Privilege

[Matrosov]

If it is a privilege not to have to fear for your life when interacting with law enforcement, does that mean law enforcement should usually make you fear for you life?

If it is a privilege not to have to worry about getting shot a club because of your sexual preference, does that mean you should usually have to worry about getting shot because of your sexual preference?

If that privilege is 'unearned,' then what do you have to do to earn it, besides just being a regular human being?

No, not having to worry about being discriminated against, being attacked, being killed, because of your gender, your race, your religion, your sexual preference, and so forth, aren't privileges, they are basic human rights.

That's why I detest the term 'privilege.' It makes it sound as though some people have it much better than they should have. In reality, someone making you fear for your life because of your gender, race, religion, etcetera, is a hate crime and a human rights violation.

Let's start calling it what it really is.

'Privilege' implies we need to fix the problem by dragging down the people who have it 'too good' to the level of the people that don't enjoy the same privilege.

Pointing out that it's a hateful human rights violation also correctly shows that we need to fix the problem by elevating the people who are discriminated against to the same level as those who enjoy those 'privileges,' i.e. regular human beings.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Well said...

and a useful way to look at the problem.

[uponit7771]

2. "It makes it sound as though some people have it much better than they should have" Cause they do?

Some people, outside of the human rights issues, have had a structural and societal leg up, that's a fact that's not in dispute among many advanced societies since ... whenever

Could you imagine a Muslim, female, lesbian, poor, brown person said 1/4 of this like tRump has said during a campaign?!

They'd be in jail by now

[Aerows]

4. Wait a second

Just last week I was told I was privileged as a lesbian. I can't keep up anymore whether I'm privileged because I didn't get beaten up in the street this week.

[Matrosov]

9. Great point

I'm privileged because I didn't get beaten up in the street this week.

Essentially, my main problem with talking about these things in terms of 'privilege' is that we're shaming people for not being victims.

If you didn't get beat up for being a lesbian, but someone else got beat up for being African-American, how exactly do you have a 'privilege'? Are African-Americans more important than lesbians? Should beating lesbians be standard protocol? What about African-American lesbians?

Well, I don't think anybody should be beaten for any reason.

Again, the problem isn't with the 'privileged' (unless of course they're working hard to keep that privilege and discriminate others) but with those who would want to discriminate against lesbians, African-Americans, and so forth, i.e. the hateful violators of human rights.

[Aerows]

10. I humbly submit

that there is no such thing as a member of the LGBTQ community that *hasn't* been harassed for no other reason than their sexuality.

You can scream privilege at me all day long, but I had people following and taunting because I held my girlfriend's hand, and was threatened with arrest because a punk ass idiot cop thought he could get with my (also horrified) girlfriend.

I guess I'm just privileged as hell to be a lesbian. Boy, am I privileged to get harassed on the street.

Clearly it has nothing to do with homophobia, it's because of white supremacy (3 different posts worth of this nonsense telling me I've never encountered homophobia) and it is absolutely both painful and ludicrous.

[gollygee]

20. Being a lesbian doesn't confer privilege

But being white does

You can be privileged in some areas and not in others. That doesn't make you privileged for being a lesbian. It means that you have privilege in some ways compared to a lesbian of color. They face oppression in some ways you don't.

Having a disability or not also is an issue of privilege. If you have a disability, that is a way you face oppression. If you are able bodied, that is a way you have privilege.

[bravenak]

3. Not having to worry about racism IS a privilege when EVERY SINGLE OTHER GROUP HAS worries

Nit having to worry about sexism is a privilege since it really doesn't go both ways. If you are the only group free from these forms of duscrimination you are privileged. I am privileged to not be disabled. The buildings and structures and machines and technology was built with me in mind. Ido not have to worry about how I will get into a building with no ramps because I am privileged to be able to walk in, walk up stairs, take them two at a time.
We do not see our privileges because we do not need to worry about making up for not having them.

[pinboy3niner]

5. +1

I'm white but I feel really out of it when I see all the defensive reactions to the mention of white privilege. Stating the realities of life for minority groups doesn't make me feel defensive at all.

[Matrosov]

11. What if we mix groups?

Who is more privileged, the white homosexual or the African-American heterosexual? The Christian transgender or the Muslim cisgender? The disabled Asian or the Latino without disabilities?

That's another problem: many progressives make themselves a little scoring system and then rank people by their privilege. The higher your privilege, the less important you are. We saw it in Germany during New Year's, where many women were sexually assaulted by men who happened to be Muslim. Suddenly the concern for women and sexism was swept aside and many progressives were more concerned about not mentioning the religion of the perpetrators, because 'OMG, Islamophobia!'

Everybody should be on the same level. 'Privilege' implies some people are on a level higher than they should be. Going back to my original post, what's the true problem in regard to race for example, that African-Americans have to fear for their lives around law enforcement or that whites don't have to fear enough? Obviously it's the former.

