"White privilege" when used in the best way, puts a white in the shoes of non whites...

Is that what's meant - or close at least - to perspective-taking? — creativesoul

In strict logical terms, however, this is a fallacy - appeal to emotion (pity). I would also note that this type of argument is explicitly forbidden in legal proceedings because it is so often misleading and prejudicial.

I will admit that in ordinary social settings it can be persuasive, but it is still a play on the person's emotions, and not an appeal to their reason. If all you're trying to do is indoctrinate someone, it can work, but that person won't be able to effectively articulate their beliefs without further education. This is basically what Fox News spends all its time doing.

Thank you for your response.

The information I've presented shows that there is limited and as yet un-replicated experimental support for the idea that the term might have undesirable consequences in specific circumstances. I do have reservations about its use, but as the Xi paper shows (and as Streetlight and Banno have corroborated anecdotally), it clearly does have some positive impact in other circumstances. I've not followed your posts closely, but it seems you might possibly be more condemnatory of the net use than I am? My concern is mostly about the use of the term to distract from the real issues, which I see as the systemic necessity for an oppressed underclass. Where it's not used for that purpose, I've no issue with it. — Isaac

I acknowledge that we are working with a very small sample size of real information. Of the things you have presented from a clinical(?) setting, it seems that the preponderance at least indicate that there may be detriment to the use of the term in a general setting, but that it can be constructive with a more sophisticated audience or a more sophisticated presentation. Would you say that I have characterized that accurately?

Yes, I have been questioning its use, maybe some would say I have gone as far as condemning, but I haven't intended to. That's why I'm still here discussing. I share your concern that it may be nothing more than a distraction. I have phrased this by saying I think it lacks utility to foster change, and that it misses the point. I think we are saying most of the same things there, but I invite you to distinguish, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.

The point StreetlightX made about how it is necessary to respond to the toxifying of discourse by being firm about the meaning of terms is important here. If there is some use to the term, and also some risk, we need to take care not to allow right-wing exaggeration of that risk diminish the use. I've not personally found much use, and I have academically seen some misuse, but I'm not about to dismiss people's experiences of having been positively affected by the concept. — Isaac

Is it possible that this cuts both ways? In other words, is it possible that someone committed to the idea on the left could exaggerate its utility and turn a blind eye to the risk? In my experience, people who are already sympathetic to notions of racial justice seem accepting of the term, and those who are not respond somewhat aggressively to it. If it were only that, it might be a sort of litmus test for where an individual stands, but my concern is for the people in the middle, and although it seems hard to imagine sometimes, there are a lot of those people. Moving those people in the direction of positive change should be the goal, and based upon my own experience, as well as the information you've provided from some (admittedly limited) formal settings, there is at least reason for concern that "white privilege" as a label for this idea is potentially working against that goal.

I'm not asking you point blank to say you agree with me, but do you see any flaw in my reasoning?

The information you've provided demonstrates that the form of that message is perhaps even more important that its substance, in terms of being accepted and perhaps acted upon by the audience. Have I missed something?
— Pro Hominem

How can you tell if someone who extremely dislikes the concept of white privilege is doing so for system justification/self palliative reasons or not? I'm not saying don't be critical of it, I'm saying that the very idea inspires so much vitriol in some people and pages and pages of text. Often, after the pages and pages the person who says they hate the concept of white privilege actually agrees with all of the substantive content it criticises, but feels either personally attacked by it or that (generic white person) will be turned off by it. Projecting personal discomfort onto the absent other, maybe. Regardless, they dislike the present because of the package. Complicity should never feel comfortable, and self flagellating doesn't make any difference.

