Mythbusting white privilege

Quality stuff. Rapid fire deconstruction of the typical statistics and rationales used to claim that, institutionally, whites are privileged and blacks are oppressed. Includes how this narrative in action harms black communities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrxZ...ature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0diJNybk0Mw

Well, if we are looking for evidence of white privilege, where is the best place to look?

The Government? The laws are such that any proven case of racism (rather, preference for whites over other races) could lead to media shit storms and lawsuits.

Business data? Laws punish businesses for even preferences that create a unintentional "disparate impact".

For either of these two sources, both will be trying their hardest in order to prevent such provable cases.

Most things used to justify the notion are not provable though. This includes the cases and fallout of the many black shootings. Those cases are probably not evidence of privilege, but it's frankly impossible to know. Some studies suggest officers take less time to decide to fire on black suspects than white ones, but they don't seem 100% conclusive.

What about the laws on Crack vs cocaine? Even of the speaker in this video is correct on Crack being easier to sell and distribute, does that mean a 100:1 difference in punishment at the time was devoid of racial considerations? (Depending on the validity of statements recently made about this...there very well could be a serious case here).

What about even less provable things?

Grand juries are said to be rubber stamps, doing pretty much what the state tells them to do. When a prosecutor fails to get past the gj with a crime...what does that mean? Sometimes, cases just don't make it and the juries do have real trouble finding cause to go forward. But it could also mean that the prosecutor deliberately threw the case. Good luck proving either way.

So if the state, businesses, and others aren't going to be good sources of proof on this, is there any proof we can actually get?

Is it white privilege that I have never once been accused of being a nazi or serial killer, while almost all muslims in America have been labeled as terrorists at some point in their life? Is it privilege that I've only ever been pulled over for speeding, expired registration, and a broken light.. while people of color have been pulled over for "wide left turns?" White ppl seem to use plenty of drugs, how come they arnt caught as often? Do they actually not use it as much...do they hide it better.. or is something else going on? I've also never been followed around by store owners while browsing merchandise in a hoodie, never had women go to the other side of the street to avoid me, nor has anyone ever assumed I had drugs and could share.

But can any of that above paragraph be proved? I don't think so. We can record individual incidents, sure. But how do you prove any of that? Even with a thousand affidavits of black people, how could you ever be sure this was a race privilege thing and not th "black community trying to guilt us". ?

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Is it white privilege that I have never once been accused of being a nazi or serial killer, while almost all muslims in America have been labeled as terrorists at some point in their life? Is it privilege that I've only ever been pulled over for speeding, expired registration, and a broken light.. while people of color have been pulled over for "wide left turns?" White ppl seem to use plenty of drugs, how come they arnt caught as often? Do they actually not use it as much...do they hide it better.. or is something else going on? I've also never been followed around by store owners while browsing merchandise in a hoodie, never had women go to the other side of the street to avoid me, nor has anyone ever assumed I had drugs and could share.

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This is something I would like to focus on because I view the sentiment as the backbone of the privilege and social justice narrative. I have yet to be able to explain what I want to on it, but it does not sit right with me.

An example, a small proportion of people have been scrutinized by traffic enforcement to the degree that my brother once was. He fit the description: teenaged white male, crazy hair, and an aesthetically souped up car. He probably got pulled over a hundred times in two years because of his profile. It does not sit right with me to call his situation anti-privilege, which means it shouldn't sit right with me to call situations like my own (I drove a normal car and had a normal hair cut and I rarely entered cops' radars) privilege.

There are like 4 ways to go with this.

Why buy into the idea of privilege at all? There will always be someone more privileged than you; be it by circumstance of birth, or opportunity of youth, or fortunate fit within society. Where's the line that cuts between him being more privileged than you and him being better than you? And even when you can see that line, what does it matter that it's there?

I barely claim to understand culture, but I know that it, culture, is accepted and dictated upon by successive generations. And America in particular has a lineage of tolerating slavery of blacks, banning of chinese, interning of japenese, genocide of redskins... I think there's ample reason to prefer being white in America than any other racial option.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

This is something I would like to focus on because I view the sentiment as the backbone of the privilege and social justice narrative. I have yet to be able to explain what I want to on it, but it does not sit right with me.

