Dear Estwald,
It is relevant because I wanted to use a pronoun for “needforname” and there was no explicit reference to his/her gender. So I made an assumption and stated my assumption based on the language that was employed in the piece. Women tend to be more aware of structural privilege removed from any particular animus, although I will quickly point out that there are of course many exceptions. And when I refer to structural privilege, I mean the societal privilege that comes with a trait or characteristic out of your control, not that the particular individual with said trait is “privileged” in the sense of having everything given to them without effort. Right handed people are “structurally privileged” since most things are designed for right-handed people. Males, and people without color, are also structurally privileged in society. They occupy the default position. So assuming “needforname” was white and male was based on my observation that he was postulating that racism (and privilege) had to do exclusively with ill will and bad motives, and not with structural elements in society that silently shape opportunity. Hope that helps.