I've got a personal wager that people who get super animated about it being a hard sell to some white people to begin with more often than not are duckspeaking system justification in an academic dialect. But that's neither here not there I suppose. — fdrake

1. I'm not able to see how anything you said here relates to the quoted text. Were you just using that as a convenient way to direct this message at me? That seems disingenuous and overtly hostile, but perhaps I've misunderstood your intent. Either way, I'll proceed.
2. I've never said I hated anything. My response to the subject matter has not been emotional, and I've never appealed to emotion in making my arguments. Perhaps this minor slight is a piece of your master plan to discredit me?
3. Yes, here we go. I'm projecting. I'm personally offended by the term. Blah, blah, etc. I guess if you can't confront the argument, there's always ad hominem attacks to fall back on. "I don't like Al Gore, therefore climate change isn't happening." Rock solid reasoning here.
4. How shall we determine the outcome of your wager? And what do I get when I win?
5. In no way do I feel personally targeted or in the least defensive about "white privilege". I have raised 3 critiques of it:

• It is inexact and potentially misleading

• It reinforces the very race-based structures of mind that its proponents say they are trying to eradicate

• It has no utility for promoting positive change because it requires too much explanation before one will accept it

If you have something relevant to say about those assertions, please do. If not, please just leave me alone. You and others like you are just exasperating.

PS - you said "duckspeaking" and your name is drake. That's hilarious. Well done.

White privilege is the direct, demonstrable, and inevitable result of systemic and/or institutional racism. Put simply, it is what white people do not have to deal with on a daily basis that non whites do. It is the injury because one is non white that white people avoid suffering because they are not. The negative effects/affects that racist people, policies, belief systems, and social practices created remain extant in American society. They continue to directly impact the lives and livelihoods of the people that they were originally designed to discriminate against. — creativesoul

Is this what you were directing me to? I found it on page 7 for anyone interested. It is part of a much longer post, so I don't want to fail to include anything essential or take something out of context. Is this sufficient?

I ask only that you - at the very least - look into the box I've presented. — creativesoul

Noted. I am doing so. My intent was never to mischaracterize your position. I have no interest in attacking straw men. To the extent it appeared I was doing so, it is because I believe that in a certain context, your position as I understood it led to certain conclusions, and I was proceeding from those conclusions. I will reread your initial position and proceed more slowly.

If possible, could you let me know which page it was on? I'd ask you to quote it, but I don't want to give the impression of laziness. :)

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. — Isaac

This is exactly what I've been trying to communicate. Like, exactly. However @Isaac, reading between the lines gives me an impression that you don't find merit in what I've been saying. Can you please explain to me how you see my assertions differing from the information you've presented here? My tone here is sincere, not argumentative.

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 — Isaac

Even here, your thoughts correlate to mine. The fault I see is not in the idea itself, the fact that there are vastly different conditions for living that are based largely (when not entirely) on race. That is obvious. The issue I'm raising is what happens when you begin to try to deliver that information into the public discourse, which has to be done in some way if change is going to happen. The information you've provided demonstrates that the form of that message is perhaps even more important that its substance, in terms of being accepted and perhaps acted upon by the audience. Have I missed something?

Very well put. I think we've all had our say, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. In the end we are reaching for the same conclusion, just discrepancies what path to take to get there.

I use "white privilege" as it was taught to me by non whites. I draw correlations between "white privilege" and the actual negative effects/affects(personal injury) that systemic racism has had and continues to have upon non white individuals. We language users who employ "white privilege" in such a way are not saying that white people should feel guilty. We are most certainly not demonizing white people when discussing white privilege.

Discussions about white privilege can be focused upon uplifting people who are being oppressed. Discussion about white privilege do not require shaming bystanders who are not actually voluntarily participating in the oppression. Discussions of white privilege do not require trying to make the case that whites are somehow 'wrong' by virtue of benefitting from systemic racism. — creativesoul

I'm trying to start over in the relevant strain of this conversation...

I agree with most of what you're saying, just not with the unfortunate name you're giving it. It's like coming up with a delicious new flavor of ice cream, then naming it "child abuse". Ok, it's not like that at all, but maybe you see what I mean? :D

If you want to have internal conversations with your circle where you've all agreed on a particular meaning for this phrase then you absolutely should - that is a benefit of the flexibility that language has. I would caution you that when you carry the same language outside that venue the understandings of that term are going to vary widely, as will the reactions (and some if not many of them will be negative). This is the detriment of the flexibility that language has. Because of this, I doubt its value in open discourse with anyone not already schooled in racial theory.

