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In reply to the discussion: As a white christian male I don't feel privileged by any means [View all]sibelian
(7,804 posts)57. You're not. The entire concept is a fucking chimera.
It makes my blood boil.
I've been thinking about this for several months and observing conversations on this site regarding the concept of privilege getting steadily angrier and angrier and waiting for someone who supports the concept to say anything meaningful about it. They can't. The only thing chimera "privilege" seems to be able to do is assert itself and dance about saying "oooh, you don't believe in me, that proves I exist," which is just the most babyish, clumsy piece of manipulation I've ever seen. The concept has no qualities beyond a kind of "stuff being got" scorecard, as if a person's life is definable in terms of what they GET and a series of loopy avoidance mechanisms to cope with its criticism.
What other conceptual system would we allow to stand that assumed criticism of it was evidence for it? Why are those supporting it incapable of talking about IT? What, in fact IS it?
Any attempts to extract any kind of meaningful structure from those supporting the concept result in the silliest tropes imaginable, "it's a ying, yang thing" I was told the last time this garbage came up. What the FUCK? When did conceptual models of human relations become immune to criticism?
I've been gay all my life. I am fucking DAMNED if I'm going to go to all my straight friends and tell them they're "privileged". I refuse to adopt a clumsy linguistic trick that explicitly condemns me to a power relationship with my friends, I will NOT exchange the heirarchically neutral term "enfranchisement" for the explicitly heirarchical and obscurant "privilege" so that a bunch of straight white middle class liberals can lounge about on couches with their hands stapled to their foreheads saying "Ooooooh! I feel so PRIVILEGED. I am so aware of my PRIVILEGE. You over there. Think about your PRIVILEGE. I'm thinking about mine. See what a lovely person I am? I must be because I understand how privileged I am."
The concept has nothing to do with enfranchising the oppressed. What does it do? It exhorts the free to mangle their perceptions of themselves. It places the free at the centre of the narrative instead of the chained.
Just because you can imagine a structure doesn't mean it exists. Remember the "gay agenda"?
It's self-absorbed DRIVEL.
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for some reason, a number of white people, often male think that it's all equal now
CreekDog
Mar 2013
#8
they say there's no privilege so that's saying things are equal, is this herculian logic for you?
CreekDog
Apr 2013
#64
you keep posting as if there's an even playing field regardless of race or gender and that's wrong
CreekDog
Apr 2013
#102
if everyone of a certain race had one less broken leg, it would be a privilege to be the other
CreekDog
Apr 2013
#147
What white males need to do, to understand their privileged status is close their eyes....
Honeycombe8
Apr 2013
#140
The difference between you and your friends who are not white and even you and the girls in your
Iris
Mar 2013
#3
I'm a white woman and I see my privelege all the time, because I open my eyes.
Happyhippychick
Mar 2013
#4
I don't think that's the case here in the multicultural San Francisco Bay area.
Comrade Grumpy
Mar 2013
#15
Just because you don't know yours or your country's history doesn't make it any less true
CreekDog
Mar 2013
#10
if you think that being white in a non-white neighborhood erases your privilege
CreekDog
Mar 2013
#19
ignoring history is how the women's movement lost so much ground in the last 30 years. no thank you.
bettyellen
Mar 2013
#20
i'm privileged as an american female of south asian descent compared to non american females of
JI7
Mar 2013
#23
I'm 23 and the spectre of privilege is a reality, not opinion (and it does not turn me off).
Gravitycollapse
Mar 2013
#25
I don't see you as privelidged but there probably things you won't have to worry about that others
liberal_at_heart
Mar 2013
#33
I never said he should stand by and not do anything. I said he should fight for justice.
liberal_at_heart
Apr 2013
#133
so it's not enough to alienate the feminists on this board, now we have to move on to
liberal_at_heart
Apr 2013
#45
I walk down the street and people literally hand me $100 bills for being white.
Comrade_McKenzie
Apr 2013
#55
It is argued that if I forfeit some perceived privilege that inequality can be addressed.
Harmony Blue
Apr 2013
#120
Thank you. This is so much harder to explain than it should be. You did it well.
Matariki
Apr 2013
#94
"Most people when I talk to don't even know I was born and raised as a Christian." Where were you...
Humanist_Activist
Apr 2013
#59
Dude, please have someone with a clue read this post and explain it to you.
Egalitarian Thug
Apr 2013
#62
This post is all about you, and not about society and its previous class distinctions.
treestar
Apr 2013
#65
I don't know any school in this region that is this un-diverse. 89% white is diverse?
kwassa
Apr 2013
#105
Everything in my life has demonstrated that honors courses are less diverse.
Gravitycollapse
Apr 2013
#136
Here's my take on it, I'm sure many will disagree and perhaps be angry by words, but whatevs...
octothorpe
Apr 2013
#98
Whether you feel privileged has absolutely nothing to do with whether you are privileged.
kwassa
Apr 2013
#124
I wish I could find a way to take advantage of this privilege I allegedly have.
MrSlayer
Apr 2013
#129
It's not invisible. It's so normative that we are blind unless we choose to see.
Gravitycollapse
Apr 2013
#138
keeping the working class divided along racial lines is essential to the ruling class'
arely staircase
Apr 2013
#148