I'm not referring to any definitional origin in critical theory or whathaveyou. — StreetlightX

Ah, I see. As far s I know, it dies have such an origin in critical theory, so I presumed that was your point of reference. More interesting though, if you still get that original critical meaning from its everyday use.

What's your underastanding of it? — StreetlightX

Unsurprisingly, my interest started with the popularised Erin Cooley study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, which was premised on the assumption of white privilege being used to increase awareness and promote action. The study was specifically on the impact such approaches have on assumptions about poverty where it did indeed seem that talk of 'white privilege' promulgated 'lazy and feckless' tropes in regard to poor whites, and even generated an increased use of individualist language regardless of race (ie, talk of privilege merely ressurects ideas of assessing achievement by comparison with origin rather than as a indicator of it).

Maybe its just the rather limited circles I move in.

Not at all. As creative noted, the dissonance between what ought to be a state of 'normalcy' and it having count as a privilege is precisely the point of the term. It draws its critical power from precisely the uneasy collapse of the two. To not treat normality as privilege - given the current state of things - is to miss the point. Which is what you are doing.

If the term is inaccurate, it is, as it were, an ontological inaccuracy, one that ought to be remedied at the level of action, not language. The goal being to make it nonsensical, which it currently, sadly, is not. — StreetlightX

So you're admitting that the term does not accurately describe what it says it does. You are asserting that its non-descriptiveness, its falsehood is exactly the point of the term. You are unable to answer to the logic of my argument so you have reverted to illogical poetry in response. You are peddling a lie when the truth would actually serve you better.

It seems you are trying to make the case that it is impossible to convince a person of the reality of systemic racism without convincing them of this privilege. I totally disagree. I do not believe that white privilege exists. I am supremely confident in the existence of both individual and institutional racism, and its many areas of impact beyond criminal justice, including housing, employment, education, and many more.

So, since it is completely possible to understand the institutionalized framework of racial oppression without resorting to the use of this admittedly non-descriptive term, I ask again, what value does it have? Shock value? No thanks. I'll stick with accuracy.

it simply seems that irony is lost on you, — StreetlightX

Yep.

Here's a pop article that might be of interest:
Learning About Privilege

The reaction fo the white student has parallels in this thread.

The checklist mention can be found in White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

From that checklist:

As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

Talking about privilege makes the privileged uncomfortable. That is not sufficient reason not to talk about privilege.

The Erin Cooley article:

We conclude that, among social liberals, White privilege lessons may increase beliefs that poor White people have failed to take advantage of their racial privilege—leading to negative social evaluations.

This is indeed an interesting point. @Isaac, presumably you do not think this sufficient reason not to talk in terms of privilege?

Unsurprisingly, my interest started with the popularised Erin Cooley study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, which was premised on the assumption of white privilege being used to increase awareness and promote action. The study was specifically on the impact such approaches have on assumptions about poverty where it did indeed seem that talk of 'white privilege' promulgated 'lazy and feckless' tropes in regard to poor whites, and even generated an increased use of individualist language regardless of race (ie, talk of privilege merely ressurects ideas of assessing achievement by comparison with origin rather than as a indicator of it). — Isaac

Thank you for providing some authoritative input here. This subject is not really my area, in this case I'm more concerned with the bastardization of language.

Nevertheless, if I'm understanding your summary correctly, there is evidence in an academic study that the use of the term has the unintended consequence of reinforcing some negative stereotypes? So here we have evidence of the potentially harmful nature of the term.

I'll offer some more. this from an interview with Brian Lowery, PhD, a Stanford professor who studies racial issues and for the record is a person of color. He is defending the concept of white privilege in this interview.

He begins by describing the responses he most often sees to the suggestion of white privilege, which he describes as denial and distance. In other, words he is saying that a typical response is negative disbelief, which is what I have been saying all along and some of you seem to want to just gloss over. This goes to the point that it carries a negative connotation and a burden of proof with its intended audience, which I argue is not offset by any gain distinguishable from simply using the terms racial inequality or systemic racism, which do not impact the same audience in the same way.