In addition to what I see as its dubious utility, I think it reinforces racial stereotypes and is itself an example of systemic racism. "The experience of being black in America" is not saying the same thing as "the experience of being non-white in America". People don't say they were pulled over for being non-white. They say they were pulled over for "driving while black." Their blackness is essential to their experience, not their non-whiteness. There are other non-white groups that do not receive the level of discrimination that falls to blacks. There are non-white groups that tend to demonstrate as much discrimination toward blacks as some whites do. This is not a white/black issue. It is an issue of discriminatory treatment directed very specifically at black people. To characterize that as a "white" phenomenon is incorrect, and more importantly just perpetuates a racist viewing of society.

Finally, there are examples that the "privilege" exists for non-whites in some places. In some areas on the West Coast, Asians are entrenched in the ranks of the "privileged". They have equal or even greater access to capital, higher representation in elite educational circles, and can be found living in the poshest zip codes. There may be some racist feeling toward them from some whites, but they are in a position to ignore it. It doesn't affect them unless they choose to have it do so. Are they experiencing "white privilege?" Or does it become "Asian privilege?"

The worst feature of this term is that it is itself racist. It draws the wrong conclusion from the black experience, which is that the adversary is white people. If white people would just stop taking advantage of them, things would improve. The people that are taking advantage of them might be mostly white, but not all of them are, and not all white people are taking advantage of them. To see the world in this black/white dialectic reinforces the very condition that we are trying to change.

I know you and those you say you use these terms with don't "mean" any of this, but the words do have this "meaning".

What's 'wrong', if you insist upon talking like this, is not acknowledging that whites born in America are exempt from the liabilities of being non white in America — creativesoul

I don't think you're saying that I do not acknowledge that there are broad and pervasive differences between the experiences of white and black people in America. If you are, I can assure you that I do (and I have on multiple occasions during this conversation). I don't agree with oversimplifying it to simply a white/non-white calculus. I don't even agree with the assertion that the experiences of all "whites" are identical and can be lumped together as such. That is definitionally racist thought - determining conclusions based on the sole criterion of race.

This post is way too long, but I want to stress something if you're still reading. I believe we agree on all the important things here. In any movement there is the danger that counterproductive ideas and strategies will creep in to even the most well-intentioned messages. It is my opinion that "white privilege" is a somewhat counter-productive idea nesting in the absolutely correct and vital push for the end of racism. It's not fatal or anything, but it's not helping. That is my opinion. You do not share my opinion, and that's fine. We don't have to agree on everything. Thanks for the dialogue, I hope I've at least given you an opportunity to think critically about your position, even if only to figure out why I'm wrong. Cheers.

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.

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.

ok

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

The point is that you cannot be the cat, or the tree, or the street, but only yourself. I can't feel what you're feeling, as you can't feel what I'm feeling right now. From your point of view, the world spins around you, as it does to me. — Gus Lamarch

You can feel what I'm feeling. Irritation, maybe annoyance that you are dodging people's responses instead of confronting them. I can feel what you're feeling. Smug satisfaction, a little perverse joy that all these suckers have taken the bait and are responding to you at all. You are correct that your motivation is extremely selfish, but the reason the rest of us are responding is exactly because we are not solely motivated by selfishness.

Look, your philosophical assertion has been eviscerated and swept aside by every response here. Even if you were just an ego, you are still capable of reason, and reason soundly extinguishes your position.

I suppose your feelings may be somewhat accurate if you are a sociopath, and maybe you are. But that is a condition specific to you, not the general experience of everyone.

