We find that establishments where blacks are in charge of hiring are considerably more likely to employ blacks even after controlling for the proportion of applications that are submitted by blacks, establishment spatial location within the metropolitan area, and a large set of observable establishment characteristics. In addition, we find that black application rates at firms where blacks are in charge of hiring are significantly greater than those for white firms, even after accounting for spatial location and
other observable covariates. http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/pdfs/dp123601.pdf
This provides empirical evidence that race does play a role in hiring. If it plays a role in hiring, its not a stretch that it plays a role in treatment of employees. I've been in several situations where I felt race was a factor and was harmed because of it. Not that uncommon for many white people in the SE. This is largely why I've studied this issue so extensively. I'm not a victim. My reasoning for bringing this up is not to say "This happened to me so your wrong" but to bring a little reality to the discussion. This is the reality WE ALL face. it happens to people of all races. It's not logical for me to take the above cited information, correlate with my experience and draw a conclusion that black people will treat me worse. It's just not. I do acknowledge race plays a role in day to day life for EVERYONE. You think white people do not have to worry about race. My supposition is this, the theory of privilege is built and broadcast from liberal institutions largely in the north east or west coast with the participants having a significantly and relatively small minority exposure. You may not have to concern yourself with race and there may be many white people who don't but there is significant amount of people both black, white, Asian and Hispanics, etc who do have to worry about race. This is not just a black concern. A perfect example of this is when someone starts talking about race....it could be totally benign but you'll notice their voice gets softer or they become more aware of their surroundings. White people are afraid to talk about issues pertaining to racism. Do not get me wrong, a substantial portion of these people are merely insecure....and that's a problem when society reacts the way they do to people like Sterling. We all need to discuss these issues freely and openly with out the stigma of thinking we are going to offend someone. If we do offend someone there is chance to educate and learn. Ordinarily ECP and Tiax will label these words as me playing the victim....They will trivialize my experiences and further demonstrate my point. They will say my examples pales in comparison to what a black person experiences in order to invalidate the point.
No, it doesn't prove anything. The fact that Black owned businesses hire more Black applicants isn't relevant because they have more Black applicants than White owned businesses. I wasn't talking about Black people but rather all people of color. That includes Asians, Latinos, and aboriginal groups as well.
You seem to take this issue personally while at the same time calling for reason and logic. If a conclusion is to be reached then your feeling need to be shelved. I've expressed some opinions you disagree with and that's fine but I assume that since you started this discussion you want actual discourse and not just a soapbox. You haven't defended your position well at all and have merely stated your opinion as fact without really explaining why you're right.
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Quite simply when you claim that a racial group has a privilege over another due to their skin color, that is racist.
You have not proven that claims of White privilege are racist. Personal experience isn't meaningful proof. Also, we don't know your personal definition of racism. So far we know that you disagree with the notion of White privilege but have not seen your proof that it's racist.
Since you did not take the time to address the main contention in my post I'm not going to waste a lot of time. We all have to be concerned with race. It does not surprise me you find racial bias irrelevant, its as if you are not interested in empirical evidence.
My proof is the dictionary and definition of racism. Here is one of the proponents of privilege using an anecdote to demonstrate:
I have benefited more than her in terms of my sex and gender
Change sex to race and apply the definition of racism .Case closed. You guys make it easy to prove. You don't see it that way. You think the "because" matters. The why is irrelevant just like its irrelevant when a racist says because or why he said something racist. No reasoning or logic or evidence will change this from being racist. The leap you make with this statement is your determination as fact when it's impossible to prove, yet, you feel confident he is correct with the only qualification to make the judgment about these two individuals is there is a man and woman involved.
There are many forms of privilege, and I think privilege is a problematic word because it has a tendency to make people want to defend themselves as if they have done something wrong.
You say this, and I agree with it entirely, but you then go on to repeatedly use the word "unearned" which has exactly the same problem. When we say somebody has something unearned, something they didn't deserve, normally the implication is that they should have to give it up. For examples of that kind of privilege, I think of injustices like a white guy's ability to assault or even murder a black guy with impunity in the Jim Crow South. An actual privi-lege, a separate and unequal law for white people. And unfortunately there are still a few places in this country and around the world where that sort of thing can happen, and it needs to be fought with extreme prejudice (er, so to speak). But it's not normally what people are talking about when they discuss "white privilege" these days. If a white guy gets a job interview and a black guy with the same resume doesn't, the problem isn't that the white guy didn't earn the interview; the problem is that the black guy also earned an interview. The white guy isn't getting more than he deserves; the black guy is getting less. So calling this state of affairs "white privilege" is really misdirecting the focus, pointing the finger at the part of the scenario that's appropriate rather than the part that's inappropriate. And as you've noticed, when white people get normal and appropriate treatment and it's called "privilege", they tend to get defensive about it. If we want to point out that minorities continue to be mistreated in many ways, we should probably, well, put the focus on how minorities are mistreated.
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You say this, and I agree with it entirely, but you then go on to repeatedly use the word "unearned" which has exactly the same problem. When we say somebody has something unearned, something they didn't deserve, normally the implication is that they should have to give it up. For examples of that kind of privilege, I think of injustices like a white guy's ability to assault or even murder a black guy with impunity in the Jim Crow South. An actual privi-lege, a separate and unequal law for white people. And unfortunately there are still a few places in this country and around the world where that sort of thing can happen, and it needs to be fought with extreme prejudice (er, so to speak). But it's not normally what people are talking about when they discuss "white privilege" these days. If a white guy gets a job interview and a black guy with the same resume doesn't, the problem isn't that the white guy didn't earn the interview; the problem is that the black guy also earned an interview. The white guy isn't getting more than he deserves; the black guy is getting less. So calling this state of affairs "white privilege" is really misdirecting the focus, pointing the finger at the part of the scenario that's appropriate rather than the part that's inappropriate. And as you've noticed, when white people get normal and appropriate treatment and it's called "privilege", they tend to get defensive about it. If we want to point out that minorities continue to be mistreated in many ways, we should probably, well, put the focus on how minorities are mistreated.
I think the privilege is in the gap, not either of the outcomes.
For the umpteenth time. The "because" is irrelevant to the fact its sexist.
The 'because' is very relevant.
An Afghani group terrorises girls that seek education, but not boys. I assert that is sexist, because the Afghani group is discriminating against females. I assert that boys have an advantage in this society, on account of not being terrorised. This does not make me sexist.
Otherwise:
a) When a group asserts that they are being discriminated against, they are being X-ist themselves (where X-ism is the form of discrimination that discriminates against them)
b) When you call the people who assert privilege sexist or racist, by your own definition, you are in fact being sexist or racist yourself
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I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
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I assert that boys have an advantage in this society, on account of not being terrorized.
When you assert superiority based on skin color that is point when it becomes racist. You are using information to assert a racist stereotype.
The fact a group is discriminated against by another group does not mean some other random person gains an advantage solely because they share a characteristic.
False equivalence is a logical fallacy where there appears to be a logical equivalence between two opposing arguments, but when in fact there is none. Journalists use a form of this logical fallacy when comparing two sides of a scientific debate in an attempt to provide a balance between a scientific and denialist point of view. However, there is no equivalence between the two sides, when one is supported by evidence, and the other side with little or no evidence, of which most is of low quality. In other words, in false equivalence, someone will state that the opposing arguments have a passing similarity in support, when, on close examination, there is large difference between the quality of evidence
Your only evidence of a random person gaining an advantage or privilege is their skin color. There is no evidence of a random person gaining an advantage. Yet, you assert they do. You must have information about the random person to draw a conclusion on whether or not they gained an advantage.
I am so confused by this discussion. It's like people don't know where the term white privilege came from or have clue as to it's context.
The term white privilege isn't about racism. It's used to describe the institutionalized systems that are in place in the United States that give it's White citizens more advantageous outcomes in pretty much every aspect of every day life. It doesn't imply that White people are racists but rather the recipients of something they didn't earn and benefit from. You can't talk it away. Calling the term racist won't erase it or it's effects from reality.
White privilege gets murky whenever you start talking specific white people, and there are clear delineations between certain "kinds" of white people still that are considered "minority." Equally, whites will equally turn on other whites just as easily as they do other races given the capacity for self other is rather brutal whenever you have a real or perceived different in the air. It's an interesting subject, especially whenever you consider Hispanic whites will be just as equally racist towards other Hispanic whites. When the only difference is just that the one is a legal citizen and the others are either actually illegal citizens or people who are perceived to be "illegals." Those sorts of reactions get fairly ugly, and this is systematic with immigrant assimilation over a generational time period and the asynchronistic aspects that come between immigration and assimilation. Even then, there are people who get treated differently just for being Canadian and badly. Let alone if the person is Jewish.
Then we have to deal with the problem with "model minority" and Asians, which is a whole other can of worms whenever "privilege" is to add to the mix since those minorities tend to have high accumulations of education and status quickly. The same for specific black immigrant groups such as Nigerians.
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There are many forms of privilege, and I think privilege is a problematic word because it has a tendency to make people want to defend themselves as if they have done something wrong.
You say this, and I agree with it entirely, but you then go on to repeatedly use the word "unearned" which has exactly the same problem. When we say somebody has something unearned, something they didn't deserve, normally the implication is that they should have to give it up. For examples of that kind of privilege, I think of injustices like a white guy's ability to assault or even murder a black guy with impunity in the Jim Crow South. An actual privi-lege, a separate and unequal law for white people. And unfortunately there are still a few places in this country and around the world where that sort of thing can happen, and it needs to be fought with extreme prejudice (er, so to speak). But it's not normally what people are talking about when they discuss "white privilege" these days. If a white guy gets a job interview and a black guy with the same resume doesn't, the problem isn't that the white guy didn't earn the interview; the problem is that the black guy also earned an interview. The white guy isn't getting more than he deserves; the black guy is getting less. So calling this state of affairs "white privilege" is really misdirecting the focus, pointing the finger at the part of the scenario that's appropriate rather than the part that's inappropriate. And as you've noticed, when white people get normal and appropriate treatment and it's called "privilege", they tend to get defensive about it. If we want to point out that minorities continue to be mistreated in many ways, we should probably, well, put the focus on how minorities are mistreated.
I mentioned the problems with the word privilege, and it is true that it extends to other words as well. The main reason for using the word "unearned" was simply that at the moment I didn't have a better word to describe a trait that was never earned; I never meant to imply that it was not deserved. I am perfectly willing to say that I have unearned male privilege, but I would not say it is undeserved. I would say women deserve the same level of privilege. Perhaps I should have said something like "randomly assigned." Really, I don't really care whether we call it "white privilege" or "minority non-privilege." The part I care about is the gap that I believe we can work to reduce.
Really, I don't really care whether we call it "white privilege" or "minority non-privilege." The part I care about is the gap that I believe we can work to reduce.
You can start by educating people about the effects of racism. However, when you get to the part about why it's bad to stereotype its going to ring a little hypocritical when you talk about privilege and about how all the white people have it.
Here is an example of the most frustrating aspect of debating this issue. You are not acknowledging racism or even the effects of racism when you start asserting facts based on incomplete evidence. Asserting a purported fact such as " I am perfectly willing to say that I have unearned male privilege" is not an acknowledgement others sexist actions nor is it rooted in any actually evidence. He cant possibly measure his benefit as compared to an unknown woman. The only thing he is acknowledging is his own sexism.
There is a difference between saying...
There is discrimination and racism in the world and its negative effects continue to have an impact on people and saying ALL white people have a benefit.
I think the privilege is in the gap, not either of the outcomes.
This would imply that, if we treated everybody the way we treat minorities, that would be an acceptable state of affairs. No, it's the treatment of the minorities that's relevant, not the gap. It's an absolute problem, not a relative one.
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This would imply that, if we treated everybody the way we treat minorities, that would be an acceptable state of affairs. No, it's the treatment of the minorities that's relevant, not the gap. It's an absolute problem, not a relative one.
If we treated everybody the way we treat minorities, where is the privilege? The way I see it, privilege is not quite the same as the problem - it's a symptom of it. When someone says "check your privilege" (at least the few times when it's not used to mean "shut up") I think they mean to examine the difference in perspectives that might result from that gap. I certainly agree with you that the core problem is an absolute one, though.
Here is an example of the most frustrating aspect of debating this issue. You are not acknowledging racism or even the effects of racism when you start asserting facts based on incomplete evidence. Asserting a purported fact such as " I am perfectly willing to say that I have unearned male privilege" is not an acknowledgement others sexist actions nor is it rooted in any actually evidence. He cant possibly measure his benefit as compared to an unknown woman. The only thing he is acknowledging is his own sexism.
There is a difference between saying...
There is discrimination and racism in the world and its negative effects continue to have an impact on people and saying ALL white people have a benefit.
My understanding is that 'white privilege' (or any other sort) is a multifaceted collection of advantages and that any particular white person (or other sort of person etc.) may benefit from between zero and all of them.
Not so much saying 'all white people have a benefit' as 'this is a number of advantages from which white people may benefit'.
And as you've noticed, when white people get normal and appropriate treatment and it's called "privilege", they tend to get defensive about it. If we want to point out that minorities continue to be mistreated in many ways, we should probably, well, put the focus on how minorities are mistreated.
I think that, while 'appropriate' is accurate, that 'normal' in your statement is 'normal-for-white-people', and that for the non-privileged group, 'normal' may be more what we would consider 'inappropriate'. I wonder whether the term privilege was originally coined to point out that what should be the norm isn't the norm for people on the outside.
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I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
Not so much saying 'all white people have a benefit' as 'this is a number of advantages from which white people may benefit'.
That's not what a statement such as "I am perfectly willing to say that I have unearned male privilege" or, my personal favorite, "There is not an equally offensive racial slur that can be used against a white person" is implicitly or explicitly saying. I can list several examples of comments such as these that come from the mouth of privilege advocates.
I have no problem accepting that some people may benefit from discrimination. Again, where I take issue is when people assert racial stereotypes using this knowledge such as "check your privilege". You do not seem to grasp that there is difference between acknowledging the effects of discrimination and drawing a generalization based those results then applying them to unknown person with your only qualification of that person being a specific race. When ever some cites an example of privilege they assume the qualification of this privilege only applies to a certain group. Such as a black person does not have to worry about such and such....You can not say a white person does or hasn't worried about such and such. The application of this knowledge is false equivalency when you assign judgement to an unknown person.
Its the application of your acknowledgment that is the issue. You pretending the acknowledgement of effects to other people and application of that knowledge is one and the same. They are two distinctly different things.
On debating strategy concerning privilege:
I'm directing this mainly at billydaman, but I think it's good general advice for anyone that wants to take an anti-privilege stance. Don't bother labelling privilege theorists as racists, even when they are. I've learned from a lot of experience talking about this stuff that the best you can hope for when you take this angle is a side debate about racism that doesn't address the issue.
Theseus, with his sword and godlike strength, was able to force Procrustes to lie in his own bed. We who are armed with only thoughts and writing -- and perhaps not even those for very long, if our culture continues its current trend of stripping people of their livelihoods for holding particular opinions -- lack the force do so.
Attempts to label privilege theorists as racists only results in endless attempts to manipulate that label, to pin on one side and to squirm away from on the other. It distracts from the simple question that is really the heart of the matter, which is whether or not privilege theory makes any sense. Force people to engage on the real issue. The debate can be won, and won easily, on those grounds.
Now on to the the debate; over the years I've collected dozens of arguments that bear on the concept of privilege theory; I'm just going to give one here for length reasons.
Privilege theory relies on some hidden premises...
I'm going to begin by referencing this cartoon, which was posted in the Cultural Appropriation thread:
(For those of you who already realize how facile and ridiculous this cartoon is and think I'm wasting my time dismantling it, bear with me; my argument will apply equally well in a more general context. I just really hate this cartoon and I harbor an unrealistic hope that after I refute its message people will stop posting it.)
I claim the message underlying this cartoon has the following hidden premises, and you must believe all of these premises in order for the cartoon to make sense:
1) Human culture is rightly divisible into tribes or interest groups, and those tribes can be rightly regarded as if they were monolithic entities.
2) The monolithic-tribe-entities are engaged in a game, race, sport, contest, or struggle in which there is, at any given time, a winner and a loser, or possibly a tie.
3) It is morally wrong when this game is in a state where one monolithic-tribe-entity is winning and the other is losing and it is morally good when this game is at, or close to, a tie.
It's easily seen that falsifying any one of these premises immediately renders the message of the cartoon utterly senseless. Suppose you believe that (1) is false. Well, then the cartoon's imputation that there is an avatar or effigy or totem representing "white people" and another one representing "black people" is nonsensical and the message becomes gibberish.
Suppose you believe that (2) is false. Well, the cartoon depicts the monolithic race-avatars as being engaged in a competition to climb up on to some sort of plateau. If you don't believe human culture constitutes such a competition, then the cartoon makes no sense.
Suppose you believe (3) is false. Then, because it's morally irrelevant who wins or loses, neither the depiction of the white race-avatar pushing the black race-avatar down, nor his position above the black avatar, nor his refusal to help him up later, will discommode you. The moral of the cartoon evaporates, and its message ceases to make sense.
Now I've shown that if you negate any one of the premises, the cartoon's message is senseless. By contraposition and De Morgan's laws, it follows that if the cartoon's message is sensible to you, then you must affirm all of these premises. I'm going to go on to argue that not only is there no reason to affirm any of these premises, there's every reason to deny all of them. Before I do that, however, I'm obliged to connect this all to a position that someone in this thread has actually taken. I'll reference two posts to which I believe these arguments are directly applicable.
First, there's this post by TolarianAcademy13. I felt that post was very articulate, so I hate to have to compare it to such a silly cartoon, but unfortunately, it relies on the same premises and it immediately ceases to make sense if any one of them is falsified. If you disbelieve (1), then you won't accept the applicability of the studies TA13 cites, because they aggregate entire racial groups into monolithic entities and treat only in average values taken over the entire monolith. If you disbelieve (2), then you won't recognize what TA calls privilege as elevating one group or depressing another. And if you disbelieve (3), you won't regard it as a problem even if it does.
Then there's Grant's reference to the John Scalzi piece, which requires the same premises. If you disbelieve (1), then you'll deny that "straight white male" corresponds to a monolithic totem that can be analogized with a difficulty setting. If you disbelieve (2), then turning human culture into a competitive video game is a false analogy from your perspective. If you disbelieve (3), then you'd make no relevant discernment between the easy and hard "settings" of the "game."
...there being no reason to accept, and indeed every reason to reject, said premises...
When I say that there's no reason to accept them, I only mean that nobody has argued for them. Someone just posts that cartoon, or links a study, or links to John Scalzi as if he's some kind of luminary offering a particularly good argument rather than someone who is not very philosophically literate and made an already-bad argument much worse by trying to shoehorn it into a video game analogy. Then they declare victory.
When someone points out that it still doesn't make sense, they repeat the cartoons, studies, and Scalzi links over and over again, throwing in the insinuation that they are a patient teacher explaining over and over again to a four-year-old idiot some obvious fact that they aren't internalizing. Well, that's nonsense. Prove to me that culture is rightly divided into monolithic tribes. Prove to me that the monolith-avatars representing the tribes are involved in a competitive event with winners and losers. Prove to me that everyone should want that event to be a tie. Because until you do that, all your cartoons, studies, and Scalzi links don't actually get you where you need to go.
I say there's every reason to disbelieve those premises, but here I offer only two reasons, because this post is already very long. If someone successfully engages with any of this I'll go on.
The first reason (and this reason has already been alluded to by Blinking Spirit) is that these premises taken together result in insane moral guidance. Consider a mundane situation involving interaction between two members of the tribe-monoliths; suppose a white person is collaborating with a black colleague on a project, for instance. If the premises are true, then it is morally praiseworthy for the member of the "losing" tribe-monolith to steal, co-opt, or undermine the joint work of the project. For in doing so, he either increases his own utility, decreases the utility of the winner, or both -- he narrows the gap between his monolith-avatar and the other, bringing the game closer to a tie. It's also moral for the member of the "winning" tribe-monolith to support this destructive effort. Imagine a society where every attempt at interracial cooperation takes such a horrific turn -- that's the moral guidance (and horror) of privilege theory.
The second reason is that if you replace "losing tribe-monolith" with "proletariat" and "winning tribe-monolith" with "bourgeoise" in those premises, you get exactly the premises of political Marxism, and the word replacements are not relevant, because in political Marxism, everyone ultimately loses no matter what camp they start in. You may say "so what if I affirm premises that are effectively indistinguishable from those of political Marxism" and that's fine -- but if you do so, then keep in mind that when I say you're a postmodern leftist it's not Procrustean, or a straw man, or a shibboleth, but a straightforward description of premises that you affirm. Furthermore, it allows those who oppose you to simply incorporate by reference not only a voluminous body of philosophy that impales your premises, but also the empirical observation that societies that have conducted themselves in accordance with these premises have never achieved anything that any reasonable party in this debate -- on either side -- would think to call equality or justice.
...and it must therefore be rejected.
You might say that you don't like where we've ended up, that I've taken you down some kind of slippery slope to an extreme position, that this stuff is pretty monstrous and you've never affirm it. Of course you wouldn't. Most people who affirm privilege theory aren't monsters, they're people that want to do good and believe that they are. Especially the ones willing to talk rationally about it on a debate forum.
But there was no slippery slope here. I wasn't fiddling with some variable in the premises; they're there at face value. Once the premises are affirmed, the monstrous stuff actually follows by pure logic. If I'm right about that, then it's not rational for you to believe that you are doing good by affirming this; you've made a mistake. What's more, while you personally, as a free creature, can simply ignore the logic and stop yourself from enacting any bad consequences, your tacit affirmation of the premises gives cover to those who will convert those consequences to actions. A quick glance at history will show that this is not a theoretical matter.
We good people sometimes get stuck on bad ideas because they seem good and right and just at first blush, and it's not only impractical but impossible to follow every thought to its every natural conclusion. The problem is exacerbated when people are told by authority figures, in classes they have to take, that this sort of thing actually constitutes a path to justice, and they're asked to repeatedly regurgitate this information on tests and in papers as if it were simply an undisputed truth.
At any rate, this has gone on way too long. Here's the gauntlet, then, for people who wish to defend privilege theory (at least in the sense that is meant by the Scalzi article, TolarianAcademy's post, or the cartoon). This is a debate, and I've just presented an argument. You must now either (1) show that my meta-analysis here is unsound, (2) prove that the three premises above are all true, or (3) concede defeat.
2) The monolithic-tribe-entities are engaged in a game, race, sport, contest, or struggle which is at least approximately zero-sum and in which there is, at any given time, a winner and a loser, or possibly a tie.
How did you come to this conclusion? I wasn't aware social status was a zero-sum game.
How did you come to this conclusion? I wasn't aware social status was a zero-sum game.
You've confused a premise of privilege theory with a conclusion of mine. I vehemently deny that the valuable things in society are zero sum; it's a privilege theorist that must affirm this if they wish to make sense -- so on account of your disagreement you ought to join me in denying privilege theory.
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Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
...No that's a hidden premise that you have ascribed to the debate which I do not accept exists. I'm asking you to explain how you came to that conclusion.
EDIT: Note the bolding of zero-sum. There is nothing about rejecting that premise that invalidates the point the comic is trying to make.
If you disbelieve (1), then you won't accept the applicability of the studies TA13 cites, because they aggregate entire racial groups into monolithic entities and treat only in average values taken over the entire monolith.
Just to be clear, you're saying that such a study is nonsensical on its face because it doesn't make sense to talk about racial groups? That seems more than a bit absurd, so maybe I'm not following you.
...No that's a hidden premise that you have ascribed to the debate which I do not accept exists. I'm asking you to explain how you came to that conclusion.
Okay, so you're asking me why I believe that is a hidden premise? Because if you deny it, the cartoon (and the other items I referenced) cease to make sense. If it's not the case that we're playing some kind of game in which some of the players are "winning" and others are "losing", then any argument that begins by claiming that we are is rendered unsound.
EDIT: Oh, you're asking about the "zero-sum" bit. I said approximately zero-sum, and I mean that in this sense: it can be rationally said that the game is a tie, or if the game is not a tie, then one or more of the tribe-monoliths are "winning," and that means that the other one(s) are "losing." I don't mean to imply that it has to be a perfectly, mathematically strict zero-sum game; only that there are winners and losers.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
EDIT: Oh, you're asking about the "zero-sum" bit. I said approximately zero-sum, and I mean that in this sense: it can be rationally said that the game is a tie, or if the game is not a tie, then one or more of the tribe-monoliths are "winning," and that means that the other one(s) are "losing." I don't mean to imply that it has to be a perfectly, mathematically strict zero-sum game; only that there are winners and losers.
I claim the message underlying this cartoon has the following hidden premises, and you must believe all of these premises in order for the cartoon to make sense:
1) Human culture is rightly divisible into tribes or interest groups, and those tribes can be rightly regarded as if they were monolithic entities.
2) The monolithic-tribe-entities are engaged in a game, race, sport, contest, or struggle which is at least approximately zero-sum and in which there is, at any given time, a winner and a loser, or possibly a tie.
3) It is morally wrong when this game is in a state where one monolithic-tribe-entity is winning and the other is losing and it is morally good when this game is at, or close to, a tie
I think the concept of privilege breaks down when it is used to look at society as a whole. I like to look at smaller chunks of society. It has been shown that blacks get harsher punishments on average than whites.
When I think of that evidence I am not claiming that American culture should be divided into monolithic groups. Instead I am recognizing that America was divided into monolithic groups from its founding. I know that these stark divisions based on race were used to create a caste system were one race was institutionally advantaged. I know that these divisions have been weakening and that institutional disparities based on race are disappearing. But I am not supporting the act of dividing up american culture by pointing out any lingering disparities that do exists.
Is it a zero sum game. If equality under the law is the desire then yes it is a zero sum game. But my end result is not some tie in a game, but fair and equal punishment under the law.
It is morally wrong that the American legal system has such a bias against blacks that researchers can find a statistically significant disparity of punishment correlated to race.
Just to be clear, you're saying that such a study is nonsensical on its face because it doesn't make sense to talk about racial groups? That seems more than a bit absurd, so maybe I'm not following you.
No, it's certainly not nonsensical on its face. In combination with the denial of that premise, however, it's nonsensical as evidence in a privilege argument.
One is free to study racial groups and one may in so doing produce a perfectly sound study of racial groups.
The problem is, if one disbelieves that society is rightly divided into competing racial groups, then a study pointing out that one racial group is so far behind another in a putative competition is about as useful for producing social guidance as is a study counting the hairs in the tail of the average unicorn.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Consider the game of bowling. The maximum score is 300. If player A scores 270 and player B scores 150, player A is the winner. However, bowling is not even an approximate zero-sum game. Player B can still reach player A. The mere existence of winners and losers doesn't necessarily denote zero-sum or anything close to it.
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Hewo wittle fishy!
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No, it doesn't prove anything. The fact that Black owned businesses hire more Black applicants isn't relevant because they have more Black applicants than White owned businesses. I wasn't talking about Black people but rather all people of color. That includes Asians, Latinos, and aboriginal groups as well.
You seem to take this issue personally while at the same time calling for reason and logic. If a conclusion is to be reached then your feeling need to be shelved. I've expressed some opinions you disagree with and that's fine but I assume that since you started this discussion you want actual discourse and not just a soapbox. You haven't defended your position well at all and have merely stated your opinion as fact without really explaining why you're right.