What I find most interesting is later in the interview he is asked how he discusses this with his Stanford students:

Lowery: That's a good question. I don't talk about this often in the classroom, honestly. So when I'm in the classroom, what I do is work on leadership...So I do often stand in front of students and talk about their responsibilities. So working at Stanford, our students are both incredibly talented and also incredibly privileged, as am I and everyone else associated with Stanford as an academic institution, and many other really elite and high status academic institutions. And in front of those groups what I say is that when we behave, the decisions we make affect many other people. And it's very easy to focus on how our decisions affect our outcomes, what it means about our career, what it means about our family, and lose sight of the fact that from our perch, those decisions actually affect many people's lives.

And so I don't talk in particular about race, but what I try to impress upon people in positions of power is that if we lose sight of the consequences of our behavior on other people, we will likely end up supporting existing inequities, right? Exacerbating existing inequities. It doesn't require us to be bad people or racist. It just requires us to continue to go along with the system as it is, and to continue to try to maximize our own outcomes. And that I think it's incumbent upon us to do more than that. So when I talk with students, that's the message that I give them. And I don't find a lot of resistance to that, because again, people want to see themselves as good and moral people. So I think it's important to convey to them what that actually requires of them.

In other words, he begins by acknowledging his students are privileged, but there is no racial dimension to that because they are privileged by resources, not whiteness (presumably many of them are not white). In fact, he omits the racial element of the conversation entirely. Why? Because as he goes on to demonstrate, the real conversation is about feeling a sense of civic responsibility and the consequences of one's actions. But still, why omit race? Because by doing so, he doesn't "find a lot of resistance".

This man is a proponent of white privilege and more deeply versed in this subject than any of us, but he is (presumably unintentionally) admitting that if one really wants the audience to listen, it is better to avoid that approach.

I realize this is an isolated case, but at least we are seeing some evidence here, and it does not bode well for the utility of "white privilege" versus the difficulties it creates in messaging.

So you're admitting that the term does not accurately describe what it says it does. You are asserting that its non-descriptiveness, its falsehood is exactly the point of the term. — Pro Hominem

I did the exact opposite of that. I 'admitted' that the term captures something quite real about our state of affairs, in which normalcy has acquired a sense of privilege. At stake is not 'accuracy' or falsehood but normativity. What is currently a state of affairs should be otherwise. Once that is so, then the term will no longer have purchace. That is currently not the case.

The study was specifically on the impact such approaches have on assumptions about poverty where it did indeed seem that talk of 'white privilege' promulgated 'lazy and feckless' tropes in regard to poor whites, and even generated an increased use of individualist language regardless of race (ie, talk of privilege merely ressurects ideas of assessing achievement by comparison with origin rather than as a indicator of it). — Isaac

Interesting. On paper, the term ought to do the exact opposite of this - insofar as privilege is a social relation and speaks precisely to supera-individual factors that shape behaviour. Perhaps there's a degree to which the term is simply too complex, with rife misunderstandings that have colored its use in ways detrimental. On the other hand that also strikes me as elitist bullshit, and that its misunderstanding can be attributed to it being a favourite target of conservative identity politics, which toxifies everything it touches.

In any case, as a term which simply marks the sad situation in which normalcy has indeed become a case of privilege, I believe it still has purchace, and rather uncontroversially so.

it simply seems that irony is lost on you,
— StreetlightX

Yep. — Banno

Again, you just skip the parts you don't like, don't you? He literally said "What white people don't like is..." in a conversation about racism. That is, actually, ironic. But maybe you're more into the Alannis Morrissette definition. That would dovetail well with your belief that words have no meaning except that which you want them to at the present moment.

Here's a pop article that might be of interest:
Learning About Privilege

The reaction fo the white student has parallels in this thread.

The checklist mention can be found in White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

Talking about privilege makes the privileged uncomfortable. That is not sufficient reason not to talk about privilege. — Banno

Yes, I can Google also. Pop Psy? Seriously? That article is a glorified Facebook post. It's like something you would read in an undergrad logic textbook as an example of fallacious writing.

This checklist....wow. It is certainly an artifact from the 70's. Many of the things it describes are things that are very much in the public consciousness today. If anything, it serves to offer some hope that at least when it comes to the easier aspects of discrimination, some progress has, in fact, been made in the last few decades.

