General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This will get ugly: can a non white person be racist?! [View all]Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)line. Race, gender, religion, sexual identity, wealth/class, and on and on.
In the prevalent culture in the US, men are more privileged than women. People who look 'white' more privileged than those who look 'darker'. Heterosexuals more privileged than homosexuals. People who are wealthy more privileged than the poor.
Privilege comes down to where you placed in the genetic lottery, whose kid you were born, how many of the 'privilege' checkboxes you hit simply by being born. So sure, there are probably some 'white-rural dudes' you have more total intersectional privilege than, in large part because you're 'close enough' that you're not getting hit with the full treatment often meted out to darker folks.
I've been followed in a few stores myself - not because I'm black, but because I'm rather scruffy looking outside of workplace settings. I dress for comfort, not for looks. Heck, I've seen some homeless folks with fewer holes in their clothes, especially on days I've been working in the garden. But if I ever go mad dog killer, I can guess that the cops will try to take me alive, even after I've shot a few of them, rather than just gun me down, or set fire to the building I'm in so they can shoot me if I try to escape the flames.
Privilege isn't just what's happened to you, but what doesn't happen to you, and what might or might not happen to you in the future.