I read that as in response to someone white/Group X being told "What are _you_ complaining about?"
To a good degree of approximation, the talk about one group having it better than other is a discussion about one group's mean and/or right tail being greater than the other's. The statement you want the author to recognize is equivalent to that in a probability distribution, some samples really do fall on the right side of the mean.
"White males are privileged" is a reasonable statement to make with plenty of evidence to support it. "You have it better than me because you're a white male" doesn't, because there's a significant amount of overlap in the bell curves of "better off" (regardless of how you define it) between white males, and black women (to give an example).
It's more-or-less the same argument as assuming that any given man is physically stronger than any given woman because on average men are stronger.
Is it though? I think you're going to need to be a lot more specific than that to make a reasonable statement. You can try to support your original statement, but that's so vague it could mean whatever you want.
But on that same dataset it was found that Asians and Whites get more disproportionately more job offers than Black and Hispanic applicants in America. So while things might be shifting or evening out for some characteristics, like gender, in others they are still going strong.
[0] https://i1.wp.com/talent.works/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/re...
And aside from that employment is one dimension of 'privilege'. How could you possibly calculate all the privilege across a human life... there are endless dimensions
- You can't be privileged in getting a promotion in a dead end job where no one gets promoted.
- You can't be privileged in social acceptability if you have a mental health issue that keeps you from going outside.
- You can't be privileged in educational opportunities when you had to quit high school to pay for a parent's medical bills.
It goes on and on. Privalage is real, but it's mostly real for those who are successful, and have a whole pile of luck and privalage backing them up. It's a lot less applicable for everyone else, the suffering masses.
It's not like America has a white police force that discriminates against black people and a black police force that discriminates against white people. We have one police force and it's a white one (in the sense that it tends to be run for the sake of white people and embodies white values).
It's not like we have a white tech sector that discriminates against black people and a black tech sector that discriminates against white people. We have one tech sector that is run (disproportionately) for the sake of white people and embodies white values.
Does that mean that every white person has it good? No. But being white does have privilege associated with it. You're part of the dominant group and have an easier time navigating the social world because of that.
That being said, it's possible to be white and also mentally ill (for example). That doesn't mean you don't have white privilege, it just means you lack the privilege of people without mental illness. Saying someone is privileged doesn't mean that their life is good, it just means it's better than it would otherwise be.
What do you mean by “white values”?