An example, a small proportion of people have been scrutinized by traffic enforcement to the degree that my brother once was. He fit the description: teenaged white male, crazy hair, and an aesthetically souped up car. He probably got pulled over a hundred times in two years because of his profile. It does not sit right with me to call his situation anti-privilege, which means it shouldn't sit right with me to call situations like my own (I drove a normal car and had a normal hair cut and I rarely entered cops' radars) privilege.

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Is this you getting at your point previously where it exists but it does so for a reason, hence profiling etc being ok? I've only ever been stopped by police a few times in my life, those times when I've been committing minor crimes (i.e. pissing in the street) which I've talked my way out of & those times when I've been with black friends & been stopped for no reason. Admittedly only in London never in Manchester but at the same time most of my friends in Manchester are white, whereas in London they were much more mixed.

The reality is stereotyping exists as it's an easy way for humans to process the world, as communities get more mixed it goes away. If you create laws that destroy this mixing of people or enabling people to live among each other then it creates the tension which is the problem in the first place.

There's a difference in realising this is a thing and expecting it to disappear & it disappearing more naturally. I'm sure there are ways to force it but they tend to readjust negatively. I'm all for policies which expect x amount of people to be from certain backgrounds but they need to be done on a lower bound because that is what highlights the issue.

This is a good conversation to have, it's just there are so many different avenues and angles of attack that it deserves a hundred voices.

There are already too many laws on the books to arrest any 'ole Joe Schmoe. It's impossible to affirm that you've broken no laws, even if for no other reason than it's impossible to say you're aware of every law.

What happens when the Avatars of the Law are prejudiced against you?

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Originally Posted by ImSavy

The reality is stereotyping exists as it's an easy way for humans to process the world

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And remember, we all pre-judge.

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Originally Posted by ImSavy

The reality is stereotyping exists as it's an easy way for humans to process the world

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Indeed. It's a great leap from here to privilege.

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I'm all for policies which expect x amount of people to be from certain backgrounds but they need to be done on a lower bound because that is what highlights the issue.

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Those policies have been enacted and have made things worse for those groups. Example: affirmative action increases failure rates among blacks by placing a larger proportion of them in academic institutions and curriculum above their scores and skills.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Those policies have been enacted and have made things worse for those groups. Example: affirmative action increases failure rates among blacks by placing a larger proportion of them in academic institutions and curriculum above their scores and skills.

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This is where I disagree, most policies don't address things the way I want them do. That's the whole point of a lower bound & that lower bound should raise issues not dictate them. For example if I own a company of 200 people and only 5 of them are women you should be able to explain why. Whereas explaining why it's not 50/50 is stupid.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

There are like 4 ways to go with this.

Why buy into the idea of privilege at all? There will always be someone more privileged than you; be it by circumstance of birth, or opportunity of youth, or fortunate fit within society. Where's the line that cuts between him being more privileged than you and him being better than you? And even when you can see that line, what does it matter that it's there?

I barely claim to understand culture, but I know that it, culture, is accepted and dictated upon by successive generations. And America in particular has a lineage of tolerating slavery of blacks, banning of chinese, interning of japenese, genocide of redskins... I think there's ample reason to prefer being white in America than any other racial option.

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Perhaps privilege is a generalization of a very large group where people of similar circumstances have grouped up?

Meaning perhaps it's an illusion based on generalizing circunstances?

But then we wonder why that generalization can happen, and why it seems that whites are generalized higher than others...is that generalization itself what privilege is?

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Indeed. It's a great leap from here to privilege.



Those policies have been enacted and have made things worse for those groups. Example: affirmative action increases failure rates among blacks by placing a larger proportion of them in academic institutions and curriculum above their scores and skills.

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That seems to take personal responsibility out of the equation. It seems like it's not the policy that's to blame, but the person who chose to challenge himself beyond his capability

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Meaning perhaps it's an illusion based on generalizing circunstances?

