How can you be racist against the ruling, privileged class? Sure, white people can have it bad too, but we still have all the privilige and automatic perks. It isn't bigotry as much as self defense against how many white people are still deeply entrenched in racism. As a whole, white people are still oppressors.
Even thinking of "whites" as "privileged" is racism. In reality, different people are different (shocker, I know). Obama's family (half-black) is much more privileged than many white straight men that are homeless. If instead of race you focused on circumstances that actually matter (bad family background, poverty, uneducated, jobless), you'd achieve much more.
Racial conflict in America is something that occurs and has modern repercussions. Race matters to a lot of people and should be recognized as having an axiom of privilege not unlike class (which you broght up), gender identity, and sexuality. If you don't believe that different skin colors are treated differently in America I beg you to speak with myself or another person of color of how they have been outsided or treated in uncomfortable and unpleasant ways for no other reason than their skin color. Alternatively, we can examine why black people are jailed for lesser offenses than whites, regardless of class.
You're twisting my words beyond reason. Just because being white results in additional privilege, that doesn't mean that white people are "privileged" (i.e. better off that non-whites) in general. Even if you reduce the multidimensional spectrum of different advantages a person might have compared to others into a single dimension (and call it "privilege"), by far the most important privilege is class (wealth), others just barely tip the scale in one or the other direction.
Do you have a source that class privilege is greater than all other privileges, including race? I don't believe the common racial bias papers such as applying to schools with a "black" name would change if you could also tick a box that read "I'm rich"?
> Race matters to a lot of people and should be recognized as having an axiom of privilege not unlike class (which you broght[sic] up), gender identity, and sexuality.
The narrative of "white privilege" leaves out the fact that no two people's experiences are ever alike. Social privilege is a combination of many things: socioeconomic status of their parents, educational attainment, criminal history, cultural experiences, etc. To try to encapsulate it into a trite meme like "white privilege" is a fallacy and that is part of what sent people to the polls for Trump.
I thought Trump was supported by economic and not name calling or racial issues. Did people vote for trump because they felt belittled by name calling? That's kind of petty. I was under the impresssion it was due to unheard serious economic strife in the rust belt.
> I thought Trump was supported by economic and not name calling or racial issues.
What I actually said (emphasis mine):
>> part of what sent people to the polls for Trump
The conversation from some quarters has been to group people into neat little boxes that they don't actually fit in. People voted Trump for many reasons. It is a fallacy to hypostatize them all into a singular perspective. When you see the world is more than this, you may begin to understand how Trump happened.
I do hope you mean the general "you" in this language, otherwise I will have to ask for clarification if you mean to imply that I am unable to view the world into more than hyposanitization of a singular perspective.
I'm merely confused why white privilege shouldn't be something that is recognized as existing on its own, alongside with class privilege, able-bodied privilege, and all other things that kind of interact and intersect. A black rich woman is in some ways better off than a white poor man, but being black still affects her, bring a woman still affects her. For example, maybe she cannot find a bra that fits her skin color, or she cannot find makeup to fit her skin color but society demands she wear makeup. Similarly, a white deaf man will not have to deal with makeup or bras, but he'll have to deal with the difficulties of being deaf, including the exclusion of the deaf community and the difficulty/on-going discussion in discerning deaf culture as an illness that needs to be cured or a community that should be fostered.
There is a comment on this article by me with a link to a video addressing "white privilege". I'm in class right now so I cannot go at length on its contents. If you want further enlightenment, watch the video.
"I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented."
Someone being the same color as me doesn't mean they "represent" me in any way.
The main criticism of the mass media over the last year and a half was how they breathlessly promoted Clinton. Yet white people turned up in droves to not vote for her. Many of those same white people voted for Obama twice. Yet he isn't white. The white privilege narrative from the perspective of your article is simple-minded and reductionist in the extreme.
Everyone is privileged in some ways. But just because you find one way in which a person is privileged, it doesn't mean that that fact trumps all other person's circumstances. Yes, in the US, a white homeless person might be better off that a black homeless person. But to speak of "white privilege" in general is to disregard or deny all other circumstances, except race.
> a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
Nothing in there about privilege. You can't just redefine a word because you say thats what it should mean.
The current axiom is that yes, anybody can have prejudiced views about anybody else. Sure, and it's perfectly fine and normal to feel hurt when you are getting the hit from it. But the way progressives talk about racism today is that racism is prejudice + power structures. You can be hated all day long for being a white person, but until people of color are pulling all the invisible power structures, it doesn't really go farther than that. This doesn't invalidate that people hurled terrible insults at you, but there are not any vast structures in place to systemically keep you down as a result of these prejudices.
Then pick a different word. That one already has a meaning and it is not what you just described.
What you just described is actual racism. It's determining what someone may or may not have experienced based on their race. No matter their economical situation, family situation, etc. That line of thinking needs to die off.
It's extremely convenient when the major labels that you use to demonize your political opponents cannot apply to you, even when you do the exact same behavior, based on definitions that your side made up. Extremely convenient.
>> How can you be racist against the ruling, privileged class?
The first quote is what I am replying to, the second is your comment to someone else from up thread. The fact that you are so conflicted regarding your own views suggests you need to think about them more carefully.
if you blame "white males" for everything and shoot down any counter-argument with "privilege" then yes, you're being racist, because you're stereotyping an entire race.
Twitters "cultural background training" for its new mods surely contains the progressive stance that you can't be racist against white people.