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Is There Such a Thing as "White Privilege"?

Is there such a thing as White Privilege?

  • Yes

    Votes: 50 59.5%

  • No

    Votes: 34 40.5%
  • Total voters
    84
John Mays Lives said:
First off, I'm not a liberal so can it with your assumptions about me. Second, there is no desperation in my explanation but there certainly is a lot of overly excited utterance and unneeded pissiness in your responses. If you can't continue in a civil tone, we won't be continuing at all as your level of education on the topic that you are commenting nor your obvious ignorance on the same are of no consequence to me and I will not waste time trying to engage some keyboard cowboy who finds aggressive posturing to be an acceptable substitute for dialog.

That said: You explained the concept of white privilege in the post above: Maybe he interviews Derek because he ASSUMES Thuc may not speak English as well. White privilege. The assumption that because someone is white they may have certain skills or social experience that the nonwhite doesn't. It is an assumption of aptitude in specific areas that may or may not be true but is accepted as truth based on the perceived ethnicity of the subject and all the social experience that whites are assumed to have had.

That is one example of white privilege. And for the record, there is also minority privilege. There is no accusation or judgment behind the term white privilege.
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That one example with that one specific outcome might be white privilege, but maybe it isn't.

That said, maybe Joe is black and picks Derek because he thinks that he is black too...

Maybe Joe is a sexist and picks Derek because he is a man.

Maybe Joe likes Asian chicks and picks Thuc.

What are all those examples of then?

You can't just pick the one specific example you want, label it exactly what you want despite the fact that it might not be what you want and then affirm that you are correct in your premise.

That is just silly...
 
Bodhisattva said:
Loaded example... any hiring manager will look at both resume's with interest and you are assuming bias based off of race/names/etc.

White privilege is an excuse that people have come up with to find fault at their own failures or shortcomings.

I took a class on this and lasted about 10 minutes until it was clear that it was an exercise in racism and was getting screamed at by two clack women in the class for not agreeing with the premise.
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I'm sorry for your experience with the two black women. It is clear they didn't understand the concept of white privilege either. It could have been a poor misrepresentation by the teacher; I don't know.

If you want a clear example of how it is real, look at what Sabanist posted in response. He said, "Maybe he interviews derek because he assumes thuc may not speak english as well. I woudnt blame him. If im a busy manager, im trying to make my job as simple as i can."

Now if you can read that statement and not see that he's basically saying (and here is where racism does play into it): My life would be easier if I interview the guy because his name sounds like he can speak english (read: he's more Anglofied) better than the little yellow girl.

His assumption was false. It isn't always but it is an acceptable assumption in a white culture. That is how the experience changes for a nonwhite from that of a white person.
 
John Mays Lives said:
I'm sorry for your experience with the two black women. It is clear they didn't understand the concept of white privilege either. It could have been a poor misrepresentation by the teacher; I don't know.

If you want a clear example of how it is real, look at what Sabanist posted in response. He said, "Maybe he interviews derek because he assumes thuc may not speak english as well. I woudnt blame him. If im a busy manager, im trying to make my job as simple as i can."

Now if you can read that statement and not see that he's basically saying (and here is where racism does play into it): My life would be easier if I interview the guy because his name sounds like he can speak english (read: he's more Anglofied) better than the little yellow girl.

His assumption was false. It isn't always but it is an acceptable assumption in a white culture. That is how the experience changes for a nonwhite from that of a white person.
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Your assumption is false, that is english speaking privilege
 
Bodhisattva said:
That one example with that one specific outcome might be white privilege, but maybe it isn't.

That said, maybe Joe is black and picks Derek because he thinks that he is black too...

Maybe Joe is a sexist and picks Derek because he is a man.

Maybe Joe likes Asian chicks and picks Thuc.

What are all those examples of then?

You can't just pick the one specific example you want, label it exactly what you want despite the fact that it might not be what you want and then affirm that you are correct in your premise.

That is just silly...
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Maybe maybe maybe.

You can what if anything into the ground. However, that example is just one contextual anecdote of how white privilege comes into play. I agree if this was isolated or a unique experience for the nonwhite in America, then you would have a point. Joe was either a jerk or an idiot who made assumptions and missed out on a good employee.

