Privilege unknown, privilege unknowable
Privilege, particularly white or male privilege, is hard to see for those of you who were born with access to power and resources...
The same can be said for black privilege and especially for female privilege. Most people, regardless of skin colour or sex were not born with access to power and resources.
…It is very visible for those to whom privilege was not granted. Furthermore, the subject is extremely difficult to talk about because many white people don’t feel powerful or as if they have privileges others do not…
Quite so. A white person born in a poor family in a poor area will rightly feel less powerful than a rich black kid born in a manor house to wealthy and educated parents, regardless of what colour skin they have.
... It is sort of like asking fish to notice water or birds to discuss air. For those who have privileges based on race or gender or class or physical ability or sexual orientation, or age, it just is- it’s normal.
You can wear and act however you’d like without being labeled a thug, low life, gangster, etc.
No you can’t. These descriptions apply to thugs, low lifes, gangsters, etc. regardless of skin colour.
White privilege allows you to speak on any particular subject without being the sole representative for your entire race.
You are making up your own definition of “white privilege.” Anyway, you are right in that no one person regardless of skin colour has ever been assumed to speak for the entire human race. Nor has anyone of any skin colour ever been assumed to speak for any section of the race coloured in any specific manner. The great people who came closest, like Nelson Mandela, Julius Ceaser, and Mahatma Gandhi, never claimed nor ever were assumed to represent everyone even in their country/empire, let alone everyone coloured a particular way.
Also, see near the bottom, in bold.
You have the privilege of escaping violent stereotypes associated with your race.
Not if you are a policman in the USA you can’t!
Really, you are getting harder and harder to take seriously.
You have the privilege of playing the colorblind card and wiping the slate clean of centuries of extreme racism.
Like anyone of any skin colour, I can chose to ignore my own skin colour and that of those around me. I have no privilege from centuries of extreme racism, neither by white races in white races, black races on black races, or any mix of them. Nor do I accept any responsibility for my (white, brown, yellow or black) ancestors. Nor should you accept responsibility for any of your ancestors who might have captured black skinned people of other tribes in Africa to sell to other people, nor responsibility for any ancestors who might have been enslaved rather than fight to the death to retain freedom.
What happened in previous centuries, happened and none of us should feel a need to apologise to anyone for it.
White privilege means no one questions why you got that really great job; it’s assumed you were just highly qualified.
Again, you define your own terms of what white privilege is. It certainly has applied to me: I know that people have assumed I was hired for my skills. They were right.
I have assumed the same thing of other people, too, until the last few years when quotas and special allowances for women started to be introduced. Nowadays, I am aware that women in the fire service don’t have such rigorous standards to uphold (they don’t have to be able to lift someone out of danger, and can pair up to hold a firehose that one man is expected to manage), so sure, I do have some questions about why some women get the job.
But that questioning I have isn’t because of MY privilege – it is because of their privilege.
White privilege means not having to worry about your hair, skin color, or cultural accessories as the reason you didn’t get a job.
Nonsense. As a man, I am expected to attend an interview in a pressed white shirt, suitable tie (there are entire books on that one item alone!), and a suit I would never wear outside of work. By comparison, a woman can wear any moderately demur outfit of any colour and match it with or without jewellery as she wishes.
I have turned down people for sales jobs coming to an interview in their cultural accessories and it hasn’t mattered a bit that the safety-pin wearing clown had white, black or skyblue pink skin.
White privilege means you don’t have to worry about being monitored in a store just because the hue of your skin is a bit darker than most.
As someone who has worked in retail management, I can assure you that people with light skin get monitored. Thieves come in all shapes, colours, sizes and sexes.
Having white privilege means people will never label you a terrorist.
Again, you narrow further the definition of what white privilege is. This time, you almost exclude every white person from having white privilege, since they are all subject to being labelled a terrorist if suspected of terrorist acts.
For most of my life, I lived in a country subject to terrorist attacks. Until about 2004, all of those attacks were attributed to, or claimed by, people with white skin. They deserved the label and they got it.
I have been labelled a terrorist by people online just because I disagree with them! My white skin didn’t seem to magically deflect the labelling.
White privilege means not being affected by negative stereotypes that have been perpetuated and ingrained so much into American society that people believe them to be fact.
Do you really think that what you have been saying about white people is not a negative stereotype that affects them? I don’t know so much about American society but a society that has dating websites insisting that a black person in Africa or Europe label themselves as “African American” certainly seems to be going out of its way to integrate anyone who has black skin and wants to be a part of society. Talking of which, didn’t the USA have a dark-skinned president recently: seems to me it is doing a fine job of getting over apartheid.
If you benefit from white privilege, you’ll never be told to “get over slavery.” However, we all have to remember 9/11 because white people died.
I got over slavery, so I don’t have to be told to get over it. I have no doubt at all, based on my surname and appearance, that I have slave ancestors. But I have never been enslaved. These things, however, are not unique to people of similar skin colour.
I think you will find that 9/11 is more recent than (legal) slavery in the USA. I also think that it was not just ‘white people’ who died.
Benefitting from white privilege means you can walk the Earth unaware of your color.
More to the point, my skin colour is irrelevant, while my colour varies. My skin colour might hold me back from getting a job at certain stores, restaurants, entertainment venues, etc. but most places abide by my country's equality laws. They do in the USA, too.
You can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.”
As a member of the minority sex, minority vision, and minority hair colour, I rarely see people like me on the front page of the paper. But then, I don’t concentrate on superficialities like skin colour: those are people and I have a great deal in common with them, as I do with you.
White privilege is being able to make Ebola jokes because it was killing African people, but no! Do NOT make jokes about cancer, that one kills whites.
Balderdash. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of an Ebola joke but how about this one, it’s even specific to men:
A testicular cancer patient is admitted to the hospital for an orchiectomy to remove a cancerous testicle. When he wakes up the doctor tells him that he has good news and bad news.
Doctor: Which would you like to hear first?
Patient: The bad news.
Doctor: We accidentally removed both of your testicles.
Patient: What is the good news?
Doctor: You won’t get prostate cancer.
(There is a lot more here:)
White privilege is never having to hear “you’re pretty for a black/dark-skinned girl.” Oh, I didn’t know we were all supposed to be ugly.
Of course not. Why would anyone say “you’re pretty for a black/dark-skinned girl” to someone with pale skin. My daughter has very light skin and was teased mercilessly about it throughout school. People can be cruel or stupid, it doesn’t matter what colour skin you have.
And these are just a few. We just want you to acknowledge your privilege.
You’re a ‘we’ now? How did that happen, or are you presuming to talk for everyone of your race?
You acknowledge your privilege first. All of it, not just ‘privileges’ you have through not being something. Then I’ll start reading and promise to start after you’ve written the first chapter. I can also promise that you seriously listing or writing about your own privileges will be far more uplifting and beneficial to you than you putting all white-skinned people, or all males, into your narrow stereotypes and claiming they have some privilege that you can’t even name properly.
This might help: