It also not even true. Privilege is falsifiable by the social conditions. There is a existing/empirical reason some people are identified as having privilege or not, based on the observed social conditions.

Accusations of unfasifablity are failing to engage on the level of a definition. Like if we were trying to discuss trees, only for someone to insist claims about trees were unfalsfiable because nothing we observed was a tree.

Terripan is missing we have to have an understand of states we observe before we can identify what claims are falsified ( states of social relations like privilege included).

It doesn't equal that. What I said was that there's no way to say that it isn't that in that case. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. How would we know?

Privilege is falsifiable by the social conditions. There is a existing/empirical reason some people are identified as having privilege or not, based on the observed social conditions. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sure. So then we make falsifiable claims and see whether they hold water. How about we start doing that?

Focusing on race is the problem to begin with, and will always arrive at racist conclusions. — NOS4A2

This is not aimed at you. I don't know who you are or where you came from. Saying that we shouldn't look at race is what people who don't remember that for 400 years, all we looked at was race say. It also doesn't take into account the burden of disrespect and discrimination that our society still places on black people. "Why can't we all just be friends" is easy for a white person to say.

Let's see, what changes have been made because the law takes race into account - black people can vote, black and white people can marry each other, black people cannot be excluded from public facilities, black people don't have to ride at the back of the bus, black people can, at least in theory, have equal schools, black people cannot be discriminated on in hiring...... The US Supreme Court ruled that States could not prohibit people of different races from getting married the year I graduated from high school. It was the most wonderfully named court case in history - Loving vs. the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I've been playing both sides of the net in this discussion. It angers me how facilely white people can shrug off 400 years of brutality. At the same time, as I've said, I don't really think race-based policy will work. It will never pass and, if it were to, the Supreme Court would kick it out. I also think it would increase resentment against black people.

It angers me how facilely white people can shrug off 400 years of brutality. — T Clark

People should probably deal with what's going on now. Folks from 100 years ago (and often much more recent) are not typically around any longer, regardless of what side anyone was on back then.

That doesn't mean that there's no connection to any current situation, but we need to deal with now.

About America becoming majority brown... Maybe not. A lot of the Mexicans count themselves as white. Two reasons, probably. A), they read the newspaper and it doesn't take long to figure out who has an advantage--POC or WP, and B), quite a few Mexicans (and other South Americans) either are white (they are relatively recent emigrants from Europe) or they have many European ancestors. You know, like the many children and grand children of all the Nazis who settled down in South America. Eichmann, Mengele, Hitler, et al.

Most of this sort of talk--"white privilege, " "male privilege," etc. seems to rest on unfalsifiable claims . . . when it even bothers to make any clear claims about anything that would be empirically establishable in the first place. So it's not at all scientific. — Terrapin Station

This is not a scientific discussion. The rules of justification are not the same.

These kind of things lead to extremely bureaucratic 'racial' hierarchies, you know. A blossoming of racial purity, in a totally perverse and weird way. — ssu

That wasn't really seen as a problem for the past 400 years. It's only been a problem since white people have started to be held accountable. Which doesn't mean I don't agree with you from a practical point of view.

People should probably deal with what's going on now. Folks from 100 years ago (and often much more recent) are not typically around any longer, regardless of what side anyone was on back then. — Terrapin Station

That's very convenient. Let's be fair now that fairness helps the people in power. Same as it ever was. It also ignores the on-going treatment of black people.

People have been doing it from the start. That's how they identity any instance of privilege as opposed to not. From observation of society and culture, they note how people are treated, what is expected of them, how culture understands and related to them. It's how we conclude the poor man does not have wealth privilege. We observe he lacks the wealth and any opportunity or advantages that would bring.

By obsevation of the individual in social conditions, we falsify the poor man has wealth privilege.

This is not a scientific discussion. — T Clark

So we're not talking about something that's really the case empirically? What the heck are we talking about then?

Let's be fair now that fairness helps the people in power. — T Clark

How this makes any sense to you in the context of what I said is a complete mystery.

People have been doing it from the start. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Can we talk about some of it? Maybe suggest a claim we could start with?

This is not aimed at you. I don't know you are or where you came from. Saying that we shouldn't look at race is what people who don't remember that for 400 years, all we looked at it race say. It also doesn't take into account the burden of disrespect and discrimination that our society still place on black people. "Why can't we all just be friends" is easy for a white person to say. — T Clark

Nobody chose to be born white or black but you choose to judge them based on whether they're white or black. There's a difference between a racist and what you are but honestly, you live in the same neighbourhood.

You can play both ends of the court if you can run back and forth fast enough (like, faster than a speeding tennis ball) but you should probably decide which end you really want to play.

