[eropple]

But what it really seems like you are saying is that white people in America should feel ashamed and guilty for being white.

No, that's not what he's saying, at all. Nowhere has "old money" or "guilt" entered the equation and that you are feeling very defensive does not give you license to put words into his mouth. rayiner (who I often disagree with, but I have to applaud him for this) is saying that people with privilege have responsibilities as well as benefits. You have, and I'm going to use a technical term, a metric fuckton of privilege being born white and male in the United States.

He is saying that you have a responsibility to society to be better with it than to say "fuck you, I've got mine."

[powertower]

> He is saying that you have a responsibility to society to be better with it than to say "fuck you, I've got mine."

As a citizen of the USA I agree that I have a responsibility to my country and society. I just don't agree that you get to decide for me what that responsibility is.

> You have, and I'm going to use a technical term, a metric fuckton of privilege being born white and male in the United States.

Please, be specific about my situation and what you have decided my skin color owes, just don't use nebulous politically-correct terms such as white-privlege ... unless you are trying to end the conversation.

[eropple]

> As a citizen of the USA I agree that I have a responsibility to my country and society. I just don't agree that you get to decide for me what that responsibility is.

Society does. That's why it's there. You don't define the social contract. That mindset is what leads to "fuck you, I've got mine."

> Please, be specific about my situation and what you have decided my skin color owes, just don't use nebulous politically-correct terms such as white-privlege ... unless you are trying to end the conversation.

You're joking, right? "White privilege" isn't a term of political correctness. It's a sociological construct that's used to frame and discuss relative advantage given majority or otherwise preferential traits (such as, in the United States, being any or all of white, male, heterosexual, and Christian).

Using the common constructs of the topic isn't "ending the conversation", it's being specific. I'm not going to fall prey to the commonly-used tactic of enumerating exactly why privilege is what it is so that you can attempt to bury the overall point beneath the details on which you think you can nullify the entire academically settled topic. You are welcome to educate yourself on the topic if you so choose.

You won't, but you are welcome to.

[powertower]

So you won't define this social contract that you (you somehow also representing the society) are holding me to (the contract I'm supposedly violating or ignoring somehow by disagreeing with something you said, or having a different P.O.V.), nor will you enumerate what my white privileges are; both of which you have brought up. Because if you did so, you'd be falling prey to my (my!) tactics. And E.O.C to me too.

[stretchwithme]

A contract that you cannot get out of and that never allowed you to approve or reject it in the first place, is not a valid contract. Its slavery.

Of course, it is fictional. And if they can get you to submit to the fiction, they are only too happy to tell you how it obligates you to serve their pet projects.