I wrote this for the following reason. My son's good friend is a freshman at NYU. In class he was told he has white privilege and doesn't know what it's like to be an immigrant. I guess they're not used to seeing blonde Muslims and figured that he's just a spoiled rich business major. He replied that his relatives were killed indiscriminately and that his mother fled Albania and raised him and his sister by herself in a 1 bedroom apartment. He also said if you told her this she'd probably hit you. Apparently, he was reprimanded for that remark by the professor and school.
Anyway there are many immigrants of color that have more wealth than white people.
A dad who was around. I lived a similar life (lower middle class, dead end part time jobs, couldn’t afford a car until I was 23 (didn’t drive until I was 22), rode the city bus, lived in a low rent apartment in college and after college until I had saved enough for a down payment, rarely ate meat or fresh vegetables because I couldn’t afford them, rode greyhound buses to get back and forth to college, and had to watch while minority kids at my school who grew up with more given to them got better scholarships to better schools with worse grades and less work. I turned out just fine, but the reality is that affirmative action did to poor whites what rich whites did to poor minorities for generations. Neither one was right. If you grow up poor and white, you don’t have privilege.
As a brown person who grew up in the bad side of town, I don’t really think that white privileged is really a thing anymore. Nowadays in America it’s more about your class and wealth than the color of your skin. The white kids from the trailer parks who went to the inner city school that I did had as much opportunity as the brown, Asian or black kid in the same school/part of town. We were all struggling. The experiences of a rich black kid is vastly different from the experiences of a poor black kid. Same with white, Asian and brown kids. Again, it’s a matter of class, wealth and all that give access to that matters now.
Says the white privileged moron who lives in an island where his race slaughtered the resident one.
Actually we didn't. We made a Treaty with them that is part of our laws today. So how did slavery and Jim Crow work out for you guys?
We? You surely did nothing. Your life is empty. But your ancestors surely murdered thousands before that "treaty". Jim Crow? Keep trying. I am not American.
As a brown person who grew up in the bad side of town, I don’t really think that white privileged is really a thing anymore. Nowadays in America it’s more about your class and wealth than the color of your skin. The white kids from the trailer parks who went to the inner city school that I did had as much opportunity as the brown, Asian or black kid in the same school/part of town. We were all struggling. The experiences of a rich black kid is vastly different from the experiences of a poor black kid. Same with white, Asian and brown kids. Again, it’s a matter of class, wealth and all that give access to that matters now.
Class has mainly been based on racial grounds. Exceptions are just that.
The better term would have been "black disadvantage" because no one doubts that blacks were horribly disadvantaged (to say the least) in the past. Flipping that around as "white privilege" changes the meaning and comes off insulting or deprecating to many white people who have enjoyed no such "privilege." The terms are not two sides of the same coin.
And today, neither term has much, if any, applicability. The "black disadvantages" of decades ago have disappeared, and being black is arguably an advantage now with respect to, e.g., employment, school admission, and assessment of culpability in many situations. If we were to look for racial disadvantage today (and for the last 30 years), it would be "Asian disadvantage" if anything.
It hasn't occurred to you what has driven "black disadvantage".
Yes, it has "occurred" to me what has driven "black disadvantage."
I'm unclear, however, why you asked me that question in rhetorical style in response to what I posted.
Actually we didn't. We made a Treaty with them that is part of our laws today. So how did slavery and Jim Crow work out for you guys?
We? You surely did nothing. Your life is empty. But your ancestors surely murdered thousands before that "treaty". Jim Crow? Keep trying. I am not American.
Which ancestors? Where?
So you're not American - you're not anything. Just a noise.
This post was edited 24 seconds after it was posted.
We? You surely did nothing. Your life is empty. But your ancestors surely murdered thousands before that "treaty". Jim Crow? Keep trying. I am not American.
Which ancestors? Where?
So you're not American - you're not anything. Just a noise.
hahahahahahaha You hate Americans but you say "So you're not American - you're not anything"?
Guess what? You are not American - you're not anything. Just a corpse waiting to go.
Imagine life is a race, and you are on the starting line.
Then, the starting line gets adjusted for a whole bunch of things. If you have good parents, take a step forward; if you don't, step back. If you are poor, step backward. If you live in certain zip codes, step backward.
And, if you are not white, take a step back, and if you are white, step forward.
This doesn't mean you end up at the original starting line, but if you are white, you started ahead of where you would have if you were black.
I was born poor, rural, with one parent. I probably started out behind the line. But, still a step or two in front of where I would have had I been black.
It hasn't occurred to you what has driven "black disadvantage".
Yes, it has "occurred" to me what has driven "black disadvantage."
I'm unclear, however, why you asked me that question in rhetorical style in response to what I posted.
Contrary to what you think, black disadvantage and white privilege are two sides of the same coin. It was so for centuries; it doesn't simply disappear overnight.
This post was edited 35 seconds after it was posted.
Yes, it has "occurred" to me what has driven "black disadvantage."
I'm unclear, however, why you asked me that question in rhetorical style in response to what I posted.
Contrary to what you think, black disadvantage and white privilege are two sides of the same coin. It was so for centuries, so it doesn't simply disappear overnight.
Yes, it has "occurred" to me what has driven "black disadvantage."
I'm unclear, however, why you asked me that question in rhetorical style in response to what I posted.
Contrary to what you think, black disadvantage and white privilege are two sides of the same coin.
No, I disagree. To most people, those two terms have different meanings, different applications, different emphasis, different applicability, different tone.
It was so for centuries; it doesn't simply disappear overnight.
I never said black disadvantage disappeared overnight or anything close to overnight. The temporal references I made in my post implied nothing about "overnight."
Anyway, I still don't get why you posted "It hasn't occurred to you what has driven 'black disadvantage'?" in response to my post. Maybe you don't remember why you posted that either.
Imagine life is a race, and you are on the starting line.
Then, the starting line gets adjusted for a whole bunch of things. If you have good parents, take a step forward; if you don't, step back. If you are poor, step backward. If you live in certain zip codes, step backward.
And, if you are not white, take a step back, and if you are white, step forward.
This doesn't mean you end up at the original starting line, but if you are white, you started ahead of where you would have if you were black.
I was born poor, rural, with one parent. I probably started out behind the line. But, still a step or two in front of where I would have had I been black.
"Privilege walks" are a sham.
The wokesters who created them and other "disrupt Whiteness" pedogogy tools are rolling in cash.
The better term would have been "black disadvantage" because no one doubts that blacks were horribly disadvantaged (to say the least) in the past. Flipping that around as "white privilege" changes the meaning and comes off insulting or deprecating to many white people who have enjoyed no such "privilege." The terms are not two sides of the same coin.
And today, neither term has much, if any, applicability. The "black disadvantages" of decades ago have disappeared, and being black is arguably an advantage now with respect to, e.g., employment, school admission, and assessment of culpability in many situations. If we were to look for racial disadvantage today (and for the last 30 years), it would be "Asian disadvantage" if anything.
Sup bro
I agree with a lot of this, but I do think the "black disadvantage" from decades ago still effects life today. White people were able to accumulate property, wealth etc decades ago and that has a snowball effect. The biggest disadvantage black people have today is class/wealth related and not racism/blatant discrimination. Affirmative action and DEI are a somewhat racist attempt to correct this, but it's politically unpalatable and not feasible with the super class of Asian immigrants.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.