Bottom line, it describes discrimination, it just phrases it in the negative. Interestingly, there is white bias embedded within its very construction, because it assumes that the reader is white, and that their experience is the same. It completely misses the point that if you were to read this in any setting where there is a majority and minority group, it would be just as true for those groups even if none of them are white. If a Hutu were writing this in Rwanda in the 90s, would we say the Hutus had "white privilege?" Of course, some things on the list (affirmative action employers, for example) wouldn't have even existed for any Rwandan, so should we say black Americans have "black privilege", since they have things that some other people do not? Once again, we run up against the fact that "white privilege" does not actually describe what we are trying to talk about. Perfectly good alternatives are out there. Use them.

The Erin Cooley article:

We conclude that, among social liberals, White privilege lessons may increase beliefs that poor White people have failed to take advantage of their racial privilege—leading to negative social evaluations. — Banno

Here you go, the fallacy laid bare. Apparently not all white people benefit from "white privilege". Shocker. Who could have seen that a blanket generalization might fail close inspection? It's fine, though. I'm sure you will ignore that this shows a reinforcement of intersected racist/classist prejudices, because to do otherwise would be to confront the truth.

I did the exact opposite of that. I 'admitted' that the term captures something quite real about our state of affairs, in which normalcy has acquired a sense of privilege. At stake is not 'accuracry' or falsehood but normativity. What is currently a state of affairs should be otherwise. Once that is so, then the term will no longer have purchace. That is currently not the case — StreetlightX

It does not have purchase. I reject it completely and I am sympathetic to its goals. If by purchase, you mean it galvanizes the message of those on the right who are trying to convince middle class whites that they are being reversely discriminated against, then yes, it has purchase.

You talk of normativity. We have a moment here where the broader public is aware and focused on the issue of racial discrimination and your first instinct is to tell them they are the problem? I hope you're not a salesman, you will certainly starve. This moment calls for solidarity and inclusiveness, for getting maximum buy in on making all the headway we can before the election takes over the public mind. If we do it right, this could carry into and through the election.

But no, you would rather spend the time trying to explain a triple negative to people. Inspiring.

Interesting. On paper, the term ought to do the exact opposite of this - insofar as privilege is a social relation and speaks precisely to supera-individual factors that shape behaviour. Perhaps there's a degree to which the term is simply too complex, with rife misunderstandings that have colored its use in ways detrimental. On the other hand that also strikes me as elitist bullshit, and that its misunderstanding can be attributed to it being a favourite target of conservative identity politics, which toxifies everything it touches.

In any case, as a term which simply marks the sad situation in which normalcy has indeed become a case of privilege, I believe it still has purchace, and rather uncontroversially so — StreetlightX

What this should have said:
"Interesting. In the face of these facts, it seems my position is not as strong as I thought it was. Perhaps I should consider reinterpreting with this new information."

What it said:
"Interesting. It appeared for a second I might be wrong. Nah, I'll just hide behind jargon and blame a conservative conspiracy."

You're just fucking wrong. Why won't you see it?

A lovely series of indignant assertions, lacking argument and still wrongly assocating the term with 'blame'. Beyond argument I suppose.

A lovely series of indignant assertions, lacking argument and still wrongly assocating the term with 'blame'. Beyond argument I suppose — StreetlightX

You don't seem to realize this, but you are terrible at philosophy. Like, horrible.

I lack argument? Your longest post is 7 sentences. You have not articulated a coherent position of any kind except "white privilege because reasons". Conversely I have supplied you with reams of argument along multiple tacks. I've questioned your (non-)position linguistically, conceptually, based on outcomes (with evidence), and using plain old common sense. Of course, none of this has any effect because you are apparently a hollow pedant with no real case to make. Keep talking about white privilege, bozo. You will have no positive impact on improving racial discrimination until you change.

Yes, blame. It doesn't matter that you think the words have some magical meaning that only your towering intellect can comprehend. What matters is what the audience hears. And what they hear is you blaming them. You can hide behind all your talk of conflating nonsensical interpretations with creating normativities for action, but it will be just as futile as trying to make that sentence into something other than inane noise.

Guy. If you're so right and he's so wrong why do you feel the need to insult and degrade everybody who disagrees with you? It's just toxic dude. You're doing exactly the same thing you accuse others of doing, to a tee. Insulting the "audience" if they have opposing views and not having any positive impact until you change.