But then we wonder why that generalization can happen, and why it seems that whites are generalized higher than others...is that generalization itself what privilege is?

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I agree with this a fair bit, in more black orientated culture the same issues apply. It just never gets called on as it seems to be some sort of correction. Two wrongs make a right etc.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

I think there's ample reason to prefer being white in America than any other racial option.

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Oooh, this is too good of a point to have just been blown by.

Let's say you stumble upon a magical lamp, of course with a genie in it, but this genie is special in that he only grants one wish and in one category-- you get to chose your race and magically it is so. No one knows you did it, there's no fallout from the community you left or any apprehension of acceptance from the community you've joined, the world simply realligns itself in the way that will make reality the closest to current reality but allow for your race to have switched. Of course you can also chose to not take the genie up on this wish. What race do you pick? Why?

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Originally Posted by ImSavy

This is where I disagree, most policies don't address things the way I want them do. That's the whole point of a lower bound & that lower bound should raise issues not dictate them. For example if I own a company of 200 people and only 5 of them are women you should be able to explain why. Whereas explaining why it's not 50/50 is stupid.

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Even the most well-crafted and well-functioning policy and agency for this would provide results less good than having none in the first place. The economic principle at work is that when a company discriminates on things like this, it increases their costs and lowers the costs of their competitors, which undermines the poorly discriminating company's ability to continue to do so and rewards the competing companies better behavior. Governmental policy is not that good at undermining bad behavior (it inadvertently supports bad behavior more often than not), but the free market has undermined bad behavior consistently.

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Originally Posted by boost

Oooh, this is too good of a point to have just been blown by.

Let's say you stumble upon a magical lamp, of course with a genie in it, but this genie is special in that he only grants one wish and in one category-- you get to chose your race and magically it is so. No one knows you did it, there's no fallout from the community you left or any apprehension of acceptance from the community you've joined, the world simply realligns itself in the way that will make reality the closest to current reality but allow for your race to have switched. Of course you can also chose to not take the genie up on this wish. What race do you pick? Why?

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White. We came from a white nation, the franchise was first white, and for all the ways it has worked to protect and perpetuate itself, whiteness has always been on the in.

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Originally Posted by boost

Oooh, this is too good of a point to have just been blown by.

Let's say you stumble upon a magical lamp, of course with a genie in it, but this genie is special in that he only grants one wish and in one category-- you get to chose your race and magically it is so. No one knows you did it, there's no fallout from the community you left or any apprehension of acceptance from the community you've joined, the world simply realligns itself in the way that will make reality the closest to current reality but allow for your race to have switched. Of course you can also chose to not take the genie up on this wish. What race do you pick? Why?

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This is something I've pondered and discussed with others before.

If I can choose to be born in the suburbs, most rural areas, or any non-ghettoized city regions, I'd consider going with black. The question then isn't if I think I would be better off in doing so, but if I would want to deal with all the idolization that would come my way. In a lot of places it's arguably better to be black since you're not viewed through a racist lens but an "enriching the experience of white folk lens" -- which is itself also arguably not something some may want.

My overall point is that I think that if you're a black person in a middle class family and a middle class region, institutions, both governmental and cultural, are favorable to you in contrast to the typical ethnicity. This is especially true if you're Asian, but in the opposite direction. Asians tend to have to over-perform to get to the same place as other ethnic groups. A secondary argument is that the effects are marginal regardless of what/where you are, so it's pointless to talk about groups as if some are privileged and others aren't. The degree to which others affect my life is tiny compared to the degree to which I affect my life.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

White. We came from a white nation, the franchise was first white, and for all the ways it has worked to protect and perpetuate itself, whiteness has always been on the in.

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Did Curb teach ya nothing about being a black guy with glasses?

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Perhaps privilege is a generalization of a very large group where people of similar circumstances have grouped up?

Meaning perhaps it's an illusion based on generalizing circunstances?

But then we wonder why that generalization can happen, and why it seems that whites are generalized higher than others...is that generalization itself what privilege is?