Empathy is only moral because people accept it as something good and that should be encouraged. But empathy - if seen from another point of view - could be simply someone portraiting itself to be good for its own advantage. Ex: A cat is up a tree, someone goes there, saves the cat and deliver it to its owner, and now the owner has a positive view on the savior, but the only purporse of the cat beeing saved was the need of the person that saved it to be seen as someone good, and now beeing seen as good, many benefits will befall the "good person". It isn't always counsciously that people make this kind of acts - of being good only for its need of egoism - but everyone does it unconsciously. — Gus Lamarch

Ok, i want you to blank out your mind and let go of your determination to defend your original idea. Done that? Good.

Now, in order in this paragraph, you use the words people, something good, seen from another point of view, cat, tree, the owner has a positive view, purpose, cat being saved, need of the person that saved it, be seen as someone good, being seen as good, many benefits befall the "good person". Literally every one of those concepts is fully constructed on your personal belief in the existence of a physical world that you share with other minds and beings. You even constructed a little society of two people and a cat.

So to paraphrase your last sentence, some people consciously attempt to deny anything but their own ego, but unconsciously every one if them knows they are wrong.

But 'the problem' is not white privilege, but the fact of it being unacknowledged in situations where it ought to be. As far as your purely nominal disagreement, it simply seems that irony is lost on you, and that if a white person feels 'resentment' at the term, then I'd venture that's exactly when the term is the most appropriate.

White people just don't like being racially marked. They think being so is only meant for others. This kind of hysterical reaction over nomination is exemplary of that. — StreetlightX

Wow. It took me several minutes to swallow all the words you're trying to put in my mouth. Please don't think for a minute that you have any idea what I personally think or feel about anything. In other words, your entire post is fallacious.

If you have actually read anything I've written, you would see that my objection to the term lies in its implicit and erroneous meaning. It does not describe what it purports to describe. It is a lie. @creativesoul has suggested that it is a well-intentioned lie (sometimes), but it is still a lie.

You actually wrote a sentence about what all "white people don't like", and you are lecturing me about irony?

For the record, I am not the least bit personally resentful of the term white privilege. I know what is being said and why. I argue against it because it is inaccurate and counterproductive.

We need to bring science into the equation as an objective referee between competing claims about what actually does serve human flourishing.

For example, climate change - is it addressing climate change that will "lift the condition of humanity", or accelerating economic growth?

Are LGBTQ rights harmful to society? Is immigration?

At what point does freedom of speech cause more harm than good?

Does the death penalty deter crime? Does mass incarceration make society safer?

Is it better to wear a mask during a pandemic, or is it better to refuse a mask to champion individual liberty? Is quarantine an unjustified violation of the freedom of the individual? — Thomas Quine

With the possible exception of the last one, I don't think "science" has much to add to any of those conversations.

All the science we have on climate change is easily available. It has not changed that most people still hold beliefs based on their political or economic interests, not anything to do with science.

The rest of them don't really involve science at all. Social science, I suppose, but that's not really "science". Statistics can be made to tell whatever story the person choosing the statistics wants to tell.

It is obviously scientifically verified that it is better for everyone to wear a mask during a pandemic, but that has not stopped countless people from choosing not to do so.

There will always be disagreements about what is the best thing for humanity - except in cases of mass extinction, science often can go either way. If you are asking what I think is important, it is education. It is not required that we all end up with the exact same definition of human "flourishing". It is important that we are all at least conditioned to ask such a question and try to view major issues through that lens.

I believe that you believe that you completely understand what I'm saying. I, however, do not share the belief that you do, because there are some things you've written that prove otherwise.

We are close, though, it seems in our aim. — creativesoul

Lol. i think the issue here is that YOU don't seem to understand what you're saying. Words have meanings. You can't just make them whatever you want. You use the term "white privilege" but you are really referring to racist mistreatment of non-whites. You believe that explaining the racist mistreatment to uninformed white people using the term "white privilege" is effective because it somehow makes them understand it in a way that say, watching George Floyd be murdered on video doesn't.

Unfortunately, neither of the words you're using actually describes what you're talking about.

Being treated humanely and fairly is NOT a privilege. It is the baseline Right that everyone should expect to be afforded by society.

