“White Privilege”

by minimus 131 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  TD

  MMM

  So initially you said that white people are defensive around the term “white privilege” because we just don’t quite understand it, or use the term correctly.

  No quite.

  I said "99 out of 100 people" which includes everybody. regardless of color.

  White people naturally become defensive when the term is misused and rightly so.

  White males actually get a double whammy via the term "Male privilege" which is often misused in the exact same fashion.

  In both instances, it is a misunderstanding of the concept to apply it to an individual that you don't know via the claim that they are "privileged."
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  @TD: I see. So you are saying even black people use the term incorrectly, mostly to mean “racism”. In a similar way men are “privileged” (or so 99% would say) because of sexism?
• 

  TD

  Yes.

  People pick up terms like that from the media instead of textbooks and the resultant argument is not about the textbook explanation at all.
• 

  Simon

  This is a must listen to:

  https://samharris.org/podcasts/207-can-pull-back-brink/
  
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  Textbooks? Surely those books have definitions, don’t they?
• 

  truth_b_known

  I have an honest question; as demographics change in the United States, will the term "privilege" be passed on to the next racial group? For example, ethnically or racially speaking, Asian American wealth will soon pass Caucasian Americans. Will we soon be hearing the term "Asian Privilege"? Right now whites make up about 76% of the U.S. population. By 2030 it will fall to 55%. By 2042 Hispanics will outnumber whites and be the majority. Will we hear the term "Brown Privilege"? Will there be a White Lives Matter protest every time a Hispanic police officer kills a white person? Who has the answers?

  As previously mentioned, there are claims of male privilege in the U.S. Statistically there are more men in American prison systems than women. How could this be? If blacks only make 13% of the U.S. population, but have a higher (but steadily declining) prison population vs whites due to "white privilege," why are there not more women in prison vs men due to male privilege?

  Officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department is Homicidal police officer. Chauvin Murdered George Floyd in the streets of downtown Minneapolis in front of witnesses while knowingly being video recorded. Immediately the cry of systemic racism filled the streets of urban centers across the nation. Why? What evidence is there that Chauvin Murdered Floyd because of his skin color? Did Chauvin have a Klan outfit in his bedroom closet? Did Chauvin post racial slurs on social media? Has anyone provided one bit of evidence that Floyd's Murder is a hate crime as defined by statute?

  My studies of psychology brought me across something interesting - all thought, emotion, and behavior is learned. So, what happens when children in a particular community are taught by parents, family, and friends from birth that there is this big, scary, nameless, faceless group of people who are going to mistreat you because of your skin color? Simple - every time someone in this group is an asshole it must be because of skin color.

  All racists are assholes. Not all assholes are racists.
• 

  Simon

  There's a video going round twitter of a young black girl who put her hands up and started crying when she saw a white, female, police officer coming toward her.

  The kid wasn't faking, it was genuine. The officer had stopped purposefully to say hello to the girl and her mother - community policing, exactly how it should be. The cop hugs the girl, it's heart-warming.

  But holy crap, how terrible is the parenting if they are teaching their kids that kind of bullshit?! That the kid is afraid the white female cop is just going to shoot her, because she's been told that'd what they do!

  Imagine a black boy indoctrinated with the same nonsense? It's teaching them to behave in the worse way possible and a way that may very well get them killed when they are a teen or older, because some would rightly* imagine (*based on what they have been told) that fighting the cop is what they "must do" to survive.

  What idiocy.

  I always wonder when you hear "as black people we have to have that conversation with them, that they shouldn't fight the cops" etc... I never got told that. Is that "white privilege" or was it maybe just that I was taught that I should not fight anyone and should be respectful to everyone I met as a matter of course?

  I actually think half the black people are simply past help. They have started believing their own propaganda and the behaviors caused by the wonky beliefs will just make everything even worse. More people will die, there will be more demands for less policing, so they'll get it and then even more people will die and more places will segregate further.

  Only education and information will fix this but both are predominantly in the hands of those who are contantly promoting this, so I don't hold out much hope.
• 

  the girl next door

  I would offer that there is no more parenting today.

  Social media and the internet is shaping youth in an unrelenting way.

  It is also holding parents captive, distracting them from even attempting to parent.

  This is a fact across every household no matter what makeup, philosophy or ethnicity they belong to.

  The only thing that will save us is returning to little house on the prairie days.

  Everything is moving too fast. Family, dignity, thoughtful guidance, actual caring about the success of the future has been abandoned.

  The wisest among us will never be listened to. Unless we have a handle with many millions of followers.
• 

  Simon

  I think social media and the internet is the only hope, this feels like mainstream media going out with a bang. Maybe if their interest diminishes we can stop with the propaganda and false narratives for political gain. That was always the promise of the internet. Of course they are now trying to control and censor voices on that as well.

  People don't know how to "parent". Schools do a piss-poor job educating kids for life. While people are all after burning things down, they could do a lot worse than burning schools and universities.
• 

  rh3988

  I always wonder when you hear "as black people we have to have that conversation with them, that they shouldn't fight the cops" etc... I never got told that. Is that "white privilege" or was it maybe just that I was taught that I should not fight anyone and should be respectful to everyone I met as a matter of course?