You have not proven that claims of White privilege are racist. Personal experience isn't meaningful proof. Also, we don't know your personal definition of racism. So far we know that you disagree with the notion of White privilege but have not seen your proof that it's racist.
My proof is the dictionary and definition of racism. Here is one of the proponents of privilege using an anecdote to demonstrate:
Change sex to race and apply the definition of racism .Case closed. You guys make it easy to prove. You don't see it that way. You think the "because" matters. The why is irrelevant just like its irrelevant when a racist says because or why he said something racist. No reasoning or logic or evidence will change this from being racist. The leap you make with this statement is your determination as fact when it's impossible to prove, yet, you feel confident he is correct with the only qualification to make the judgment about these two individuals is there is a man and woman involved.
calling liberals loons=not okay
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Dear thread, who here thinks all schools are equal?
You say this, and I agree with it entirely, but you then go on to repeatedly use the word "unearned" which has exactly the same problem. When we say somebody has something unearned, something they didn't deserve, normally the implication is that they should have to give it up. For examples of that kind of privilege, I think of injustices like a white guy's ability to assault or even murder a black guy with impunity in the Jim Crow South. An actual privi-lege, a separate and unequal law for white people. And unfortunately there are still a few places in this country and around the world where that sort of thing can happen, and it needs to be fought with extreme prejudice (er, so to speak). But it's not normally what people are talking about when they discuss "white privilege" these days. If a white guy gets a job interview and a black guy with the same resume doesn't, the problem isn't that the white guy didn't earn the interview; the problem is that the black guy also earned an interview. The white guy isn't getting more than he deserves; the black guy is getting less. So calling this state of affairs "white privilege" is really misdirecting the focus, pointing the finger at the part of the scenario that's appropriate rather than the part that's inappropriate. And as you've noticed, when white people get normal and appropriate treatment and it's called "privilege", they tend to get defensive about it. If we want to point out that minorities continue to be mistreated in many ways, we should probably, well, put the focus on how minorities are mistreated.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I think the privilege is in the gap, not either of the outcomes.
The 'because' is very relevant.
An Afghani group terrorises girls that seek education, but not boys. I assert that is sexist, because the Afghani group is discriminating against females. I assert that boys have an advantage in this society, on account of not being terrorised. This does not make me sexist.
Otherwise:
a) When a group asserts that they are being discriminated against, they are being X-ist themselves (where X-ism is the form of discrimination that discriminates against them)
b) When you call the people who assert privilege sexist or racist, by your own definition, you are in fact being sexist or racist yourself
When you assert superiority based on skin color that is point when it becomes racist. You are using information to assert a racist stereotype.
The fact a group is discriminated against by another group does not mean some other random person gains an advantage solely because they share a characteristic.
Your only evidence of a random person gaining an advantage or privilege is their skin color. There is no evidence of a random person gaining an advantage. Yet, you assert they do. You must have information about the random person to draw a conclusion on whether or not they gained an advantage.
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White privilege gets murky whenever you start talking specific white people, and there are clear delineations between certain "kinds" of white people still that are considered "minority." Equally, whites will equally turn on other whites just as easily as they do other races given the capacity for self other is rather brutal whenever you have a real or perceived different in the air. It's an interesting subject, especially whenever you consider Hispanic whites will be just as equally racist towards other Hispanic whites. When the only difference is just that the one is a legal citizen and the others are either actually illegal citizens or people who are perceived to be "illegals." Those sorts of reactions get fairly ugly, and this is systematic with immigrant assimilation over a generational time period and the asynchronistic aspects that come between immigration and assimilation. Even then, there are people who get treated differently just for being Canadian and badly. Let alone if the person is Jewish.
Then we have to deal with the problem with "model minority" and Asians, which is a whole other can of worms whenever "privilege" is to add to the mix since those minorities tend to have high accumulations of education and status quickly. The same for specific black immigrant groups such as Nigerians.
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You can start by educating people about the effects of racism. However, when you get to the part about why it's bad to stereotype its going to ring a little hypocritical when you talk about privilege and about how all the white people have it.
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Here is an example of the most frustrating aspect of debating this issue. You are not acknowledging racism or even the effects of racism when you start asserting facts based on incomplete evidence. Asserting a purported fact such as " I am perfectly willing to say that I have unearned male privilege" is not an acknowledgement others sexist actions nor is it rooted in any actually evidence. He cant possibly measure his benefit as compared to an unknown woman. The only thing he is acknowledging is his own sexism.
There is a difference between saying...
There is discrimination and racism in the world and its negative effects continue to have an impact on people and saying ALL white people have a benefit.
calling liberals loons=not okay
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If we treated everybody the way we treat minorities, where is the privilege? The way I see it, privilege is not quite the same as the problem - it's a symptom of it. When someone says "check your privilege" (at least the few times when it's not used to mean "shut up") I think they mean to examine the difference in perspectives that might result from that gap. I certainly agree with you that the core problem is an absolute one, though.
My understanding is that 'white privilege' (or any other sort) is a multifaceted collection of advantages and that any particular white person (or other sort of person etc.) may benefit from between zero and all of them.
Not so much saying 'all white people have a benefit' as 'this is a number of advantages from which white people may benefit'.
John Scalzi had a go at trying to explain the concept without using the word privilege, if that helps. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/
I think that, while 'appropriate' is accurate, that 'normal' in your statement is 'normal-for-white-people', and that for the non-privileged group, 'normal' may be more what we would consider 'inappropriate'. I wonder whether the term privilege was originally coined to point out that what should be the norm isn't the norm for people on the outside.
That's not what a statement such as "I am perfectly willing to say that I have unearned male privilege" or, my personal favorite, "There is not an equally offensive racial slur that can be used against a white person" is implicitly or explicitly saying. I can list several examples of comments such as these that come from the mouth of privilege advocates.