Also, being white has nothing to do with it. There are white people who experience police brutality and public suspicion. There are non-white people who do not. It is a simplistic over-generalization.

When you combine these two words together in this way, you reinforce a characterization of the issue that sees it as "white vs black". You will never convince me that is not harmful and counterproductive. BLM is MLK. White Privilege is Malcolm X. It is an issue of messaging.

Totally agree. "Privilege" is an exceptional advantage possessed by only a few. Being born into great wealth creates privilege. Having the power to influence government or legal proceedings in your favor is privilege. Being exempt from laws that others must follow because of who you or your family are is privilege.

Walking down the street (or up a flight of steps *sigh*) without being harassed is a basic right that all people should enjoy. If we start lumping that in with actual privilege then we are raising the spectre that it can be quickly taken away like any other privilege.

Imagine thinking acknowledging privilege amounts to demonization. — StreetlightX

In this case is absolutely is, because the so-called "privilege" is not privilege at all. Are human rights Rights, or are they human Privileges? Because the only thing being described by the use of the term "white privilege" is simply the observance of basic human rights - rights that protect against social and physical harm, discrimination, and disenfranchisement, to name a few. Describing them as "privileges" implies that they are beyond what one should expect to receive in society instead of within what should be expected from society. For the hundredth time - THE PROBLEM IS NOT SOME PEOPLE BEING TREATED APPROPRIATELY, THE PROBLEM IS SOME PEOPLE BEING TREATED INAPPROPRIATELY.

Given that "white privilege" completely fails to describe the problem - placing focus on the things that are working correctly instead of the things that are broken - why would we use this terminology?

@creativesoul has said that (s)he is using this term in an effort to create awareness among whites (at least I think that's what (s)he's saying, (s)he maintains that I don't understand at all). I have argued that it is likely to create as much resentment among whites as it creates awareness. So why hold onto it?

If I'm being cynical, I would say the term is one of jealousy. It is the oppressed expressing anger in an unfocused way at those they perceive as not oppressed. They are certainly entitled to their anger, but adopting that anger when it's not yours by experience is not constructive and often does not feel very genuine. The fact that I perceive the original coining of this phrase to come from a (justified) sense of bitterness and anger is why I call it demonization.

I use "white privilege" as it was taught to me by non whites. I draw correlations between "white privilege" and the actual negative effects/affects(personal injury) that systemic racism has had and continues to have upon non white individuals. We language users who employ "white privilege" in such a way are not saying that white people should feel guilty. We are most certainly not demonizing white people when discussing white privilege.

Discussions about white privilege can be focused upon uplifting people who are being oppressed. Discussion about white privilege do not require shaming bystanders who are not actually voluntarily participating in the oppression. Discussions of white privilege do not require trying to make the case that whites are somehow 'wrong' by virtue of benefitting from systemic racism.

What's 'wrong', if you insist upon talking like this, is not acknowledging that whites born in America are exempt from the liabilities of being non white in America — creativesoul

Ok, a few things.

First, I'm quite confident that about this subject we have way more in common than not.

What I see this disagreement to be about is the language used to describe certain things, and the possible effect of that language. (We have been using a lot of absolutes and broad generalizations thus far, so I will continue that way, please don't take that as part of my argument - if we want to get into the nuances, we can do that later.)