You can think you're right as strongly as you wish, meanwhile others will still disagree with you. Instead of pointing out why they may be mistaken, you choose to berate and insult them endlessly. You don't sound happy. At all. Frankly, I'd rather be "wrong" in your eyes than miserable and oppressively toxic to just about everybody else.

ok

Not sure what you think I'm lying about, I have always been open and upfront about my contempt for the framing. If I agreed that white privilege was necessary, if I agreed that white privilege was an important marker, then my opposition makes no sense. — Judaka

Right. So you're choosing to no longer agree to all we've agreed upon(changing your mind) because you now see where those agreements have led?

If you admit that some use of "white privilege" is necessary(which is precisely what happens when you grant my framework), you'd have to reconsider and appropriately amend your pre-existing belief that no use of "white privilege" is.

You've already agreed to that, haven't you?

Yawn.

The Erin Cooley article:

We conclude that, among social liberals, White privilege lessons may increase beliefs that poor White people have failed to take advantage of their racial privilege—leading to negative social evaluations.


This is indeed an interesting point. Isaac, presumably you do not think this sufficient reason not to talk in terms of privilege? — Banno

Most importantly we mustn't read too much into the results from a single un-replicated study. There were methodological issues (there always are!) and we'd need to see some of those ironed out before drawing anything like a meaningful conclusion. The hypothesis being tested was one drawn from previous literature, however, so it's not an entirely unexpected result, but still, I wouldn't rush to any conclusions just yet. I only mentioned the paper in response to @StreetlightX's question about where my understanding of the current use of the term comes from, not by way of advocating it's results.

Hypothetically though, I would be inclined to moderate language use within a certain political campaigns on the basis of this kind of response, yes. I don't see much advantage in being self-defeatingly precious about the original intent, nor even the theoretical power of a term if there's good evidence it's not helping your cause.

The BLM movement is not like the struggle of the proletariat. The propertied class own something which they have a strong desire to own, they have a strong desire to keep it that way and necessarily exploit the workers to do so, there's a clear line of competing interests. No moderation of language or conciliatory tactic is going to work here, it's a proper fight.

The fight against systemic racism, however, is different. I see it as mostly the exact same fight (the exploitation merely taking the form of racial disparity), but partly a fight against ignorance - the ignorance of the fact that it is the same fight. In the former case there should be solidarity with the white poor and rhetoric which weakens their position is harmful. In the latter case there's potential supporters not yet brought to the cause, the battle lines are not yet drawn, rhetoric which serves to distance people who could potentially be supporters is, again, self-defeating.

All this is, I emphasise, hypothetical. I don't consider the evidence either way to be strong enough. The point I was making to Streelight was only that it becomes an empirical matter. 'White Privilege' is a term used with calculated intent, it's not a vent of frustration like the riots were, I think what works matters here more than it does in more visceral responses to oppression.

On paper, the term ought to do the exact opposite of this - insofar as privilege is a social relation and speaks precisely to supera-individual factors that shape behaviour. — StreetlightX

Yeah, but not everyone is going to put the work in to interpreting it. That's the difference between a technical term and one out 'in the wild', you CNT guarantee an intelligent or even sympathetic reading of it.

On the other hand that also strikes me as elitist bullshit, and that its misunderstanding can be attributed to it being a favourite target of conservative identity politics, which toxifies everything it touches. — StreetlightX

Yes, I'd be inclined to agree, that doesn't mean it's advisable to keep lobbing them material. That right-wing punditry toxifies everything is nit in itself a reason to throw one's hands up and say "we might as well not give it any thought". Some things they will find easier targets than others.

In any case, as a term which simply marks the sad situation in which normalcy has indeed become a case of privilege, I believe it still has purchace — StreetlightX

As I said to banno, I don't think there's sufficient evidence to judge yet. I don't doubt there's some purchase to it, but when it comes down to it, I don't think this is the real debate here and it was perhaps wrong of me to even raise the issue as a strategic one. Social media has made politics too superficial, last month we had actual riots fighting oppression, talk of 'white privilege' is just bourgeois dinner-table chatter by comparison.

Thanks for that. It's apparent that talk of privilege has too much baggage for a general conversation such as this. I wondered, on reading your other post, if there might be an evidence base in the literature of psychology that leant one way or the other.

So as a result of your post I've been reading a bit on the history of the word in this context. There's an interesting interview with McIntosh at The Origins of “Privilege”. She talks about being able to see patterns and systems in social life as well as caring about individual experiences in order to understand how privilege works. That rings true for me. I hadn't thought about my own privilege until I found myself working in a team of mostly aboriginal folk and learned their stories. Even then, it took months to sink in, to be able to see my experiences through the lens of the advantages I had simply because of my race, to understand how differences in experience are moulded systematically to the advantage of some and disadvantage of others.