[bravenak]

12. Mixing groups is fine

Just because things shoud be a certain way ideally does not mean we can ignore how they are right now and the history of how we got there. We do not live in an idealistic version of reality, we live in the reality that shows through documented history that white supremacy caused other groups to be oppressed so that only ONE group could have privileges not available to us colored people. If the rest of us are barred from fully participating, then the ones who are not are privileged not to be. Just the fact that they can argue semantics, rather than actual systematic oppressions occuring over centuries, shows that they are privileged not to suffer the actual effects of race based discrimination.
Most people who suffer racism knows exactly what it is as do those who suffer sexism, etc.. Those who do not will focus on how the description of the problem sounds from the mouths of the oppressed rather than actually do anything of significance to actually understand what it feels like to live in their skin. Many would rather argue that they have no priveleges to hide the facts of their own privileges from themselves, opting rather to 'fix' the language of the oppressed (who know exactly what they are saying just fine, thank you), to salvage their own doubtful emotions.

[pinboy3niner]

13. Makes no difference when the power structure is white. nt

[gollygee]

21. It isn't about comparison from one specific person to another like that

People often have privilege in some areas but not in other areas.

Labeling privilege helps us see it, and hopefully eventually change our society so that groups don't face oppression.

But you're right that it's just the flip side of oppression. That doesn't make it an invalid concept. It's just another way of looking at it. If one person has it harder, that means someone else has it easier.

[Starry Messenger]

14. +1

[Matrosov]

6. During the era of slavery, was it a privilege..

..not to be enslaved? Doesn't that mean slavery is the natural order of things, but some people - whites - had the 'privilege' not to be enslaved?

I'd argue that slavery is a human rights violation, and on top of that, slavery based on race is a hate crime.

In fact, we didn't solve the problem of slavery by taking away the 'privilege' of the free and enslaving everybody, we solved the problem by freeing the slaves themselves and elevating African Americans to the same human status as whites.

(yes, I know I am extremely guilty of oversimplifying the issue of slavery in this post, since slavery still exists to this day, but in a less literal sense than before the 1860s. If it didn't exist anymore, we wouldn't be talking about privilege, at least not in terms of race)

[KansDem]

7. "Let's start calling it what it really is. "

I prefer to call it the denial of one's rights. If you're not experiencing what you call "privilege," then your rights are being denied

'Privilege' implies we need to fix the problem by dragging down the people who have it 'too good' to the level of the people that don't enjoy the same privilege.

Pointing out that it's a hateful human rights violation also correctly shows that we need to fix the problem by elevating the people who are discriminated against to the same level as those who enjoy those 'privileges,' i.e. regular human beings.

The concept of human rights is cheapened when privilege enters the picture. After all, the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution are not called the "Bill of Privileges."

[Skittles]

8. I agree privilege is the wrong word

it is very alienating

[Aerows]

17. I really do not like people telling me that I am privileged

because I didn't get gay bashed on the street this week.

I've been harassed, a cop threatened to arrest me and my girlfriend, and I know too many people that have been physically assaulted for just being different.

Anybody that tries to make the Orlando massacre about "white supremacy" needs an immediate head examination. We've had THREE posts declaring that it was about white supremacy instead of about homophobia and Islamic terrorism, and I'm sick of it.

Some folks need to get a goddamn clue - much of it is being coy, and frankly, I really don't appreciate it.

[bonemachine]

15. I have a question:

Are you one of those folks who similarly argues that we dont need the term 'cisgender' because it just means 'regular human beings' too?

[Matrosov]

16. No, but I'd have a problem if we called 'cisgendered' people 'priveleged'

Because the problem isn't with cisgendered people having it 'too good,' but with transgendered people having their basic human rights violated.

[Aerows]

18. I don't think that the OP

was saying anything of the sort. This week I have personally seen 3 different threads with heterosexuals explaining to me that this had nothing to do with homophobia. It had nothing to do with Islamic terrorism.

Please, let the heterosexuals talk because clearly the LGBT community knows less than Jon Snow about homophobia.

[bonemachine]

23. No, they didn't say it.

But the rhetoric brought that sort of thinking to mind, so I asked if they felt that way. You know... A conversation?


Actually, rereading your post, I'm not actually sure if you meant to be responding to me?

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Well, we should end the drug war, for starts.

Making the drug war "more fair" just by sticking more people in prison for 5-10 year mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug use isn't really solving the problem.

nor does it particularly help the predominantly minority victims of the status quo, already serving those sentences.

[Captain Stern]

22. Good point.

I've always thought that the term "white privilege" was a poor one. The thing it describes is very real, but using the term privilege doesn't describe that thing well at all.

I'm white and I'm treated exactly the way I should be, and it's not some unearned benefit. The way I'm treated as a white guy is the way everyone should be treated.