As a gay man, I think this privilege debate is kind of ridiculous.

[markpkessinger]

145. As another gay man, I don't think you get the concept of "privilege" in a social justice context

The concept of 'privilege' in a social justice context is not about a pissing match over who was more or less privileged. It is possible to be the beneficiary of privilege based on one aspect of oneself (say, race, for example), while simultaneously experiencing the lack of privilige based on some other aspect (say, gender, for example). Nor does the term suggest that you or anybody else have been personally given some special assist or leg up. It is not a suggestion that you haven't had to work for what you have, nor is it about asking you to feel guilty about your racial or ethnic heritage, your gender, or any success you may have obtained in life. But the nature of such privilege is nearly always invisible to the person benefiting from it. I saw a comment on an article at thenation.com, by someone posting under the name of 'socrates2', that explained this really well:

socrates2 Wednesday, May 7, 2014 1:05 p.m.

A long, long time ago in my early twenties, fresh out of college, a friend told me, "Yeah, some people will open doors for you, but once you're inside you had better deliver." So, every _economic_ (or political) "opportunity" is a two-step process. A "gatekeeper" lets you in. This is the "step," most melanin-challenged individuals in the US take for granted to the point of invisibility ("It's like explaining water to a fish.&quot .

Step Two: Once "inside" you can stand or stumble. (On an aside, the beauty of wealth and power is that one can stumble near-unlimited times and _remain_ inside).

Young Fortgang will always stand on solid ground when he defends the meritocracy of "Step Two."
It's "Step One" that's the real, but politely elided obstacle. No one likes to be reminded of American culture's regrettable and shameful past of Jim Crow and other forms of overt discrimination that kept a vast majority of African-Americans economically, academically, and, thus, politically, marginalized for generations where they fell further and further behind and developed class-stratified survival behaviors.
If and as the economy shifted, African-Americans lived the mantra, "Last hired, first fired" regardless of merits, unless the rare occasion where one filled a niche or acquired a powerful sponsor within the organization.

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