That read took me to Checking My Privilege: Character As The Basis Of Privilege. A sad read. Sure, not "everything I’ve done with my life can be credited to the racist patriarchy holding my hand throughout my years of education and eventually guiding me into Princeton" - but it had a part in it. And sure, "Behind every success, large or small, there is a story, and it isn’t always told by sex or skin color"; but often it is. Understanding the role that systematic privilege played in one's own experiences is just too hard for some.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me in that direction.

Talk of 'white privilege' is just bourgeois dinner-table chatter by comparison. — Isaac

I don't disagree, but that's kind of the point, no? That one is able to talk about one's privilege in a critical way is precisely, a mark of it. It no doubt accounts for the fact that people like Pro are so violently offended over what seems to be, at best, a nominative injustice. In my experience, the people most liable to actually talk about 'white privilege' tend to be those who have nothing to say other than to whine about it. A perfect kind of bourgeois black hole.

That right-wing punditry toxifies everything is nit in itself a reason to throw one's hands up and say "we might as well not give it any thought". — Isaac

That it toxifies everything is all the more reason to be clear about our terms and not cede ground to them. More thought, not less.

There's a remarkable dearth of philosophical material on privilege.

But there is Naomi Zack, which draws a distinction between white privilege and white privilege discourse, which I think looks valuable,

Privilege is a side issue. Perhaps we coudl find agreement at least on that.

wondered, on reading your other post, if there might be an evidence base in the literature of psychology that leant one way or the other. — Banno

The basic go to is Lord, Ross, and Lepper's 1979 'Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence' which basically invented the idea of people re-enforcing their system-justification in the face of evidence which dis-confirms it. There's a lot of work done on what's called 'resistance' in sociology (meaning the failure to engage with challenges to assumption) primarily as a study of students within courses design to do just that. Mike Cole at UEL a few years ago produced a seminal study on this. Unsurprisingly students on such courses (I think he studies both race and gender studies) generally showed more sympathetic language use and policy leanings than before the courses, but he noted the opposite effect with a minority of 'resistant' students. It depends on your target audience. There's also a paper (not out yet) which claims to show positive relationships between perspective taking and system justification behaviour - so people who are shown other perspectives tend to justify existing systems less. Again this is generally positive as far as 'white privilege' discourse is concerned, but again the effect was switched around when system justification preceded the perspective-taking.

I think the important thing seems to be whether the challenge is framed as perspective-taking or as misinformation correcting. Whilst a few people can still be resistant to the effects perspective-taking, it's by and large a positive thing in reducing system justification, but if people see it as misinformation correcting then there's substantially more resistance among those who might be negatively affected by the change in systemic beliefs. If talk of 'white privilege' is to have any effect (and, as Streetlight rightly pointed out, there's no reason why it should, it stands fine as a critique on its own), then it will be mediated, I think, by the extent to which it's used as a perspective-taking exercise, which sounds very much the way your first article sees it, and indeed your own experience.

This is a side issue. — Banno

Yes, I think The Naomi Zack article could even go further. The fact that white people have paths open to them which people of colour do not have have is a privilege and that cannot really be denied, and shouldn't be lost in any talk of the effect of 'white privilege' discourse, but any attempt to broadcast or use that undeniable fact in political society becomes discourse, we cannot avoid it and we cannot be mindless to its consequences.

That one is able to talk about one's privilege in a critical way is precisely, a mark of it. It no doubt accounts for the fact that people like Pro are so violently offended over what they see as a nominative injustice. In my experience, the people most liable to actually talk about 'white privilege' tend to be those who have nothing to say other than to whine about it. A perfect kind of bourgeois black hole. — StreetlightX

Possibly. I suppose, again, it depends on the circles one moves in. I do agree though that 'check your privilege' can have this meta-function which is "how are you even able to sit there and discuss it rather than be compelled to respond to it?" In a sense though, this can be said of both sides of the bourgeois debate. I think what it does is highlights the fact that the 'subjects' of the conversation are often not the ones having it, they're the ones dealing with the oppression of which they are the victims. This disconnect is a problem because it removes the hook that the discourse initially had back into the reality of the situation is claims to be about, and discussion removed from any attachment to lived reality can end up castles in the air, a distraction from what really needs doing.

