Jump to content

What does white privilege mean to you?


Dottleshead

Recommended Posts

27 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

It means we don’t get stopped for DWW. 

I've been debating posting this because it will make me out to be a terrible person....  Just remember, we learn from our mistakes and I will never do this again....

Many years ago, I was driving home from a friend's. I was pretty drunk. I was way past the point of where I should have been driving.  I got pulled over for having a taillight out.  When the cop asked for my license, I dropped my wallet and everything fell out. I could not find my insurance card. I was a mess. When he went back to his car, I fully expected to be arrested that night. When he came back to my car, he told me that he thought I had been drinking and I should head home. He told me he was going to follow me to make sure I was safe. I went home without a problem.

I have no idea why he let me go. This wasn't the 1980s where drinking and driving was more acceptable.  I assume it was because I was dressed nicely. It might have been because I had my prison badge on me. I think about this a lot. If I were a young kid of color, would I have gotten this second chance? If I were dressed in ripped up jeans and a Motley Crue t-shirt, would I have been treated differently? This is my go-to example of privilege. 

I am an upper-middle-class white guy. When I set off the shoplifting alarm at most stores, the cashiers just assume the alarm made a mistake and wave me on. When I drove off without paying for my gas years ago, I just got a letter in the mail asking me to come back and pay. When I go to restaurants, I typically receive good service. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Privilege doesn't mean you're given stuff.  Instead it means the stuff is set up to help you succeed.  The best analogy I can think of is being born right-handed.  Everything is designed for work well with your dominate hand.  Lefties don't have that advantage so scissors don't work well with their dominate hand and they smear their hand when they write with a pencil.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Mr. Silly said:

Lefties don't have that advantage so scissors don't work well with their dominate hand and they smear their hand when they write with a pencil.

There were no "lefty" questions on the privilege quiz.  I have been discriminated against my entire life as a lefty and didn't know it.  My score is now 0. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Dottles said:

Oh I don't hate righties or lefties. I just like watching crap blow up. I'm a tester at heart. Somebody needs to execute the stress test. 

I was so underprivileged, I had to learn to golf right handed.  3 kids, one set of clubs, the other two were righties.  :) 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To this guy it is an obligation

 Carmichael is reportedly pleased with the board’s reversal, telling Wilkes-Barre’s Citizen’s Voice, “I believe in being a good neighbor and I believe in decency… Any CEO or successful person, anyone who looks back on their life, has to have had good luck or good fortune. Sharing a little bit of your good luck is part of the process.”

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

I'm guessing it means a lot of folks will get triggered again :(  Same story, different thread.  It remains - in the US - far easier to try to not think about it.  Or to downplay it. 

I read the comments posted in the last 24 hrs. to the above linked thread.  And also read this new thread. 

For me, I'm just tired abit.  

For the past 30 yrs., I've been whitening my resume by removing 2 valuable volunteer experiences where I learned from other volunteers (who were leaders in Metro Toronto: in legal aid, social work, health care, labour relatons) for a total of 10 volunteer years on:  negotiation with difficult stakeholder groups, media relations, what it means to work the levels of govn't to adjust social services, programs and funding.  It is because those volunteer experiences point to my ethnicity and the word, " race relations"  can easily colour me as a rabble-rouser and who knows what else.  Can't afford disclosure and being misunderstood, when I'm competing against others in job applications.

it's a long, long and lifetime journey to improve and deepen understanding of others quite different from oneself. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Further said:

To this guy it is an obligation

 Carmichael is reportedly pleased with the board’s reversal, telling Wilkes-Barre’s Citizen’s Voice, “I believe in being a good neighbor and I believe in decency… Any CEO or successful person, anyone who looks back on their life, has to have had good luck or good fortune. Sharing a little bit of your good luck is part of the process.”

