What does it mean that one is white? This identity has been changingSo one can be white, be conscious of systemic racism, and be in opposition to it? If that is true, whither "white privilege?" If I denounce any claim to it and actively work against it, how is it properly applied to me?
Your point about reducing complex problems to simple formulations may be especially apt in this case. — Pro Hominem
Likely, this identification's disbalance is expected now: one starts from self-identification, "I am white," then admits being against systemic racism, but does not like its consequence of "white privilege." It could create a moral or emotional dissonance. We should resist the current escalation of identity politics.Jordan Peterson offered one of the possible strategies: "Your identity is not clothing you wear, or the fashionable sexual preference or behaviour you adopt and flaunt, or the causes driving your activism, or your moral outrage at ideas that differ from yours. The continually expanded plethora of "identities" recently constructed and provided with legal status thus consist of empty terms." His thesis is that "traditional" identities have been created through continuous and long-term social construction; therefore, they have served as indispensable modes of social interactions and individual self-awareness.What about being white makes the moral responsibility to challenge systemic racism greater than having a different skin colour? Why is the onus on being white here at all? If you're going to say that it's because of power, wealth, political influence, social influence and so on, why not actually put an onus on the actual possession of the things which lead to your actions having greater consequences and therefore there being a greater imperative for you to do something?
Secondly, being the beneficiary here doesn't usually actually give you the ability to do something about it precisely because most of the time, you aren't actually even a beneficiary but rather just someone who is not targeted for disadvantages. Most of the time you aren't going to even be aware of it, even if you're aware of the reality. How can you tell if you got a job easier due to your skin colour? Specifically, you, as opposed to just "people generally of your race"? When is it ever the right time to stand up and say "no, you are just giving me a free pass here because I'm white" or "you wouldn't be so generous if I wasn't white"? Overt racism already gets obliterated, you can lose everything if you're caught. — Judaka
The cause of the inequalities we are discussing is not addressed in this outcome-based labelling. — Pro Hominem
The benefit of being white in America is the immunity and/or exemption from being injured because one is not.
— creativesoul
Mea culpa. Add "white" on the end. Interesting that you arrived at all these possible translations without ever hitting on that one! If you've been reading the thread, well... — creativesoul
I want to see the end of racism just like someone arguing "white privilege" does. — Pro Hominem
Still won't work, because it becomes a nonsensical sentence — god must be atheist
...for you to say "A white person is privileged because he is not white" is nonsensical. — god must be atheist
2 and 3 would both be false if white people were regularly taken to be non-white — Srap Tasmaner
I am not supporting that your version of white privilege is actually helpful... — Judaka
If only it were true that whites aren't injured because they are white. I already showed that blacks commit hate crimes at higher rates relative to their population. If you want to use statistics of blacks being arrested and shot at higher rates relative to their population as evidence of racism against blacks, then the same applies to the statistics that show blacks committing hate crimes at higher rates relative to their population - that blacks are racist too, and then you have to ask, is this talk of white privilege just another way for blacks to exhibit their racism?The benefit of being white in America is the immunity and/or exemption from being injured because one is not. — creativesoul
Can't say that I blame you.
Weird like me. I used to abhor politics. I thought that all politicians lie and will say whatever they need to say to get elected. I used to flippantly dismiss any campaign promises, because they never seemed to be kept. I believed for a very long time that my vote did not matter. What that candidate campaigned on and/or said did not really matter. Etc. I do not believe much differently now.
Political speech is supposed to elicit a response. That is it's very purpose. Generally speaking, a citizen's response is supposed to be to vote for the candidate that the citizen thinks will do what needs to be done to improve the nation, including that particular person's life and/or livelihood. Since the advent of cable 'news' channels(early eighties?), there have been concerted attempts to change the way American society thinks about the societal problems America is faced with. Mainly, what those problems are. Social media has only multiplied this.
I still do not like politics. The reason I've decided to become more active is because I just want the problems to be identified, and unfortunately America's partisan system has failed horribly as it is. That's another matter altogether and an entire subject matter in and of itself. Systemic racism is but one of those problems. Division of America is another, related issue, that is intentional and helps perpetuate the system's subsistence. — creativesoul
Curiously, the United States does have some history of violence directed against "race traitors". This is a type of harm whites only inflict upon whites. — Srap Tasmaner
Never mind, I agree that your definition of white privilege is necessary, as a premise for understanding systemic racism and for measuring it. — Judaka
What I am against is not your definition of white privilege but the way in which people use your definition, some of those ways you specifically condemned and you talked about using it in none of the ways I have criticised. — Judaka
So why not in me? Why not in you? — fdrake
you're cherry-picking statistics — Harry Hindu
1. "the category" here means "all white people, everywhere, all the time". If you say yes, I think it's ludicrously overbroad. If you say no, then you are going to have to limit its compass somehow and there's a whole mess of considerations to doing that. Either way, just throwing out "white" here seems a bit lazy. — Pro Hominem
This fact was brought home to me recently in the aftermath of the Brick Lane bombing, at a time when there was widespread speculation that the Irish would be the next community attacked. I was discussing race relations with a friend who was telling me why, as an Asian, she found it "difficult to trust white people". When I pointed out that I was white, she exclaimed: "You're not white, you're Irish".
...no one benefits from racism, that it is pernicious not only to the victims of it, but also to it’s self-proclaimed beneficiaries. — NOS4A2
So you also know that implicit stereotypes are both a relevant vector of oppression; contributing to the hostility of public spaces, differences in how the oppressed group are treated; and they are fucking everywhere. So panvasive that internalised racism is a thing - like Christians the world over praying to the miracle of a milky white ethnically Palestinian Jesus.
So why not in me? Why not in you? — fdrake
Are we not people affected by the structures we live in? — fdrake
Without ever having invoked or used stats...
Weird sense of "cherry picking". — creativesoul
if not some statistics? If you don't have anything to back it up, like statistics, then your whole argument doesn't have a leg to stand on does it?it is what white people do not have to deal with on a daily basis that non whites do. — creativesoul
In 2016, white families had the highest level of both median and mean family wealth: $171,000 and $933,700, respectively (figure 1). Black and Hispanic families have considerably less wealth than white families. Black families' median and mean net worth is less than 15 percent that of white families, at $17,600 and $138,200, respectively. Hispanic families' median and mean net worth was $20,700 and $191,200, respectively. — The Federal Reserve
Without ever having invoked or used stats...
Weird sense of "cherry picking".
— creativesoul
Then what evidence did you have for asserting this:
it is what white people do not have to deal with on a daily basis that non whites do.
— creativesoul
if not some statistics? If you don't have anything to back it up, like statistics, then your whole argument doesn't have a leg to stand on does it? — Harry Hindu
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.