What privilege do I have for being white?

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Well, as someone that has studied history, I can tell you that most whites did not benefit from slavery but rather only those that were wealthy enough to own the land and slaves to begin with. People always think about abolitionists acting out some divine morality but it was also economic because in a slave labor economy there isn't a lot of work available for those that did not own land themselves. One of the biggest proponents of ending slavery were the Free Soilers who believed that the west should be closed off to the expansion of slavery so that free white Europeans could populate it which is essentially what Abraham Lincoln believed rather than being steadfastly opposed to slavery on the principle of the matter. Slavery was seen as an unsolvable problem and burden, many thought the practice was unsavory but if you actually freed them then they would become an unmanageable even bigger burden to themselves and the entire country as most whites even if they opposed slavery did not believe integration was possible.

Earlier on, when colonists started arriving in this country there were both African slaves and European indentured servants which while maintaining some level of humanity were not much different and in the Carolinas for example they worked and lived side by side picking tobacco. The system of indentured servitude was moved away from after a rebellion was led in Virgina in 1676 against the colonial governor led by Nathanial Bacon who incorporated white indentured servants and black slaves for corruption and his failure to protect colonists on the frontier from indian raids. Bacon had a lot of success, they burned the capital Jamestown to the ground and forced the colonial governor to flee to neighboring Maryland but then Bacon suddenly died of dysentery and his rebellion fell apart. This scared the aristocracy obviously so they moved to the more dehumanizing form of chattel slavery and used the economic insecurities and prejudices of the poor whites to make them believe that they needed this system of slavery for their survival and used these poor whites as overseers of their plantations. Poor whites at the time and for quite awhile were not considered racially equal to the landowning slaveowners, I would definitely say that whites did not universally benefit from slavery.

No, but blacks were uniquely disadvantaged by it.

I don't think anybody denies that slavery was a great wrong and I'm someone that definitely understands historical legacies but I can never accept the terminology of privilege. I find the concept highly offensive, what blacks have suffered in this country is terrible but to collectivize guilt against white people is a racist response to that.

It's not trying to make white people feel guilty, just to realize that we have it easier in some ways.

Saying that one group has inherent advantages over another on the basis of race is a de facto statement that one group is inherently superior to the other.

Oh, and you failed to answer my question.



The answer to your question is contained within the text you quoted. Did you perhaps misread it?



There wasn't a word for racism prior to the early 1900s. Whilst racism obviously existed prior to the invention of the word, nobody in the period described would have considered it racist.



And a nefarious political tool of disempowerment, to boot.

...Can't dance and small you-know-what ?

Precisely.

Nope. It says that one group is treated better by society, not that one group is superior to the other.

People can be very easily separated from their experiences. Talking about an experience someone faced does not entail making a judgment about that person.

Ah. But if pointing out differences in wellbeing based on class is classist, then the term "classism" becomes useless, because acknowledging the problem of classism is then classist.


Then I suppose I meant the former after all.

Well one, there is no we as there is no one white race but rather many different European peoples many of whom had centuries old prejudices against each other and most definitely faced discrimination even in this country from supposedly fellow 'whites'. Hispanics are for the most part white, some more mestizo or native than others but for some reason a white person from lets say Puerto Rico is considered a minority even tho they could have 0% DNA of any other race so so how does that work? Think Jose Juan Barea from the NBA, I don't think a Spaniard of all people could disown their legacy of racial oppression which they brought to this country and not be considered 'white'. To assume some shared experience because you share a lack of melanin is just wrong, like I said there can be an infinite amount of 'privileges' if one were to tabulate them all so we're all individuals in the end as far as our personal experiences go.

Jacoby, but how do you go about explaining that to a Trump supporter?

Explain what?

You have to distinguish 2 terms:

1.) Racism: A caste system in which one race is in practice treated better than the others by society, either implicitly or explicitly, and the acts and attitudes which perpetuate that system.

2.) Racial prejudice: Treating or considering people differently because of their race, without regard to societal power structures.

This is why people of color cannot be racist against whites in the USA in the present day: Their prejudice does not perpetuate a currently existing racial caste system. But they can be prejudiced.

That is what is meant by the incorrectly hijacked definition. It was wrong to do this because of implies all whites should feel guilty because by accident of birth they have a lesser (not none at all) chance to be descriminited against or face racism. The actual people who actually descriminate should actually be punished. That would do more for discrimination and bigotry awareness and easing actual descrimination then yelling "check your privilege".

The examples cited here are wrong.

They don't indicate "white privilege".

Rather, they indicate non-black privilege.

And treated better on what grounds?

Are you starting to see the racist Kafkatrap of white privilege yet or do you need more prodding?



That's not separating people from their experiences, that's distancing yourself from their experiences - rather like the way white privilege is applied. Except with the notion of white privilege, you completely ignore the reality of the individual's experiences and ascribe them a value based purely on the colour of their skin.



That isn't what you did. You said "That's like saying that it's classist to say that rich people have it easier than poor people.". You're making an a priori judgement based on a single subjective factor, wealth. You haven't provided a context for "easier", so you're relying on there being an existing discrimination in order to find concordance with others. You're also implying that class is based entirely on economic status, which is not a universal categorisation.



Then you should already know the answer.

If your position relies on redefining language in order to justify bigotry, your position is untenable. Claiming that non-whites cannot be racist is, in and of itself, racist against whites.

Further, if society adopts your definition, society is implicitly favouring non-whites. The definition is a self-defeating semantic mess.