I have no problem accepting that some people may benefit from discrimination. Again, where I take issue is when people assert racial stereotypes using this knowledge such as "check your privilege". You do not seem to grasp that there is difference between acknowledging the effects of discrimination and drawing a generalization based those results then applying them to unknown person with your only qualification of that person being a specific race. When ever some cites an example of privilege they assume the qualification of this privilege only applies to a certain group. Such as a black person does not have to worry about such and such....You can not say a white person does or hasn't worried about such and such. The application of this knowledge is false equivalency when you assign judgement to an unknown person.
Its the application of your acknowledgment that is the issue. You pretending the acknowledgement of effects to other people and application of that knowledge is one and the same. They are two distinctly different things.
calling liberals loons=not okay
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On debating strategy concerning privilege:
I'm directing this mainly at billydaman, but I think it's good general advice for anyone that wants to take an anti-privilege stance. Don't bother labelling privilege theorists as racists, even when they are. I've learned from a lot of experience talking about this stuff that the best you can hope for when you take this angle is a side debate about racism that doesn't address the issue.
Theseus, with his sword and godlike strength, was able to force Procrustes to lie in his own bed. We who are armed with only thoughts and writing -- and perhaps not even those for very long, if our culture continues its current trend of stripping people of their livelihoods for holding particular opinions -- lack the force do so.
Attempts to label privilege theorists as racists only results in endless attempts to manipulate that label, to pin on one side and to squirm away from on the other. It distracts from the simple question that is really the heart of the matter, which is whether or not privilege theory makes any sense. Force people to engage on the real issue. The debate can be won, and won easily, on those grounds.
Now on to the the debate; over the years I've collected dozens of arguments that bear on the concept of privilege theory; I'm just going to give one here for length reasons.
Privilege theory relies on some hidden premises...
I'm going to begin by referencing this cartoon, which was posted in the Cultural Appropriation thread:
(For those of you who already realize how facile and ridiculous this cartoon is and think I'm wasting my time dismantling it, bear with me; my argument will apply equally well in a more general context. I just really hate this cartoon and I harbor an unrealistic hope that after I refute its message people will stop posting it.)
I claim the message underlying this cartoon has the following hidden premises, and you must believe all of these premises in order for the cartoon to make sense:
It's easily seen that falsifying any one of these premises immediately renders the message of the cartoon utterly senseless. Suppose you believe that (1) is false. Well, then the cartoon's imputation that there is an avatar or effigy or totem representing "white people" and another one representing "black people" is nonsensical and the message becomes gibberish.
Suppose you believe that (2) is false. Well, the cartoon depicts the monolithic race-avatars as being engaged in a competition to climb up on to some sort of plateau. If you don't believe human culture constitutes such a competition, then the cartoon makes no sense.
Suppose you believe (3) is false. Then, because it's morally irrelevant who wins or loses, neither the depiction of the white race-avatar pushing the black race-avatar down, nor his position above the black avatar, nor his refusal to help him up later, will discommode you. The moral of the cartoon evaporates, and its message ceases to make sense.
Now I've shown that if you negate any one of the premises, the cartoon's message is senseless. By contraposition and De Morgan's laws, it follows that if the cartoon's message is sensible to you, then you must affirm all of these premises. I'm going to go on to argue that not only is there no reason to affirm any of these premises, there's every reason to deny all of them. Before I do that, however, I'm obliged to connect this all to a position that someone in this thread has actually taken. I'll reference two posts to which I believe these arguments are directly applicable.
First, there's this post by TolarianAcademy13. I felt that post was very articulate, so I hate to have to compare it to such a silly cartoon, but unfortunately, it relies on the same premises and it immediately ceases to make sense if any one of them is falsified. If you disbelieve (1), then you won't accept the applicability of the studies TA13 cites, because they aggregate entire racial groups into monolithic entities and treat only in average values taken over the entire monolith. If you disbelieve (2), then you won't recognize what TA calls privilege as elevating one group or depressing another. And if you disbelieve (3), you won't regard it as a problem even if it does.
Then there's Grant's reference to the John Scalzi piece, which requires the same premises. If you disbelieve (1), then you'll deny that "straight white male" corresponds to a monolithic totem that can be analogized with a difficulty setting. If you disbelieve (2), then turning human culture into a competitive video game is a false analogy from your perspective. If you disbelieve (3), then you'd make no relevant discernment between the easy and hard "settings" of the "game."
...there being no reason to accept, and indeed every reason to reject, said premises...
When I say that there's no reason to accept them, I only mean that nobody has argued for them. Someone just posts that cartoon, or links a study, or links to John Scalzi as if he's some kind of luminary offering a particularly good argument rather than someone who is not very philosophically literate and made an already-bad argument much worse by trying to shoehorn it into a video game analogy. Then they declare victory.
When someone points out that it still doesn't make sense, they repeat the cartoons, studies, and Scalzi links over and over again, throwing in the insinuation that they are a patient teacher explaining over and over again to a four-year-old idiot some obvious fact that they aren't internalizing. Well, that's nonsense. Prove to me that culture is rightly divided into monolithic tribes. Prove to me that the monolith-avatars representing the tribes are involved in a competitive event with winners and losers. Prove to me that everyone should want that event to be a tie. Because until you do that, all your cartoons, studies, and Scalzi links don't actually get you where you need to go.
I say there's every reason to disbelieve those premises, but here I offer only two reasons, because this post is already very long. If someone successfully engages with any of this I'll go on.
