group? And many people use the term white privilege to mean an intrinsic power held by white people as a result of their oppression of blacks. So you are wrong on all acounts.

>but I've yet to find better terminology than this.

It's hard to come up with a name for something that barely exists in tbe first place. "You're zip-code is privileged" doesn't invoke the same guilt does it?

"Consequently, there are more very disenfranchised whites who are probably experiencing the same, if not worse, conditions as others races."

I grew up white and lower middle class, but I've never been worried about being arrested hanging around my own house (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr..., https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/0..., https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/09/17/wisconsin-bla...) or helping one of my neighbors (https://www.npr.org/2022/09/10/1121857070/black-pastor-water...) or taking out my trash (https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/body-camera-footage-re...) or going to a coffee shop (https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/14/17238494/what-happe...) or going to a bank (https://www.gq.com/story/ryan-coogler-bank-of-america-handcu..., https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/black-man-c..., https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/banking-while-black-poli...) or even by police chasing someone completely different (https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/04/us/massachusetts-wrong-suspec...).

Fortunately, I don't jog (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/us/san-antonio-black-jogger-c...), but I do like to eat out (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-apologize-after-...) and I might get sick (https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/10/12/boston-police-arrest-po..., https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/va-resigns-taser-pepp...). I've only been pulled over without cause once (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traff..., https://www.aclu.org/report/driving-while-black-racial-profi...).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

Police killing black people for being black as some sort of racist unwritten policy is a myth. The rates shown here make perfect sense. And most (99%?) were armed. Also consider that there are hundreds of millions of Americans. It's difficult to fully grasp just how large that is. The media likes selling stories but that doesn't change the facts. A dozen news articles won't change that.

First, those are cases of black people being arrested or detained, sometimes violently, by police. Not killed. Further, many of them resulted in a successful lawsuits against the police, which should tell you something about the quality of police actions.

Second, keep in mind that data about police violence, including deaths, are complete shit because police are not required to report data and no one has an incentive to do so. (I don't know what Statista's data sources are, but did you notice how the number of "unknown" race deaths increased in 2020 and 2021?)

"Across all races and states in the USA, we estimate 30 800 deaths (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 30 300–31 300) from police violence between 1980 and 2018; this represents 17 100 more deaths (16 600–17 600) than reported by the NVSS. Over this time period, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was highest in non-Hispanic Black people (0·69 [95% UI 0·67–0·71] per 100 000), followed by Hispanic people of any race (0·35 [0·34–0·36]), non-Hispanic White people (0·20 [0·19–0·20]), and non-Hispanic people of other races (0·15 [0·14– 0·16]). This variation is further affected by the decedent's sex and shows large discrepancies between states. Between 1980 and 2018, the NVSS did not report 55·5% (54·8–56·2) of all deaths attributable to police violence. When aggregating all races, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was 0·25 (0·24–0·26) per 100 000 in the 1980s and 0·34 (0·34–0·35) per 100 000 in the 2010s, an increase of 38·4% (32·4–45·1) over the period of study." (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6..., https://www.healthdata.org/news-release/lancet-more-half-pol...)

Here's another good article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z I'd suggest following the endnotes. "About 1,000 civilians are killed each year by law-enforcement officers in the United States. By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime. And in another study, Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed."

>By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime.

That is because they commit more violent crimes. Did you know that?

>Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed.

See the last point.

In 99.9% of cases, people killed by police are commiting crimes.

Also note that asians have the lowest rate of being killed by police. I suppose it was asians that were the real whites all along? Or perhaps you simply can't make sweeping conclusions from this data.

I don't think you read this one:

"Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed."

I did read it. Being killed by police is a function of police encounters while commiting crimes. Additionaly, there will be more police in higher crime areas in the first place. What is the rate when no crime is being commited, and what is the total amount of cases? My guess is the rate is the same and the sample size is really low. Although who knows what the "estimates" your study has "found" are. Also, why do asians have more white privelage than whites? At least under your definition.
Do I need to post a list of articles showing white people being bashed, brutally raped, murdered, pushed under a train or even tortured by black people while they were: - being in their garden - going to their car - jogging - walking their dog - eating out at a restaurant

The absurd idea that whites are the ones brutalizing blacks in America is an extremely offensive joke.

No, you need to post a list of articles showing white people being arrested or detained, sometimes violently, by police while being in their garden...

And do keep in mind that "White alone, not Hispanic or Latino" make up 60% of the population.