It angers me how facilely white people can shrug off 400 years of brutality. — T Clark

Well, people can shrug off the violence they themselves performed yesterday, let alone violence that preceded their birth by 400, 300, 200, 100, and fewer years. This isn't white folk behavior, this is Homo sapiens behavior. People aren't that nice.

Beside that, these "white people" may not actually exist in significant numbers -- by which I mean "people whose white identity is tightly coupled with a sense of automatic superiority, deserving advantage over non-whites, approval of violence against non-whites, entitlement, and so forth". The image that some (usually) white, so-called leftists creates of "white people" is that of a Nazi race extremist--a la Third Reich.

I'm not sure that I've met a white person in the flesh who fits the model of "white people who facilely shrug off 400 years of brutality". I'm sure they exist; I don't think they exist in large numbers.

It takes time to civilize people. A century ago (22 months short) white people rioted in Tulsa, OK.

The Tulsa Race Riot (or the Greenwood Massacre) of 1921[8][9][10][11] took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma.[1] It has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history."[12] The attack, carried out on the ground and by air, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district, at that time the wealthiest black community in the United States known as "Black Wall Street".

More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals and more than 6,000 black residents were arrested and detained, many for several days.[13] The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 36 dead, but the American Red Cross declined to provide an estimate. When a state commission re-examined events in 2001, its report estimated that 100–300 African Americans were killed in the rioting.

. Wikipedia

Bad, bad, very bad bad. Three generations later a repeat of this sort of event seems extremely unlikely. If it had been happening right along, then I think the characterization of white people as nazi race extremists would be more justified. But it has not been happening right along.

Nobody chose to be born white or black but you choose to judge them based on whether they're white or black. There's a difference between a racist and what you are but honestly, you live in the same neighbourhood. — Judaka

I don't judge people by whether they are black or white. I'm white and I don't feel guilty about it. I try not to judge people at all, with variable success. I do try to hold white people, especially affluent white people, accountable if they won't see racial conditions as they are in the US today.

I believe you just gave a lecture on how it's wrong not to view things racially or else we've forgotten about centuries of racism.

That's very convenient. Let's be fair now that fairness helps the people in power. It also ignores the on-going treatment of black people. — T Clark

"Let's be fair now" I mean who's "us" and what do you mean "now"? Also, who are the "people in power"?

This is not aimed at you. I don't know who you are or where you came from. Saying that we shouldn't look at race is what people who don't remember that for 400 years, all we looked at was race say. It also doesn't take into account the burden of disrespect and discrimination that our society still places on black people. "Why can't we all just be friends" is easy for a white person to say.

Let's see, what changes have been made because the law takes race into account - black people can vote, black and white people can marry each other, black people cannot be excluded from public facilities, black people don't have to ride at the back of the bus, black people can, at least in theory, have equal schools, black people cannot be discriminated on in hiring...... The US Supreme Court ruled that States could not prohibit people of different races from getting married the year I graduated from high school. It was the most wonderfully named court case in history - Loving vs. the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I don’t know who you are or where you came from either.

But no, Marin Luther King also expressed colorblindness. It was easy for him to say it as well, not because of his race, but because it was rational and ethical.

Of course people were treated differently because of their skin color. They were classified into racial groups, and treated as all alike, so much so that they were considered and treated as sub-human. It’s pseudoscience. So why utilize their system of categorization? You can’t eliminate racism by evoking it.

Attributing “privilege” or any other stereotype to a race is essentialism and racism of the worst kind.

But no, Marin Luther King also expressed colorblindness. It was easy for him to say it as well, not because of his race, but because it was rational and ethical. — NOS4A2

King said - I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

He expressed a dream of colorblindness, knowing, I assume, it wouldn't happen for a long time. It still hasn't happened and it won't until people recognize how things are.

Of course people were treated differently because of their skin color. They were classified into racial groups, and treated as all alike, so much so that they were considered and treated as sub-human. It’s pseudoscience. So why utilize their system of categorization? You can’t eliminate racism by evoking it. — NOS4A2

"People were treated differently." "They were classified in to racial groups. "They were considered and treated as sub-human."

"You can’t eliminate racism by evoking it." You can't create an equitable and honorable society without recognizing and acknowledging it.

I believe you just gave a lecture on how it's wrong not to view things racially or else we've forgotten about centuries of racism. — Judaka

You express your opinion, I give a lecture. Our society "views things racially." People in power "view things racially.

"Let's be fair now" I mean who's "us" and what do you mean "now"? Also, who are the "people in power"? — Judaka

People in power - Those who don't get arrested when they drive down the street. Those who aren't treated with suspicion wherever they go. Those who aren't sent to prison as a matter of routine. Those who are the beneficiaries of hundreds of years of preferential treatment. Those who don't remember having to ride in the back of the bus.

