Response to "If you are a white person... "

Post Reply New Topic

Statistic would show that the intelligence of half of the people who agree with the OP is below average.

Perhaps it's all-or-nothing thinking at work, or maybe people are intentionally being obtuse...

Having a privilege doesn't mean that you NEVER face a problem. It means your odds are GREATLY REDUDCED of facing a SPECIFIC problem, in SPECIFIC SITUATIONS.

The fact that money won't solve LITERALLY EVERY problem doesn't mean that having money can't be a privilege.

The fact that being white doesn't save you from LITERALLY EVERY inconvenience or pitfall doesn't mean being white can't be a privilege.

"Well, in this OTHER country...!" Yes, because privileges are specific to a situation. Being tall is great for basketball, not so good for a horse jockey. Being thick and meaty is great for a defensive football player, but not that handy for an acrobat. IN AMERICA, the system is designed to inherently favor white people, and disfavor POC. It is ALSO designed to favor the rich over the poor, males over females, straights over gays, and the attractive over the ugly. ALL of these can work for or against you, and collectively they shape how you're treated, IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS. Go to an expensive store, they'll help the rich looking people over the poor looking people. Go to a trendy clothing store, they'll help the cute skinny people before the homely heavy people. Go to a big-n-tall store, they're gonna try to help the big tall guys, not the short skinny guys.

"But that's different! It's logical to pay more attention to the person more likely to be of benefit!" Oh, kinda like how a nation made for, and by white people, on the backs of others, would find it equally logical to make a system of government that inherently favors them over others. And just like stores know to not make it OFFICIAL policy to ignore "the poors", governments know how to make laws that target people without NAMING people. Kinda like how Nixon couldn't outlaw being liberal, but he COULD outlaw something liberals tended to DO, like smoke weed. Or in the case of jim crow laws, use a word like "loitering" to describe the act of "existing in public", and use "anti-loitering" laws to arrest people - of course, the white folk just get warnings, while the POC get the full punishment. Cos while SLAVERY is illegal, "forced labor as part of a criminal punishment" was and is entirely legal. So to get your slaves back, all you had to do was find way to make POC be criminals. Laws are easy to subvert, cos you can selectively ignore or apply them as you please.

And as people on this very forum have pointed out, "blacks are only 16% of the population", so I guess some people think it's "only logical" to ignore that tiny little 16% and focus on bigger pieces of pie.

Most white people don't CARE that racism exists. It doesn't affect them, it's not their problem. They're WHITE. THEY don't have to deal with the negative consequences of it. So its FAR easier to just convince yourself that it's not a REAL problem, or convince yourself that it's not AS BAD as people act like it is - or just look away and pretend it isn't happening while humming "everything is awesome" to yourself.

It's fairly typical for people to be blind to problems that they don't experience. People with private jets seldom concern themselves with the cancellation of bus routes. People born into money do not often get to experience true poverty. A cadillac is shabby when you've lived your whole life in an Aston or a Bentley. The simple act of cooking is "hard work", when you've always had someone to cook FOR you.

And it's astounding that people easily recognize a system that capitalizes on exploitability and utility when it comes to whining about not being hired for a job or being taken advantage of for being disabled or having autism, but then it's utterly beyond comprehension that the same things might be done for OTHER reasons, too - like race, or sex, or gender, or social class - y'know, all the other things that get brought up over and over too, in addition to disability.

So apparently when the government decided to make it illegal to discriminate for reasons of sex age disability gender race or religion etc, only SOME of those problems were actually REAL, and others only got added for purely political fake made-up reasons. "Disability discrimination, now THAT'S real. But RACE discrimination, feh, that doesn't exist! Slavery totally ended like a hundred years ago!" And yet they felt compelled to add "race" to the list of things you can't discriminate against, in the the 1960's and later. Apparently for lulz, cos racism isn't real

"I can't have privilege, I have problems, too!" Privilege doesn't mean you don't have ANY problems. It means you're LESS LIKELY to face SPECIFIC problems. You can be poor and still have OTHER privileges. You can be disabled and still have OTHER privileges. And you can be poor and disabled, but still NOT have OTHER DISADVANTAGES. If you're going to compare like-for-like, rather than simply whining about "poor disabled white people", tell me how their existence invalidates the possibility that a poor, disabled, PERSON OF COLOR, still wouldn't have it worse.

For instance, a poor disabled WHITE person isn't typically as scrutinized over seeking painkillers for their disability than a poor disabled BLACK person might be, if the dr or pharmacist believes dumb crap like "but POC are more likely to be druggies" or "but POC are more tolerant of pain" - both of which are common ideas believed today. The latter still being taught in some medical schools. And if you find yourself thinking "but they ARE...", there's your systemic racism. They really aren't. POC are more heavily and successfully PROSECUTED, but instances of prevalence and arrest are about the same across ethnicities. The white guy gets a second chance cos he's clearly just a troubled soul - but the black dude, we better teach him a hard lesson, "he's clearly a troublemaker and born criminal..."

And again, cos people LOVE to forget this fact, it's not GUARANTEED, it's simply MORE or LESS likely, dependent on the ENTIRE SITUATION. Saying "white privilege isn't real cos white people are poor, too!" is like saying "ableism isn't real cos not all able bodied people are successful!"