Or maybe I didn't give the outcome yet because maybe Joe was me and Thuc was offered the interview just to cover myself on the discrimination front and has been a valuable employee for years now and while Derek was not offered employment, he became a great friend and we still enjoy watching the world cup down at the corner pub close to our apartment. Maybe the anecdote above was just an answer to an essay question asking if I had ever seen instances where white privilege came into play and, if so, what impact did it have. Maybe the names and particulars have been changed for privacy reasons.

The outcome and whether the anecdote is personal or not are not particularly important. The example of white privilege is found in the initial assumptions Joe made about the candidates based on the perceived Anglocentricity of just their names.

Here's another example, and be honest: If you see the two names Tyrone and Bernard, which do you think is the black one?
 
Sabanist said:
Your assumption is false, that is english speaking privilege
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Which you connected directly to the anglocentricity of their names alone. You made an assumption, and forgive my boorish language here, because Derek Murray isn't likely to speak the kind of "Engrish" an Asian named Thuc Chen would be expected to speak.
 
Continue to repeat it doesnt make it true. Derek murray doesnt equate to anglo. You are arriving at the result which you desire
 
Sabanist said:
Continue to repeat it doesnt make it true. Derek murray doesnt equate to anglo. You are arriving at the result which you desire
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If you are going to sit here and try to convince anyone that the names Murray and Chen don't bring with them certain assumptions grounded in the perceived ethnicity of the individuals, there are only two possibilities. A) That you are being argumentative for entertainment (which I get, totally and am guilty of myself quite often) or B) that you are having a hard time rebutting the argument presented but won't allow yourself to just say so (another situation I totally get and have found myself guilty of) so you are just making categorical denials instead of constructed arguments.
 
HogWash said:
Gosh, I did NOT know that driving while white exempted one from being stopped by the cops. You learn something new every day.
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non sequitur
 
Of course there is such a thing as 'white privilege' in some places.
 
John Mays Lives said:
I'm sorry for your experience with the two black women. It is clear they didn't understand the concept of white privilege either. It could have been a poor misrepresentation by the teacher; I don't know.
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Thanks but no worries... they were just angry racists in my opinion and the teacher had an obvious agenda.

If you want a clear example of how it is real, look at what Sabanist posted in response. He said, "Maybe he interviews derek because he assumes thuc may not speak english as well. I woudnt blame him. If im a busy manager, im trying to make my job as simple as i can."

Now if you can read that statement and not see that he's basically saying (and here is where racism does play into it): My life would be easier if I interview the guy because his name sounds like he can speak english (read: he's more Anglofied) better than the little yellow girl.
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I do no agree that is racist. It could be opportunistic though...

His assumption was false. It isn't always but it is an acceptable assumption in a white culture. That is how the experience changes for a nonwhite from that of a white person.
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If you would agree that if I, a white upper middle class man with the name of Steve (made up name) would be over looked for a man named Juan for a job at an independent burrito restaurant even though we are both fluent in English and both only speak broken Spanish then I would agree that this issue is situational instead of systemically a white one in the United States
 
Sabanist said:
Continue to repeat it doesnt make it true. Derek murray doesnt equate to anglo. You are arriving at the result which you desire
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To me, the name 'Derek Murray' equates Scot, not Anglo.
 
Grand Mal said:
Of course there is such a thing as 'white privilege' in some places.
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There is "insert race/gender/religion privilege" in most places... why are we picking on whitey?
 
John Mays Lives said:
If you are going to sit here and try to convince anyone that the names Murray and Chen don't bring with them certain assumptions grounded in the perceived ethnicity of the individuals, there are only two possibilities. A) That you are being argumentative for entertainment (which I get, totally and am guilty of myself quite often) or B) that you are having a hard time rebutting the argument presented but won't allow yourself to just say so (another situation I totally get and have found myself guilty of) so you are just making categorical denials instead of constructed arguments.
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Maybe it is just me having grown up in Southern California and knowing literally thousands of Mexicans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Latino Americans, black Americans and various European descended white Americans but when I hear the name Chen or Tran or Lopez and such I think of people that speak fluent English, dress and act like me, etc. but just have different skin colors and looks. One of my good friends was a female with the name Chen and she was as American as anybody and when I used to see names on applications I never made assumptions about anything.
 