About America becoming majority brown... Maybe not. A lot of the Mexicans count themselves as white. Two reasons, probably. A), they read the newspaper and it doesn't take long to figure out who has an advantage--POC or WP, and B), quite a few Mexicans (and other South Americans) either are white (they are relatively recent emigrants from Europe) or they have many European ancestors. You know, like the many children and grand children of all the Nazis who settled down in South America. Eichmann, Mengele, Hitler, et al. — Bitter Crank

Ah yes, why don't I also start giving as the example of white people that colonized America, the Nazis. Very fitting to the times to link "white" with "nazis". Very woke from you, Bitter C. No need to mention that the countries were European colonies that similarly were populated by European immigration just like some former British colonies up north. And that the basic social problem is between these the native Indian population and those with European heritage.

One clear example of the still alive Anglo-American racist tendencies is the categorization of the "Latino" and the reference to the "Non-Hispanic White" which naturally creates a class of "Hispanic Whites" which is simply not mentioned. (Of course the whole insistence of race and the use of racial categorizations in the first place is a more clearer example.)

Somehow it is totally out of question that the most logical divide (if division of this kind can be logical at all) of people in the Americas would be a) Native Americans, b) European Settlers and c) Settlers from other continents, which include the slaves from Africa. Nope, totally impossible for people in the US. You see, the offspring of Italian/German/Finnish emigrants who came to the British colonies (or former colonies) are considered "white", but the offspring of Italian/German/Finnish emigrants to the ex-Spanish/Portuguese colonies are "latinos". Doesn't matter if they have not mixed at all with other groups.

And when the ludicrous logic is indeed noticed, like that actually many Argentinians are of European descent, the term "Latino" isn't used anymore, immediately a newer classification (yes, racists just love classifications!) has to be created with the "Non-Hispanic White". So now we have again a divide were one group of Americans with pure Italian/German/Finnish heritage are separated from another group of Americans with pure Italian/German/Finnish by the language they speak in the new World. Typically a division by the language spoken would be an ethnicity issue, not a racial issue, but as I said, racism is alive and strong in one country.

But this actually is totally in line with the illogical way racists define things. So called "White" people who are racist are naturally racist to others that at first would be thought to be "white". Racists in Europe do not at all use a term like "Caucasian" and only later have started to mimick the American racist rhetoric, which has this hilarious idea of universal "whiteness". Just start from thinking how many groups of now considered "white" people in the US were untermenschen in the eyes of the Third Reich. But of course, something built of xenophobia, fear and hatred of the other and the hubris of oneself doesn't have to be logical.

You are lecturing us on history and telling me that people's opinion is a result of their whiteness. As if you're the only person here who knows about slavery, segregation or the past extents of racism. You posit that the white race is in power in America, society may view things racially but society is flawed. Your way of thinking perpetuates racism, it is racist really, you can't have separate rules for people based on their race,

Racism existed and exists and that's clearly to the disadvantage of black people, no shit. How tragic it is that it exists, that people will group others and themselves by race and prejudice against people based on race - oh wait, that's you, right?

But this actually is totally in line with the illogical way racists define things. So called "White" people who are racist are naturally racist to others that at first would be thought to be "white". Racists in Europe do not at all use a term like "Caucasian" and only later have started to mimick the American racist rhetoric, which has this hilarious idea of universal "whiteness". Just start from thinking how many groups of now considered "white" people in the US were untermenschen in the eyes of the Third Reich. But of course, something built of xenophobia, fear and hatred of the other and the hubris of oneself doesn't have to be logical. — ssu

It's true, and also irrelevant, that race has no anatomical or genetic basis. That it's an artificial construct. Fact is, race in this context was invented by Europeans, white people, as a way to put other people in their place, to dehumanize them so they could be exploited. Now it's no longer convenient or useful to those in power to discuss race. To claim it doesn't exist would be funny except for the fact that it's not funny at all.

Your way of thinking perpetuates racism, it is racist really, you can't have separate rules for people based on their race, — Judaka

Oh, no... Judaka thinks I'm a racist. Boo hoo. And, of course you can have rules for people based on their race. We've had them ever since one group of people met another group. It's too bad that's true, I guess, but it is what it is. As I've said previously, thems that runs things no longer find it convenient or useful, so let's get rid of it.

And no, I don't think that applies to you. I think you sincerely believe what you've said in a principled way. And you're not really wrong in theory except that it ignores 400; maybe 10,000; years of history.

Fact is, race in this context was invented by Europeans, white people, as a way to put other people in their place, to dehumanize them so they could be exploited. — T Clark

Are you sure this was invented by Europeans? By this I mean the dehumanization of other people. I would consider racism an universal phenomenon and easily you can have the phenomenon appearing in older cultures. As far as I remember ancient history, people were extremely xenophobic. And being afraid of the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians or the Romans would be a sound thing if you would be living next to them, actually.