That it toxifies everything is all the more reason to be clear about our terms and not cede ground to them. More thought, not less. — StreetlightX

I hadn't thought of it like that. I suppose I was initially more thinking about building solidarity with those who should be united (white poor, black poor) than about opposing right-wing rhetoric, but I think in this latter respect, you're right. Not conceding ground is the only way to respond. Anything less buys into the the myth that their critiques are anything other than shallow grasping at straws. It's difficult though because the two aims conflict here. I don't want to give ground to conservative mud-slinging, but I do have legitimate concerns about resurrecting any language which lends support to a kind of rugged individualism that should have died with Hoover. we shouldn't be listing one's starting privileges and judging one's achievements accordingly, we should be looking at achievements as a whole and inferring the existence of starting privileges from any inequality we find there.

Talking about privilege makes the privileged uncomfortable. That is not sufficient reason not to talk about privilege. — Banno

Apply this same logic to talking about men and women in a way that makes a trans person uncomfortable. Its nice to see that you've come around to realizing another's hurt feelings isn't a privilege to silence someone else.

The problem though is that if you havent properly defined "privilege". So your use of the term isn't making me uncomfortable, rather it makes me think that you are confused and don't know what you're taking about.

I think you've misunderstood my responses to you, what I wanted to acknowledge is that not everything about the white privilege framing is just senseless. That you are trying to use it to help educate people on an important issue. To summarise, in the 20th-century racism was in-your-face overt, that isn't how racism functions anymore, it's unilaterally condemned by almost everyone. Yet systemic racism persists, how do you explain that if people aren't seeing that 20th-century racism anymore? If they're convinced systemic racism is over and done with because they only understand systemic racism through what they know happened in the 20th century. A possible answer to that is the white privilege framing.

By acknowledging the need for adaptation in describing racism, I have not acquiesced on any of my previous points. It's a dreadful approach which only makes sense if you subscribe to left-wing identity politics. Even though your brand of white privilege specifically condemns a lot of what I dislike about it, it's nonetheless fundamentally the same.

Racism is no longer about racial superiority, it's about prejudice, it's about giving a race qualities based on things like statistics and experience and using those descriptions to inform yourself about individuals who belong to that group. Suspecting black people might be criminals because they're more likely to be, stereotyping and discriminating. What is worst of all is that many of these stereotypes aren't factually incorrect, just like white privilege. The thinking is the same, justified by the same validity and that's why you're able to argue for things like reparations, something you can't do without discriminating based on race.

We're not even talking about the "whiteness" being discriminated on by perpetrators of systemic racism but the literal "whiteness" of white people. Race can't be less than the most important thing, provided you just put every aspect of a person's life into a race-based framing, it doesn't matter that sometimes it's not being false. When you put the specific emphasise and its conclusions on trial, it fails in every way for me. When someone mentions white privilege, I wait for the inevitable slip up, the comment which talks about a race as a living, thinking entity, the comments which show how much they care about someone's race and sadly, they rarely fail to come.

I have spent quite some time in this thread now and really, I've said all I've had to say twice over. The white privilege framing says "white people are privileged" and leaves you to figure out how and why and people come up with some pretty crazy stuff. It doesn't educate at all, it's a framing that emphasises the importance of race and little more.

This disconnect is a problem because it removes the hook that the discourse initially had back into the reality of the situation is claims to be about, and discussion removed from any attachment to lived reality can end up castles in the air, a distraction from what really needs doing. — Isaac

It can become this, but you're probably right about circles. Like @Banno, my experience of the use of the term 'privilege' is that it tends to come about in the context of acknowledging disparate experiences. To take a banal example, I grew up in an environment in which reading and self-education was placed at a premium. When I was younger, I used to scoff at those who, say, made silly grammar mistakes or were unfamiliar with classic authors and the like. Now I recognize that's just classist bullshit for the most part, and that to expect, a priori, that others should be as versed in the kinds of things I was lucky enough to have been versed in is utter shite.

At no point here is there any question of guilt or blame or shame or insult. At stake is instead a tempering of what I ought to consider 'normal' and the ways in which that modifies my own behaviour. Acknowledging privilege here isn't about some kind of Maoist self-denunciating ritual - it's quite the opposite: a contextualizing and broadening of behavioural vocabulary. As you said, it's not about achievement - it's about starting points. This is how I understand invocations of privilege. There's nothing academic about it. It's just a certain humility and openness with respect to human interaction.