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America was white first. It's like investing - the most important elements are principle and time. Get the most in as early as possible and just let it grow.

Here's a heat map of the world.

http://i.imgur.com/aZndj0s.jpg

And here's how white nations managed to lord over it
http://i.imgur.com/ymFxxTr.jpg

When people assume White is Right, that's just the dividends paying off on some centuries old investments.

Grunching.... But prison amd this

https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stev...t_an_injustice

56 years old and he's never had a drop? This man cannot be trusted for he is blind.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

That seems to take personal responsibility out of the equation. It seems like it's not the policy that's to blame, but the person who chose to challenge himself beyond his capability

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I love me some personal responsibility, but this isn't an area where I think the prospective student has much capacity to inform their decisions. My n=1: I'm attending an average difficulty university. At least I think it is, I really have no clue. I have no idea how much harder, easier, or the same Harvard would be. Attending Harvard is such a net good regardless of aptitude that most would be fools to turn it down. The job of the admissions personnel is almost entirely to make sure that the right candidates are selected. If somebody were to be accepted, it is reasonable for them to think that they have the mettle for the institution.

Affirmative action is a causal factor in misplacement.

They have plenty of capacity. They can research, tour, and ask about the university. They can pick majors which are more or less challenging. Affirmative action doesn't prevent people from making just as much of an informed decision as anyone else.


How is admissions any more to blame than the individual here who should have known better? Everyone who applies to college has safety schools and longshots, it's entirely the fault of the individual for determining which schools are safety schools and which ones are long shots, and also whether he's fit to succeed in college at all.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Even the most well-crafted and well-functioning policy and agency for this would provide results less good than having none in the first place. The economic principle at work is that when a company discriminates on things like this, it increases their costs and lowers the costs of their competitors, which undermines the poorly discriminating company's ability to continue to do so and rewards the competing companies better behavior. Governmental policy is not that good at undermining bad behavior (it inadvertently supports bad behavior more often than not), but the free market has undermined bad behavior consistently.

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This is a model of the effects in a vacuum. Maybe the model holds accurate, but there's no reason to think so.

Institutions were prejudice and the old boys club was a real thing, I don't think you're interested in disputing this. So with that as a given, we can assume things like prohibitive short term opportunity costs of integration that continue to affect the racial make up of an institution so that the diversity of the institution lags behind the society's, and even the institution's level of prejudice.

As an example, we know that there are far more efficient keyboard layouts than QWERTY, however you see no institutions adopting them due to the short and medium term setbacks in productivity needed to implement a better layout. To imagine that no such hurdles exist when it comes to putting an end to the old boys club or to declare for certainty that there are no lasting effects of the old boys club seems flippant.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

They have plenty of capacity. They can research, tour, and ask about the university. They can pick majors which are more or less challenging. Affirmative action doesn't prevent people from making just as much of an informed decision as anyone else.


How is admissions any more to blame than the individual here who should have known better? Everyone who applies to college has safety schools and longshots, it's entirely the fault of the individual for determining which schools are safety schools and which ones are long shots, and also whether he's fit to succeed in college at all.

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What point are you trying to make? That laws that require or influence producers to undermine standards shouldn't have effects on standards because consumers should make up for it? If this is a river, it's trying to flow uphill.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

This is something I've pondered and discussed with others before.

If I can choose to be born in the suburbs, most rural areas, or any non-ghettoized city regions, I'd consider going with black. The question then isn't if I think I would be better off in doing so, but if I would want to deal with all the idolization that would come my way. In a lot of places it's arguably better to be black since you're not viewed through a racist lens but an "enriching the experience of white folk lens" -- which is itself also arguably not something some may want.

My overall point is that I think that if you're a black person in a middle class family and a middle class region, institutions, both governmental and cultural, are favorable to you in contrast to the typical ethnicity. This is especially true if you're Asian, but in the opposite direction. Asians tend to have to over-perform to get to the same place as other ethnic groups. A secondary argument is that the effects are marginal regardless of what/where you are, so it's pointless to talk about groups as if some are privileged and others aren't. The degree to which others affect my life is tiny compared to the degree to which I affect my life.

