"Privilege" or "advantage"?

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I am not a native English speaker, so I will start from Merriam Webster:

"Advantage" is certainly a broader term - every priviledge is an advantage but not every advantage is a priviledge - e.g. one's harder, more commited training before some competition can be an advantage but not a priviledge.

My understanding is that a "priviledge" needs some society that gives special treatment to the priviledged.
Some modern societes try to priviledge the groups they believe to be disadvantaged (e.g. disability benefits).

White - yes
Male- yes
Privately educated- yes
Upbringing - middle class

adult
Disabled - yes
Social drift-yes
Doing as well as the average person in Western society -no
Still middle class- ??! !

From Latin Privus Lex (Private Law). In ancient roman practice a law which affected one, and only one, specific individual: could be negative or positive in intent & effect for the individual in question.

Came into Middle English via old French during the Hundred Years’ War, and seems to have been expanded to mean legislation referring to entire groups of people at this time.
An example would be the late Medieval English sumptuary laws, which defined what fabrics and cuts of clothing were permitted and forbidden to different classes.
Or laws restricting who was or was not permitted to own a sword, again on a class basis.

Modern popular usage appears to have drifted into a metaphorical way of referring to any real or perceived advantage of any type.

Literally speaking unless there is a specific law or body of laws in force which either grants or withholds certain rights and liberties from the inhabitants of a given legal jurisdiction there is no privilege.

This does not mean that advantages and disadvantages, or for that matter discriminatory practices, referred under the metaphorical rubric “x privilege” do not exist.

Not one of the most helpful pieces of contemporary English linguistic usage.
Particularly when real legislated privilege against or for defined groups has really existed within living memory in the jurisdiction in question.

Context:
Social disability.

Here in Australia, there is a debate about Aborigines having greater privileges than all other Australian citizens, in some areas.

This. A lot of words have been hijacked for ideological reasons. Resistance is futile.

What,
Like: "Denier"?

“Advantage” tends to lead to “privilege.”

Please note that I don’t adhere to notions of “white privilege.”

The only time I’ve felt privileged for being white was when I desperately needed to use the bathroom in the middle of Manhattan.

Happens often, but still won't convince me to jump to assumptions instead of judging individual cases in an objective manner.

Yes, I have a bee in my bonnet regarding the "one size fits all" mentality or the implicit claim that being a statistical minority makes you non-existent - even more so if there's an agenda behind it

It's a long list and it gets on my nerves even when it's not ideologically motivated. I'm perfectly fine with the natural evolution of language, but the mind boggles when fringe groups (or even mainstream ones) decide to change the meaning of a word and start hurling insults when those who don't live in their bubble have no idea what's up. Not to mention how confusing it can be for non-native English speakers.

Don't get me started, it's a pet peeve

I am on the “judge individual cases objectively” bandwagon.

I'm fully aware, no worries

i am "off white"* and am treated accordingly by most folks i come in contact with.

*lower half of working class, visibly ethnic even though my skin is relatively pale, visibly addled in multiple ways, obviously not college-edumacated when they hear what comes outta my gob, not obviously successful in any conventionally recognized sense - all of this is [absent unique and highly demanded talents and IQ] antithetical for membership in the amuuurican middle class. hence, i am not aware of any self-privileges associated loosely with not being POC. as for advantages....

Semantics and pragmatics

Not everyone always uses words according to dictionary definition

Nor do they have to

Slang, exaggeration, metaphor, idiom

My understanding is that privilege is something given as a gift and not something one is entitled to or has a right to.

Advantage is a strength,tool or knowledge one has that gives one a better chance to succeed at a particular goal.so then an advantage is a privilege and a privilege is an advantage.

It's splitting semantic hairs and has little colloquial difference.

I think privilege = an advantage provided by society.
Every privilege is an advantage but not every advantage is a privilege.

Language is a grey area and there can be a lot of overlap between similar words. If two words have similar meanings you can expect people to use them interchangeably and eventually that similar meaning becomes a grey area. You just can't expect people to use words precisely. Aside from lawyers and a few other professions most people just don't care.