Bodhisattva said:
If you would agree that if I, a white upper middle class man with the name of Steve (made up name) would be over looked for a man named Juan for a job at an independent burrito restaurant even though we are both fluent in English and both only speak broken Spanish then I would agree that this issue is situational instead of systemically a white one in the United States
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I have no problem agreeing with that at all. In fact, you are absolutely correct. And pretty soon, Steve and Juan will no longer be examples of "minority privilege" in this country as whites are projected to be the minority within another generation.
 
Sabanist said:
Your assumption is false, that is english speaking privilege
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Why is it assumed that the one individual will speak English well and the other not, simply based on a name on a resume?
 
John Mays Lives said:
The example of white privilege is found in the initial assumptions Joe made about the candidates based on the perceived Anglocentricity of just their names.
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I am not so sure about that... white privilege is the action resulted from the assumption and not the assumption itself. Assumptions happen about everything. Actions are a result of taking that assumption and running with it.

Here's another example, and be honest: If you see the two names Tyrone and Bernard, which do you think is the black one?
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Loaded question. You planted a racial idea in my head by indicating that one was black and that changes the nature of the entire experiment.

If you just put those two names down I would not have thought about race at all, period.
 
Bodhisattva said:
There is "insert race/gender/religion privilege" in most places... why are we picking on whitey?
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Didn't know we were. Entrenched racism is to be found all over the world. Japan and Kenya come to mind, and Russia and Saudi Arabia and Argentina and...
 
The Mark said:
Why is it assumed that the one individual will speak English well and the other not, simply based on a name on a resume?
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I am not sure either...
 
Grand Mal said:
Didn't know we were. ...
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The title of the thread is white privilege...

Entrenched racism is to be found all over the world. Japan and Kenya come to mind, and Russia and Saudi Arabia and Argentina and
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Agreed. In fact Japan has some of the worst racism to be found.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Maybe it is just me having grown up in Southern California and knowing literally thousands of Mexicans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Latino Americans, black Americans and various European descended white Americans but when I hear the name Chen or Tran or Lopez and such I think of people that speak fluent English, dress and act like me, etc. but just have different skin colors and looks. One of my good friends was a female with the name Chen and she was as American as anybody and when I used to see names on applications I never made assumptions about anything.
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That's because you grew up in a place where you were the minority as a white male. A white male in the midwest or the deep south may not have those perceptions. White privilege tends to be more profound in areas where whites dominate the cultural experience.

But consider this example of white privilege that is actually institutionalized and nationwide: British literature is still taught, in the majority of schools, as a required English while other ethnic literatures such as African literature, Spanish lit, Asian lit, etc, are only elective if offered at all. The concept of white privilege asserts that the white will be presented more opportunity to engage with his/her history and culture than the nonwhite will. That's one example.
 
Grand Mal said:
To me, the name 'Derek Murray' equates Scot, not Anglo.
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To me, the name "Derek Murray" could mean a male of any race. Possibly a female if her parents were really cruel.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Maybe it is just me having grown up in Southern California and knowing literally thousands of Mexicans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Latino Americans, black Americans and various European descended white Americans but when I hear the name Chen or Tran or Lopez and such I think of people that speak fluent English, dress and act like me, etc. but just have different skin colors and looks. One of my good friends was a female with the name Chen and she was as American as anybody and when I used to see names on applications I never made assumptions about anything.
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Where I grew up gradually became a place like you describe. I'm 60 and the high school I went to had one black student, whom I didn't know, and one East Indian whom I played on the basketball team with. All the rest, 780 or so, were lily-white. My son went to the same school and his two best friends were Vietnamese. He knows his way around a menu in a South Indian restaurant and there's Caribbean accents in parties at his place.
It's great!
 
The Mark said:
To me, the name "Derek Murray" could mean a male of any race. Possibly a female if her parents were really cruel.
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Could mean, yes, but it's definitely a Scots name.
Hell, it could be a dog or a disease or a star in the Andromeda galaxy.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Loaded question. You planted a racial idea in my head by indicating that one was black and that changes the nature of the entire experiment.

If you just put those two names down I would not have thought about race at all, period.
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You're a rare bird that wouldn't, at least privately, assume the name "Tyrone" is black. But I concede the point, I did plant race. By the way, they were twin brothers I knew. Tyrone received a letter in the mail from the university that he and his brother both applied to offering him information on minority based scholarships while Bernard did not.

While not an example of white privilege (but clearly an example of minority privilege), it is an example of how something as simple as an ethnic sounding name brings assumptions to the table.
 
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