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Are there angles you can shoot as a black person? Yeah... But I think you have a seriously delusional idea of what it is like to be non-white. Further the hypothetical was sort of rigged in favour of your argument in that people don't get to chose their background and disproportionately the average black person is going to be born into less preferable circumstances.

Also you seem to be playing both sides here which makes me confused as to whether you support the policies meant to even the playing field. You say you'd chose black because government policy and cultural (awareness of white privilege?) give black people a leg up. So are you saying these things are good, or are you under the impression that without them it would still be preferable to be black (given the circumstances you specified), or even that it would be a wash with being white? I guess what I'm saying is that in summary you seem to be arguing that there was an over correction (because you certainly don't deny there was a problem), yet you prescription is an elimination of all policies enacted to even the playing fields.

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Originally Posted by boost

This is a model of the effects in a vacuum. Maybe the model holds accurate, but there's no reason to think so.

Institutions were prejudice and the old boys club was a real thing, I don't think you're interested in disputing this. So with that as a given, we can assume things like prohibitive short term opportunity costs of integration that continue to affect the racial make up of an institution so that the diversity of the institution lags behind the society's, and even the institution's level of prejudice.

As an example, we know that there are far more efficient keyboard layouts than QWERTY, however you see no institutions adopting them due to the short and medium term setbacks in productivity needed to implement a better layout. To imagine that no such hurdles exist when it comes to putting an end to the old boys club or to declare for certainty that there are no lasting effects of the old boys club seems flippant.

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It doesn't work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDlNNRZoPUM

Additionally, attendance and graduation rates from Ivy League institutions by minorities was far greater before affirmative action than it is today. It's not just affirmative action but all welfare and its ethos that has created this problem. Before the 60s, black employment, home ownership, and graduation rates were competitive with whites. In some cases they were better. I've posted sources for this stuff all before but am having difficultly finding them again. They're buried in Thomas Sowell interviews. IIRC it's something likee 17x more Ivy League African American attendance in the early part of the 20th century compared to the latter, but I may not be remembering it perfectly.

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Originally Posted by boost

Are there angles you can shoot as a black person? Yeah... But I think you have a seriously delusional idea of what it is like to be non-white. Further the hypothetical was sort of rigged in favour of your argument in that people don't get to chose their background and disproportionately the average black person is going to be born into less preferable circumstances.

Also you seem to be playing both sides here which makes me confused as to whether you support the policies meant to even the playing field. You say you'd chose black because government policy and cultural (awareness of white privilege?) give black people a leg up. So are you saying these things are good, or are you under the impression that without them it would still be preferable to be black (given the circumstances you specified), or even that it would be a wash with being white? I guess what I'm saying is that in summary you seem to be arguing that there was an over correction (because you certainly don't deny there was a problem), yet you prescription is an elimination of all policies enacted to even the playing fields.

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The effects of special treatment end up not being a net "leg up", partly because the costs aren't associated proportionately. My hypothetical was focused on the micro while policy is macro.

Another way of putting it is this: would I take special treatment if offered to me? Yes. Would it help me? Not necessarily to no.

Related, even though it may not seem to be: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...dress_the.html

Digging into the power structure of the status quo comes by allowing freedom to compete, not by regulating. This applies to getting more black people into wealthier professions. In fact it applies mostly to the poorest. Freedom of competition helps the wealthy and powerful the least and the poor and non-powerful the most. Regulating college admittance is the wrong idea.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

The effects of special treatment end up not being a net "leg up", partly because the costs aren't associated proportionately. My hypothetical was focused on the micro while policy is macro.

Another way of putting it is this: would I take special treatment if offered to me? Yes. Would it help me? Not necessarily to no.

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I get why, due to imperfect information, people make decisions counter to their own interest-- but your choice to still eat the poisoned cookie while having what you believe to be all the requisite information is a laughably bad justification for your contradictions.