I see primarily an obligation for those who helped me...either directly or indirectly. Latter, could be those who helped foster better relations with others on a consistent/frequent basis and those who help create frameworks to foster healing, inclusiveness and positive/constructive dialogue that aims to solve systemic /societal structural problems.

As a human being, my vulnerability is the same as yours.  I expect others to respect my vulnerability as I would do to yours.    Privilege is what it is: a benefit that was provided to you.  It can be something that you aren't even aware of its "benefit" until suddenly you no longer have it...it's like ability to walk for decades...to go hiking in the wild, anywhere.  Then suddenly a person can no longer walk.

Maybe  marry someone with a Chinese last name....and then you might get some taste....short of yellow-face, etc.  :P 

Cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a large group of African American in laws.  Most of them are getting by just fine, but they aren't as prosperous as my white friends and relatives, in general. 

So you could say there is a privilege at play.  I don't think racism plays much of a role, but certainly BuffCarla's grandparents generation and to a lesser extent parents faced oppressive racism in many ways.

Heard an interesting piece on This American Life yesterday.  A Russian raised black woman was admonishing the black reporter for letting her perceptions of microaggressions bring her down. She said why do you insist on picking at the wound until it bleeds? What does that get you?  The reporter basically said she couldn't help it. 

 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

I have a large group of African American in laws.  Most of them are getting by just fine, but they aren't as prosperous as my white friends and relatives, in general. 

So you could say there is a privilege at play.  I don't think racism plays much of a role, but certainly BuffCarla's grandparents generation and to a lesser extent parents faced oppressive racism in many ways.

Heard an interesting piece on This American Life yesterday.  A Russian raised black woman was admonishing the black reporter for letting her perceptions of microaggressions bring her down. She said why do you insist on picking at the wound until it bleeds? What does that get you?  The reporter basically said she couldn't help it. 

 

Certainly my Chinese relatives are doing much better than this white part of the family tree.  But then where they live there is either Muslim or Chinese privilege depending on which continent.  My black relatives are not doing quite as well but there are other problems involved there.  Going through life stoned is a choice.  Since my father came here as a boy in steerage from Germany after WWI and had to live through WWII as a German immigrant in America I don't see much privilege accruing their either.  Being white and German did not bring many benefits during the war.  After the war jobs were gone for him and he made his living building houses by himself one at a time.

So I tend to view white privilege as one of those statistical things that leads to broad brushing and stereotyping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, late said:

True, but it's been getting worse, and it could get a lot worse after the election.

If Trump wins re-election, then for the most part, except for far left Democrats, racism in America will fade away.  If the Democrats re-gain the white house, lookout.

  • Heart 2
  • Awesome 1
  • Confused 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

If Trump wins re-election, then for the most part, except for far left Democrats, racism in America will fade away.  If the Democrats re-gain the white house, lookout.

You mean if there was a Democrat white guy president that got elected?  Vs. Trump re-elected.  Anyway no point as a Canuck, trying to figure out the complex U.S. landscape,

Canada has its own problems..right now.  There are native Indian blockades across different areas of the  national rail lines.  It's literally stopped passenger rail and each day, more freight rail lines.  On the west coast, there's a backup of ships that can't unload for non-existent rail trains.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BuffJim said:
1 hour ago, late said:

True, but it's been getting worse, and it could get a lot worse after the election.

If Trump wins re-election, then for the most part, except for far left Democrats, racism in America will fade away.  If the Democrats re-gain the white house, lookout.

Is it possible to ask your thought process that lead to this conclusion without this turning into a political discussion?  Like @shootingstar I sometimes do not understand the US politcal landscape

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, shootingstar said:

What would make it worse, depending on election outcome? 

Two things: gerrymandering and red-lining. The first is motivated by political corruption; the second financial. Both place a higher value on whites owning property. 
 

The other remnant of Jim Crow is the charter school movement. Although there are a number of advantages for specific students of color who have moved away from their neighborhood schools, the segregation veneer on the issue as a whole is thin. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...