To claim it doesn't exist would be funny except for the fact that it's not funny at all. — T Clark

What I think is that we are starting lose the ability to talk about the issue openly.

Are you sure this was invented by Europeans? By this I mean the dehumanization of other people. I would consider racism an universal phenomenon and easily you can have the phenomenon appearing in older cultures. As far as I remember ancient history, people were extremely xenophobic. And being afraid of the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians or the Romans would be a sound thing if you would be living next to them, actually. — ssu

That's why I wrote "in this context." I also wrote:

you can have rules for people based on their race. We've had them ever since one group of people met another group. — T Clark

I don't ignore history, I don't believe in racial histories. I despise racists and people who believe in racial histories. I do not want to overturn the past, I want a future with no racism. I am an individualist, I want people to be judged for their individual characteristics and NOT group identities, which I reject for the most part.

The counterargument to this is not to try to be more compassionate than me, giving examples of racism, poverty and corrupt legal systems and acting as if you care more than me. Also, it isn't to say that you're justified to be using racial histories and racial prejudice because it existed historically - something you should condemn not emulate?

Also, I don't aim to hurt your feelings, no point acting like I'm a fool for trying. I merely apply my beliefs to discussions and observe the results.

I despise racists and people who believe in racial histories. — Judaka

Then I guess you despise me.

Also, it isn't to say that you're justified to be using racial histories and racial prejudice because it existed historically - something you should condemn not emulate? — Judaka

When push comes to shove, what matters is what works best to make things better. As I've acknowledged, I've come to believe that may be focusing on class rather than race. Of course, I guess class doesn't really exist either. Do you despise me for that too? Let's say "wealth" then.

I don't think I'm more compassionate than you, I just think you are mislead by your ideology.

So you are essentially conceding that my approach is more practical - in that you have said that a racially focused solution is not the way to go. What are the benefits to your "ideology"?

So you are essentially conceding that my approach is more practical - in that you have said that a racially focused solution is not the way to go. — Judaka

I've been saying that throughout this discussion.

What are the benefits to your "ideology" — Judaka

It's two separate issues - How things are. What we do about them. What are the benefits of knowing how things are? 1) Knowing the truth is good in and of itself. 2) Facing the unpleasant truth is good for the soul. 3) Understanding how things got the way they are may make it easier for people to change their attitudes 4) Knowing how things got the way they are has implications for who should be held primarily responsible for making things better.

It's true, and also irrelevant, that race has no anatomical or genetic basis. That it's an artificial construct. Fact is, race in this context was invented by Europeans, white people, as a way to put other people in their place, to dehumanize them so they could be exploited. — T Clark

Wait a minute, people aren't red and yellow black and white randomly. People inherit the characteristics of their racial group (or mixed racial group), such as skin coloration and a zillion genetic traits from their biological parents. To paraphrase a George Carlin skit:

"Thorndyke Clark happens to be white."

He had two white parents?
Indeed he did.
And did they fuck?
Oh yes, they certainly did.
So, where is the fucking surprise? Wouldn't it be more surprising if he were Chinese?

Are you sure that no other large grouping of people, like those living in Asia, on their own didn't/don't parse differences among peoples in a similar way that Europeans did/do? Or People in Africa, the Western Hemisphere, etc.?

"Race" has both denotative and connotative meanings, some of the latter which are positive, some negative, and some neutral. In a 1912 hymn, "O master workman of the race" (Jesus), "race" means "human". It has also referenced what we call ethnicity--Irish, Catalonian, Ukrainian, etc. Race has been applied to the African, Asian, Caucasian, Amerindian, and Australian aboriginal peoples.

Then it has famously and notoriously been applied to the "Aryan race", a concoction of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the leadership of which often fell very far short of the Aryan Ideal: tall, blond, blue-eyed, muscular, etc.

Race, referencing ethnicity, should be criticized for seeing consistency of traits, particularly in Europe. The peoples of Europe have been stirred and mixed about as much as possible, going back to the earliest waves of migration out of Africa, and subsequent east-west-north-south sloshing of population movement.

Race, referencing the largest groups of peoples, has more validity. The people of Africa, those who did not migrate, display the genetic great diversity of the "root stock" of the world's population. Africans do not have Neanderthal or Denisovans DNA, because those and other ancient humanoid groups arose from the earliest outward migrations from Africa. The Eurasian plains, the area north of the Middle East, was the mixing bowl out of which Aboriginal, Amerindian, Asian, and European people came.

The Great Error in the concept of race is that some races are better than others, rather than there are some differences among the races.