I want "reparations" for the white privilege I didn't cash in on.
With all this new "white privilege" nonsense going around I am wondering if I can cash in on all the "privilege"I didn't get?
I'm not rich, famous, driving a super nice car, (my wife is hot) but still, where's all this privilege stuff they keep talking about and how do I get some?
I am a 41 year old white male who can't get a call back for skilled jobs. When's the privilege kick in?
9 comments
When you get a job and people don't act like you're stealing it from someone else who deserves it more your white privilege is working just fine. If your application doesn't go immediately into the shredder because hiring you would be giving in to "affirmative action" and you would almost certainly be a layabout waiting to go back on welfare your white privilege is working just fine. If you can wait for a bus and not get arrested for loitering your white privilege is working just fine. If you can call the police and they don't shoot you when you open your own front door or wave your arms to get their attention from a distance your white privilege is working just fine. If you can air a grievance of any kind and the overwhelming response is not "where's your gratitude that you're here at all and permitted to walk the streets? Shut up, we already give you more than you deserve and wanting more gibs just proves you don't deserve any of it." then your white privilege is working just fine. If you are not being held morally accountable for basically every crime ever committed your white privilege is working just fine. If your dead body turned up in an alley with a bullet wound in your back and there's an actual investigation into your identity and the circumstances around your death instead of you being written off as a thug raised by unfit parents who may or may not eventually be informed of your death and are assumed to be guilty of every crime there's a law for killed in self defense making the world a better place for your ejection from this mortal coil your white privilege would have been working just fine.
You're viewing privilege from the position of getting more than you currently do rather than your baseline, the things you take for granted as how things work, being a privilege to someone else. A minority views privilege in being able to even try to live the same kind of life without constantly being treated like someone who just broke into a house or that every achievement in life is not actually a debt they must repay for stealing it from someone else who deserved it by default.
White privilege doesn’t mean you have a cosseted life by default, silly-nilly. It means that your life would have been even harder if you were not white. You don’t see the privilege that you have, unless you are made aware of it, unless you look very closely. It’s also something that concerns GROUPS of people, not individuals as much.
It’s not new, nitwit. The concept has been talked about since the civil rights movement in the 60’s, at least.
Society is now trying to reduce white and male privilege, to give a bit of privilege to women and to different minorities. What you see as oppression, is just equality finally kicking in, and giving you a bit of the same treatment that the rest of us take for granted.
I have in the past said something similar regarding ‘male privilege’ on the internet, causing a lady to reply much in the manner of @Passerby .
Still, ‘privilege’ is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as “an advantage that only one person or group of people has, usually because of their position or because they are rich”: so an argument can be made that ‘privilege’ is not an appropriate term, as the black who’s assumed to be a criminal, or a woman who’s assumed to be a whore, are actually disadvantaged rather than the whites or the men being advantaged.
You know all those problems you complain about? Minorities have them too. But they also have institutional and cultural racism on top of that. Both you and the black guy have to drive a junker, but only the black guy has to worry about getting killed by the cop who pulls him over. You and the Hispanic guy both live in run-down apartments, but only the Hispanic guy has to worry about ICE breaking down the door and shipping him to Mexico even though he was born here. You and the Muslim both have jobs you hate, but only the Muslim has to worry about being imprisoned without trial because they said something in their native language and everyone assumed they were a terrorist. THAT’S white privilege. It’s not luxuries like a mansion or a sports car. It’s having people not persecute, imprison or kill you at the drop of a hat because they jumped to a conclusion based solely on your skin tone.
This guy doesn’t get what it’s meant by “privilege”.
However; I sometimes think reactionaries DO ”GET” what’s really meant by “White Privilege”, “Toxic Masculinity”, “Social Justice”, etc…..they just don’t ”WANT” it!
After all; The honest meaning of these terms would undermine their bigotry and worldview.
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@ Passerby & TBTabby
AMEN! I’ll even disregard that typo about “cop/top”. You explained the “privilege” thing beautifully!
White privilege has been throughoutly explained to you above, what you lack is not white privilege, it’s the rich privilege, and it’s the one you will not be getting, your own votes have made sure of that.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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