Let's say there are two groups in this conversation, whites and non-whites. We'll start with the whites. Let's say we can classify whites in one of 3 ways:
1. Aware of the plight of non-whites and sensitive to it or actively working to change it. "Woke" as the kids say, but I despise that term for the same reason I don't like "white privilege".
2. People in the middle. Clueless, uninformed, apathetic, whatever. Not hostile, but not involved.
3. Actual racists. I realize this is a broad category with divisions, but lets simplify for now.
Of the 3 groups, let's imagine how they would each respond to having the "white privilege" terminology used in reference to them personally:
1. A range from totally accepting and eager to talk about it as a badge of "wokeness" to willing to accept it as a feature of the system they are trying to change. Also, people like me who think you're going about this the wrong way, but understand why you're doing it.
2. A range from confused to irritated to angry. Very few people are going to just immediately be all, "oh my god, you're so right! I can't believe I didn't know this about myself!"
3. Enraged, because they vary from being the victims of an unfortunate cultural background to just being awful people.
If we want change, it's group 2 we need to worry about. These people are the swing voters. You are much more likely to get them to become members of group 1 by appealing to their sense of injustice or basic humanity in the vein of George Floyd-like examples that help them see how bad things are. Find common ground with them. It is a higher risk angle to come at them with, "you just don't see this because you've been privileged your whole life." It puts them on the defensive. Can even make them feel like maybe they aren't "allowed" to be upset or protest because they aren't a real part of it. You can scoff, but being told you can't understand because you're white happens all the time and turns a lot of people off.

I guess I keep coming back to the framing and the effect it has on the audience. It's like you are selling pest control door to door and you focus on how dirty the person's house is instead of how invasive the bugs are. That's not a great analogy, but hopefully you understand what I'm saying.

Ok, part 2. Let's think about how and why the non-white community uses this term. It is classic speech of the oppressed, not dissimilar from the politics of the n-word. Within the oppressed group, you turn their words and symbols back at them. It is understandable why a non-white person would characterize it as a privilege to be white - from the position of the oppressed, they have to imagine what it would be like to not be oppressed. Their language reflects that. There is a certain level of resentment encoded in the language as well. None of this actually helps them to diminish the oppression itself. To the audience in group 2 above it can sound like anything from a threat of sorts to sour grapes.

Bottom line, if I'm crafting the movement for racial equality, I'm staying away from slogans and symbols that reinforce a black vs. white paradigm and going all in on equality, solidarity, and cooperation. Thus, BLM, not "white privilege".

First, it's not a 'problem with the concept' at all. It is a distinguishing feature, and a very very useful one when implemented in the 'right' ways. White privilege is best understood in terms of what white individuals do not suffer from(what they are exempt from). That is precisely what privilege is. Please allow me to elaborate a bit, for it seems necessary... — creativesoul

I completely understand what you're saying. I swear. Let me see if I can reframe this so we can get somewhere.

I say that BLM is the way to go. It highlights the problem of detrimental treatment of people of color.

You say white privilege is the way to go. It highlights the preferential treatment that people get just for being white. Hopefully nothing thus far is controversial. I'll proceed to the next step.

I would like to see everyone treated the way (you say all) white people are treated. I don't see this as a privilege, I see it as the baseline treatment for human dignity. I see focusing on the treatment of people of color as being below this standard is the best way to argue that their treatment should be brought up to it.

I want to end white privilege — creativesoul

This implies that you want to see the "preferential" treatment of whites removed. If you follow this logic, that means everyone would be exposed to the current treatment of people of color because that is the baseline against which the "privilege" is determined. Effectively, NO Lives Matter.

It comes down to your starting (or ending) point. Either "white" treatment is the baseline, and we would like to see all people receive it, or "white" treatment is a privilege, and no one should expect it. I wholeheartedly prefer the former, and oppose the latter. What I'm getting at here is there is a subtext to "white privilege" that you may not be considering.

I suppose I'm discounting the third option of radical black power, which is white people should be abused and there should be black privilege. I don't think you're advocating this, but it is not excluded by your "white privilege" narrative.

Sorry, something got crossed up there. I absolutely do not want to see complexity reduced. I don't think I agree with your notion of a "higher purpose" or some kind of "Good", because these tend to rely on some sort of outside influencer and lead in the direction of theology, which is fruitless.

I don't think that the desire to lift the condition of humanity as a whole even requires a justification. It is self-explanatory. I don't think humans are special per se, but I think sapience is and we should do our best to use it to increase the general well-being of ourselves and our environment. The accretion of complexity is just the "how" as you put it. The "why" is that it is clearly a better option than any of the alternatives.