Like, there's a glaring contradiction in your rhetoric. Why are you prescribing solutions to a problem that does not exist? If affirmative action and similar policies are detrimental to blacks, how is it that there is no white privilege?

Stopping in to say that home ownership, college attendence, and employment could all have been adversely affected by the start of the war on drugs. Tons of things happened in the 60s, and I'm not sure the "welfare state" is to blame for poor performance.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

What point are you trying to make? That laws that require or influence producers to undermine standards shouldn't have effects on standards because consumers should make up for it? If this is a river, it's trying to flow uphill.

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No one has to apply to college. No one has to apply to colleges outside of their ability. How is it that when blacks make poor decisions regarding education, it isn't entirely their fault? Why didn't they research more? Why didn't they study harder?

I guess I'm mostly just surprised that personal responsibility is being ignored in this context. Why arnt they responsible for their own actions?

I am not rejected for admission or employment based on my race. But if I apply somewhere and perform poorly, it's not because I had the freedom to apply and it's not the fault of admissions.

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Originally Posted by boost

I get why, due to imperfect information, people make decisions counter to their own interest-- but your choice to still eat the poisoned cookie while having what you believe to be all the requisite information is a laughably bad justification for your contradictions.

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I'm not sure that I understand your point.

It can be the case that you could take advantage of something individually yet the existence of the policy that incentivizes that behavior is bad for a group of which you're a part.

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Like, there's a glaring contradiction in your rhetoric. Why are you prescribing solutions to a problem that does not exist? If affirmative action and similar policies are detrimental to blacks, how is it that there is no white privilege?

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When we say things like "such and such is bad for blacks", we're describing observations regarding causal relationships in simple terms. "Privilege" doesn't do that. It's just, um, well, a shitty concept. It's virtually undefinable and unfalsifiable. Following the point you made, I could say that because whites don't get the unintended consequences that cause a net negative through special treatment on college admissions, whites are privileged. But how dumb would saying that be?

I don't have a full answer on this topic, which is part of why I made this thread. The concept rubs me the wrong way because one can always point to an inequality and claim a privileged/unprivileged dynamic. Historically, that has been a counterproductive tool and societies have done serious damage to themselves by using it. At least results of things like welfare. "Privilege" can't. It just hangs out in the ether or something.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Stopping in to say that home ownership, college attendence, and employment could all have been adversely affected by the start of the war on drugs. Tons of things happened in the 60s, and I'm not sure the "welfare state" is to blame for poor performance.

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The destruction of black communities doesn't correlate with the drug war that well. It does correlate with welfare. It also makes sense from an economics perspective. The drug war isn't exactly bad, but harsh sentencing has had exacerbating effects on communities starting quite a bit later than the 60s. No consensus theory for the destruction of black communities exists, but the leading hypotheses include a mix of welfare that incentivizes single-motherhood and disincentivizes work, increasingly centralized funding and regulation of schools that have basically shredded education in poor communities, and a de-policing of the violent communities that has created capital flight and inhibited capital entry. Include the ethos with the policies.

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No one has to apply to college. No one has to apply to colleges outside of their ability. How is it that when blacks make poor decisions regarding education, it isn't entirely their fault? Why didn't they research more? Why didn't they study harder?

I guess I'm mostly just surprised that personal responsibility is being ignored in this context. Why arnt they responsible for their own actions?

I am not rejected for admission or employment based on my race. But if I apply somewhere and perform poorly, it's not because I had the freedom to apply and it's not the fault of admissions.

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It's not about applying blame. Even if things are all screwed up, your performance at college isn't really the fault of admissions, even if they misplaced you and misled you. Fault is just an impossible thing to place.

It's about assessing causal relationships of policy. Regardless of what people should or shouldn't do, affirmative action has put more unqualified people in positions than otherwise. I don't disagree that people are responsible for their own actions. I'm all about that shit. I just don't think this topic is about that.