Yep.

you are trying to make the case that it is impossible to convince a person of the reality of systemic racism without convincing them of this privilege. I totally disagree. I do not believe that white privilege exists. I am supremely confident in the existence of both individual and institutional racism, and its many areas of impact beyond criminal justice, including housing, employment, education, and many more.

So, since it is completely possible to understand the institutionalized framework of racial oppression without resorting to the use of this admittedly non-descriptive term, I ask again, what value does it have? . — Pro Hominem

Your position is based on the ultimate separation between the reality of systemic racism and the existence of white privilege. Yet, it is quite common now to define systemic racism as a set of
institutional practises that function to favour certain racial groups over others:
"Solid Ground defines Institutional Racism as “the systematic distribution of resources, power and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who are white and the exclusion of people of color.” Present-day racism was built on a long history of racially distributed resources and ideas that shape our view of ourselves and others. It is a hierarchical system that comes with a broad range of policies and institutions that keep it in place."
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/institutionalracism.pdf
The definition states that systemic racism is the practice to disadvantage communities of colour in favour of people who are white. Therefore, both notions are essentially interrelated.

I reread the thread. Banno and Streetlight have acted like assholes, and on top of it, they've added nothing of use to the conversation. I'm new here, or I would have known to just ignore them. Won't happen again.

Moderators, feel free to delete this comment. It's not on topic anyway. Of course, you should probably delete Outlander's open letter as well for the same reasons. Thanks.

Yet, it is quite common now to define systemic racism as a set of
institutional practises that function to favour certain racial groups over others: — Number2018

I understand that this is common, but that doesn't make it correct. It was once common to use the word "Negro", but that would hardly be seen as correct today. It had/developed a negative connotation and fell out of public use. I'm arguing the same here. The phrase "white privilege" is like its inverse. My hope is that it will fall out of use as racist (it is inherently, explicitly racist) and it creates antagonism, which is the opposite of what anyone hoping for racial equity should want.

"Solid Ground defines Institutional Racism as “the systematic distribution of resources, power and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who are white and the exclusion of people of color.” Present-day racism was built on a long history of racially distributed resources and ideas that shape our view of ourselves and others. It is a hierarchical system that comes with a broad range of policies and institutions that keep it in place."
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/institutionalracism.pdf
The definition states that systemic racism is the practice to disadvantage communities of colour in favour of people who are white. Therefore, both notions are essentially interrelated. — Number2018

This is a very strange definition to me. It is clearly phrased to make racism about creating benefits with no mention of detriments? So, for example, the continued criminalization of marijuana that is used implicitly and explicitly as a vehicle of mass-incarceration for Black Americans is not covered by this definition. Along with all the rest of the distortions in the criminal justice system, housing codes, etc. I mean, I suppose you could argue that housing codes create de facto segregation that could be described as a "benefit to whites", but that implies the premise "all whites value segregation" which is obviously false. Sorry, it's hard not to fall down a well when there is so much buried in the word choices here.

Where this really loses traction for me is in the part I've emphasized. Systematic racism is maintained for the perceived benefit of racists and elites, not all whites. To the extent that ordinary middle-class whites receive a "benefit" from it, it is a byproduct (although I still say characterizing freedom from abuse as a benefit or privilege and not a norm that all should expect and receive is a terrible conceptual precedent to set).

All this language may seem important in an academic setting, but it fails when deployed in the real world, as some evidence showed in earlier posts. It's very ivory tower to not be able to understand why a white person who grew up poor but managed to get a little education and a decent job would get upset when you tell them how privileged they are. In their mind, you are invalidating anything they've done themselves and who would want to feel that way? You can dismiss their feelings all you want, but don't act surprised when they keep voting Republican and nothing gets better.

I acknowledge that there is inequity between both the opportunities and outcomes of generally all whites versus generally all blacks. I'm just suggesting that strategically, this approach may turn off more "middle-ground" people than it converts to the cause. I think some data has been presented to suggest I might be correct, but if someone can demonstrate the efficacy of the "white privilege" concept as a vehicle for positive social change, then I'm on board. Ultimately, the goal is the destruction of race (not culture) as a meaningful category in public thought. I support anything that moves us in that direction.