The first statement is true. Some people experience irritation and/or are offended. However, it does not follow that all people do. However, the last statement only follows from the first, if all people did. They do not. So, it's an invalid conclusion for one, and actually false as well. — creativesoul

X -> S
S is undesirable.
X has no benefits.
Not X is more desirable than X

Yep, that's valid. You may want to argue over the degree of truth for premise 3, which is clearly where we differ, but don't even try to claim I'm being illogical.

Yes, you don't see the problem. Repeating that you don't see the problem does not help — Banno

I see the problem quite clearly. I've expressed it repeatedly in a lot of detail. You have chosen to ignore it. What else can I do?

You think that using stairs is somehow a crime against people who can't use stairs, and that able-bodied people should feel ashamed of their "ability" to do so. I think that's devoid of any merit whatsoever and I've explained why repeatedly. Why not answer the points I've raised? I mean, CAN you use chopsticks?

I actually agree with this, as it is written. What does that have to do with white privilege? — creativesoul

It is an exact statement of the actual meaning of the concept of white privilege. That is what is has to do with it.

You've literally just agreed that it is more effectual for people to be focused on uplifting people who are being oppressed than to be focused on shaming bystanders who are not actively participating in the oppression. You should agree with this because it's obviously true. Making people aware of oppression is not helped by trying to make the case that those people are wrong because they live in a world where oppression exists but they don't happen to be the object of it.

Go talk to creativesoul. He may have more patience than I. — Banno

But he won't be any less wrong.

It's not an analogy. It is an example. The disenfranchisement caused to non-ambulatory people is real. But thanks, by denying that this is a problem you have reinforce my view that privilege cannot be easily recognised by the privileged. — Banno

So if I edit the word analogy to be the word example, will you address the whole remainder of my post?

And no. By denying your "example" I've held out an articulation of why your "example" is not an accurate depiction of the problem at all. Can you use chopsticks? Are people who can use chopsticks "chopstick privileged?" Should they support broad legislation to uplift those poor souls who don't share their privilege, and meanwhile publicly flagellate themselves to show how sorry they are for the unintentional but undeniable advantage in eating rice in a world without forks? This is nonsense.

Everyone who can walk a flight of stairs does not need to spend any time thinking about the fact that there are some who can't. There is no injustice to being able to walk.It is unfortunate that some can't walk, and there is a time and place to show concern and/or provide assistance to those people, but there is absolutely no rational argument to be made that everyone should walk around every day feeling bad that their legs work.

The same goes for being white. I do not need to be shamed for being white in order to know that it matters to me that people of color are being unfairly treated by a society that I am a part of. Those two things are not correlated and are definitely not causal.

"Western conceptions of God," it seems to me, are Judeo-Christian in substance, and from the OT to the NT (Old, New, Testament) that God underwent significant reworking from being vengeful and even petty, to being a loving and a forgiving God . — tim wood

Scripture is clear that God did not get "reworked" in the period between testaments. Malachi 3:6, NASB: "'For I, the LORD, do not change;..." God is consistently described as eternal, abiding, and unchanging. OT and NT are the same guy. The NT has lots of references to God's wrath and the avoidance thereof, which brings me to....

Nor is it clear to me what anyone is coerced into doing that they do not want to do - and of course the threat of harm of some kind or another is exactly a part of what keeps society from going off the rails. — tim wood

People are coerced into "believing" or even "obeying" God (or his proxy, Jesus) or else they face horrible punishment. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, ESV: "and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." Romans 2:5, NIV: "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." Matthew 25:46 NIV “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” The implications are clear: believe or else.

I particularly love this one: Acts 12:23 KJV "And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost." Gotta love that King James Version. It really drives it home. So much for the New Testament God of peace and love.

You ask what people are being asked to do that they don't want to? Well, everything. I don't want to reject my native reason and intelligence so that I can sit around spouting a bunch of nonsense and telling everyone how lucky I am that God allowed me to give up most of the things that make life fun and interesting so that I could blow smoke up his ass for the rest of eternity. I don't want to spend my life believing something that just plain isn't real and doesn't make any sense. Which brings me to...