I agree that people should make better decisions. I also think government policies shouldn't incentivize or reward bad decisions. An example for how these problems are about the policy more than the decision making skills of consumers is that sometimes the money is in the wrong places, i.e., in order for affirmative action placed students to even get the funding they seek they have to go to schools where they're under-qualified. I'm not sure how much that still happens since loans are given out like candy these days, but it's something Sowell discusses that used to happen at least.

Again, I can agree that our current solutions are possibly and even likely not going to get the results intended-- but you seem to keep making this jump to there not being a problem. Privilege can exist as a phenomenon while also being a phrase that's thrown around too much, used irresponsibly as a way to dismiss people through guilt, and just generally abused.

The fact that we don't have "For Whites Only" drinking fountains any more is not a sign that white privilege is no longer a thing, it's a sign that we've come a long way.

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I don't have a full answer on this topic, which is part of why I made this thread. The concept rubs me the wrong way because one can always point to an inequality and claim a privileged/unprivileged dynamic. Historically, that has been a counterproductive tool and societies have done serious damage to themselves by using it. At least results of things like welfare. "Privilege" can't. It just hangs out in the ether or something.

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Your counter argument relies on the same ability to point to equality or inequality in the inverse.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Following the point you made, I could say that because whites don't get the unintended consequences that cause a net negative through special treatment on college admissions, whites are privileged. But how dumb would saying that be?

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I should add that whites do get net negative unintended consequences from affirmative action. It's a negative for all groups even though some individuals within the groups can use it as a positive.

Also I should point out that when I was talking about why I could choose to be black in Boost's hypothetical, it wasn't because of affirmative action. It wouldn't be good to get poorly placed in a college. I was thinking of lots of other stuff, and it's hypothetical. The situation I described is basically one where you're the "token black guy" in a place where there isn't a meaningful level of racism. This comes with what can be considered some perks as well as drawbacks.

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Originally Posted by boost

The fact that we don't have "For Whites Only" drinking fountains any more is not a sign that white privilege is no longer a thing, it's a sign that we've come a long way.

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I think we've reached a point where these sorts of inequalities, and thus the claims of white privileges that accompanied them, don't exist, at least not institutionally or widespread.

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Your counter argument relies on the same ability to point to equality or inequality in the inverse.

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I don't understand.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

It's just, um, well, a shitty concept. It's virtually undefinable and unfalsifiable.

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Agree!

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

At least results of things like welfare. "Privilege" can't. It just hangs out in the ether or something.

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Official worst edit ever. I meant to say something alone this line:

At least things like welfare can be assessed through quantifiable results. "Privilege" can't be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

The destruction of black communities doesn't correlate with the drug war that well. It does correlate with welfare. It also makes sense from an economics perspective. The drug war isn't exactly bad, but harsh sentencing has had exacerbating effects on communities starting quite a bit later than the 60s. No consensus theory for the destruction of black communities exists, but the leading hypotheses include a mix of welfare that incentivizes single-motherhood and disincentivizes work, increasingly centralized funding and regulation of schools that have basically shredded education in poor communities, and a de-policing of the violent communities that has created capital flight and inhibited capital entry. Include the ethos with the policies.

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Maybe. But the drug war has had a huge economic effect as well. Suddenly black men are arrested way more frequently, sent to prison, and given felony records. That creates single mothers, cuts household income, and makes succeeding in school much harder for fatherless children. Then, once they're back, they can't contribute because of their record.

I only bring it up because the Stat I last saw was like...1 in 3 black men go to jail for drugs. That'll have a huge effect on their communities.

I agree though, that poor education in poor communities has a big effect as well. Also the apparent inability of po lice to put an end to gangs.

Harsh sentencing certainly seems to have exacerbated the problems over the last ~20 years.

The problem with the concept of privilege as a whole is that the vast majority of discussion about it (not necessarily represented by the discussion here) contributes to what has been called "victim culture." Put another way, it's largely just used as another excuse for someone not to get off of their ass and work instead of being put to any meaningful positive purpose.

Somewhat related, but I think that policies and academic discussion about helping people, especially in the West, is largely geared towards being a massive anti-white guilt circlejerk instead of actually getting some shit done to put people on a more reasonably even playing field.