The first reason (and this reason has already been alluded to by Blinking Spirit) is that these premises taken together result in insane moral guidance. Consider a mundane situation involving interaction between two members of the tribe-monoliths; suppose a white person is collaborating with a black colleague on a project, for instance. If the premises are true, then it is morally praiseworthy for the member of the "losing" tribe-monolith to steal, co-opt, or undermine the joint work of the project. For in doing so, he either increases his own utility, decreases the utility of the winner, or both -- he narrows the gap between his monolith-avatar and the other, bringing the game closer to a tie. It's also moral for the member of the "winning" tribe-monolith to support this destructive effort. Imagine a society where every attempt at interracial cooperation takes such a horrific turn -- that's the moral guidance (and horror) of privilege theory.
The second reason is that if you replace "losing tribe-monolith" with "proletariat" and "winning tribe-monolith" with "bourgeoise" in those premises, you get exactly the premises of political Marxism, and the word replacements are not relevant, because in political Marxism, everyone ultimately loses no matter what camp they start in. You may say "so what if I affirm premises that are effectively indistinguishable from those of political Marxism" and that's fine -- but if you do so, then keep in mind that when I say you're a postmodern leftist it's not Procrustean, or a straw man, or a shibboleth, but a straightforward description of premises that you affirm. Furthermore, it allows those who oppose you to simply incorporate by reference not only a voluminous body of philosophy that impales your premises, but also the empirical observation that societies that have conducted themselves in accordance with these premises have never achieved anything that any reasonable party in this debate -- on either side -- would think to call equality or justice.
...and it must therefore be rejected.
You might say that you don't like where we've ended up, that I've taken you down some kind of slippery slope to an extreme position, that this stuff is pretty monstrous and you've never affirm it. Of course you wouldn't. Most people who affirm privilege theory aren't monsters, they're people that want to do good and believe that they are. Especially the ones willing to talk rationally about it on a debate forum.
But there was no slippery slope here. I wasn't fiddling with some variable in the premises; they're there at face value. Once the premises are affirmed, the monstrous stuff actually follows by pure logic. If I'm right about that, then it's not rational for you to believe that you are doing good by affirming this; you've made a mistake. What's more, while you personally, as a free creature, can simply ignore the logic and stop yourself from enacting any bad consequences, your tacit affirmation of the premises gives cover to those who will convert those consequences to actions. A quick glance at history will show that this is not a theoretical matter.
We good people sometimes get stuck on bad ideas because they seem good and right and just at first blush, and it's not only impractical but impossible to follow every thought to its every natural conclusion. The problem is exacerbated when people are told by authority figures, in classes they have to take, that this sort of thing actually constitutes a path to justice, and they're asked to repeatedly regurgitate this information on tests and in papers as if it were simply an undisputed truth.
At any rate, this has gone on way too long. Here's the gauntlet, then, for people who wish to defend privilege theory (at least in the sense that is meant by the Scalzi article, TolarianAcademy's post, or the cartoon). This is a debate, and I've just presented an argument. You must now either (1) show that my meta-analysis here is unsound, (2) prove that the three premises above are all true, or (3) concede defeat.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
How did you come to this conclusion? I wasn't aware social status was a zero-sum game.
Hewo wittle fishy!
You've confused a premise of privilege theory with a conclusion of mine. I vehemently deny that the valuable things in society are zero sum; it's a privilege theorist that must affirm this if they wish to make sense -- so on account of your disagreement you ought to join me in denying privilege theory.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
EDIT: Note the bolding of zero-sum. There is nothing about rejecting that premise that invalidates the point the comic is trying to make.
Hewo wittle fishy!
Just to be clear, you're saying that such a study is nonsensical on its face because it doesn't make sense to talk about racial groups? That seems more than a bit absurd, so maybe I'm not following you.
Okay, so you're asking me why I believe that is a hidden premise? Because if you deny it, the cartoon (and the other items I referenced) cease to make sense. If it's not the case that we're playing some kind of game in which some of the players are "winning" and others are "losing", then any argument that begins by claiming that we are is rendered unsound.
EDIT: Oh, you're asking about the "zero-sum" bit. I said approximately zero-sum, and I mean that in this sense: it can be rationally said that the game is a tie, or if the game is not a tie, then one or more of the tribe-monoliths are "winning," and that means that the other one(s) are "losing." I don't mean to imply that it has to be a perfectly, mathematically strict zero-sum game; only that there are winners and losers.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
That's a weird way to say "competitive"
I think the concept of privilege breaks down when it is used to look at society as a whole. I like to look at smaller chunks of society. It has been shown that blacks get harsher punishments on average than whites.
When I think of that evidence I am not claiming that American culture should be divided into monolithic groups. Instead I am recognizing that America was divided into monolithic groups from its founding. I know that these stark divisions based on race were used to create a caste system were one race was institutionally advantaged. I know that these divisions have been weakening and that institutional disparities based on race are disappearing. But I am not supporting the act of dividing up american culture by pointing out any lingering disparities that do exists.
Is it a zero sum game. If equality under the law is the desire then yes it is a zero sum game. But my end result is not some tie in a game, but fair and equal punishment under the law.
It is morally wrong that the American legal system has such a bias against blacks that researchers can find a statistically significant disparity of punishment correlated to race.
No, it's certainly not nonsensical on its face. In combination with the denial of that premise, however, it's nonsensical as evidence in a privilege argument.
One is free to study racial groups and one may in so doing produce a perfectly sound study of racial groups.
The problem is, if one disbelieves that society is rightly divided into competing racial groups, then a study pointing out that one racial group is so far behind another in a putative competition is about as useful for producing social guidance as is a study counting the hairs in the tail of the average unicorn.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Hewo wittle fishy!