So if the God to be excluded is vicious, then agreed. But that is not most folks' idea of God. — tim wood

Actually, my view of the Christian God is, in fact, "most folks" view. There are more people on Earth who don't believe this stuff than do believe it. Especially in places with free access to good education. Which is why the church has been actively propagandizing people in poor, underserviced areas of the world. People who don't have the capacity to see through the haze of babble.

Make no mistake, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is as vicious as it gets. And he is most certainly not just. I don't say any of this to convince you of anything - if you were an evidence-based thinker, you wouldn't need the convincing - I say it because this is a philosophy forum and I am very, very familiar with what they "are for" as you put it.

PS - we could have had a much more civil conversation if you had approached me civilly.

Ideologies present easy, all to easy, answers and so psychologically you are less motivated to keep looking for better answers. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes. In many ways, they are the anti-philosophy.

Because the complexity demands it. Complexity begets complexity. Random noise does not perpetuate itself. If you want to describe this as the "logic of the universe", that's fine. At the largest scale, complexities search each other out and accumulate. Systems arise from this accrued complexity. The cycle continues.

Well we disagree about morality being grounded in natural biological imperatives, but perhaps we can move on from there.

Do you think there is a capital G "Good" that all moral precepts serve? If so, what might it be? If not, why not? Is morality grounded in anything? Does it come from God? Or do we just make it up as we go? — Thomas Quine

Morality arises out of human consciousness as means to try to organize our increasingly complex systems of interaction. It is agreement reality, but part of the agreement can be to give it a sort of transcendent power, as in the veneration of the US Constitution, or the notion of human rights.

My project is not to invent or propose new norms. I am interested in meta-ethics. Why agree on norms at all? My answer: all norms and moral precepts are an attempt to answer the question before humanity: what best serves human flourishing? — Thomas Quine

Well I want to show that morality is grounded in the logic of the natural universe. — Thomas Quine

Which is it? This is the heart of my criticism.

I trust you know the adages about serving two masters or chasing two rabbits?

For my part, I think the first one is your best bet.

The second one is a pandora's box of concepts that will be very difficult to defend or even explain. If you do decide to go this way, I'd focus on the idea that complexity tends to accrete in the universe. Look into modern AI theory, or maybe Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach since you seem to enjoy a certain poetry in your thinking.

My point is I think you're wrong and you don't. That's it- we're done — Outlander

Couldn't agree more.

I would argue that one MUST exclude god to have any grounds for justice. — Pro Hominem

Most Western conceptions of justice invoke ideas such as fairness, equality (of opportunity if not outcome), people getting their due, etc. In modern times, ideas such as liberty, freedom, dignity, and human rights are also present.

In contrast, Western conceptions of God describe a creator/created, master/slave, owner/property arrangement that is entirely inconsistent with these "justice adjacent" concepts. Being coerced into behavior that one does not wish to participate in through the threat of social or physical harm is not just, yet it is the foundation of most God-centered enterprises.

If you subscribe to some other version of "God", then you may say this doesn't apply to you. If that deity has a creator role, then this same criticism applies. If you have some non-deific formulation of things, then there is no "God" to discuss, so perhaps this doesn't apply to you.

My definition or understanding of justice is not at the moment relevant. Yours may be. But whatever it is, the question is how or why "one must exclude god"? That's your claim, make the argument. And fyi, this is The Philosophy Forum, not The Claim Forum. In trust you know the difference. — tim wood

I see you are the type to avoid taking responsibility for the tone or the content of your words (although there is precious little content thus far). One might describe you as a bully, which is particularly interesting in a conversation that is meant to concern justice.

I will provide a little more information for anyone else who might be reading this and is actually interested in the thought as opposed to just acting like a pedantic tool. Since you are neither respectful nor considerate, I don't feel I owe you any respect or consideration.