It's because the privilege is being more wealthy, not being white. If the privilege only applies to rich whites and also applies to rich Asians and blacks then it's not white privilege but simply privilege.
>And why CRT is attacked so vigorously.
Have you read any CRT "scholars?" I have, and they are sickening.
Whites get advantages that have nothing to do with being more wealthy.
For example, once in the '80s I was driving around the Los Angeles area around 3 AM (I had insomnia and decide to just drive around randomly, and maybe pick up a snack at a 7-11) when I got pulled over for having one of my tail lights out. I was driving a cheap car, had a full unkempt beard and long hair, was wearing a tie-dyed shirt, and was in my early 20s. Anyone who saw me would probably think druggie.
I gave him my license and told him the registration was in the glove compartment. He shone his light on the glove compartment while I opened it and dug the registration out from under the $1000 in $20 bills that it was under.
He asked me why I had so much cash.
I told him that I'd responded to a classified ad from someone selling a modem for $1000. I was meeting them later that day and that was the money to pay for it.
He gave my license and registration back, told me to get the tail light fixed, and let me go.
I have no confidence that if I had been a young black man driving a cheap car looking like a druggie at 3 AM with $1000 in small bills in the glove compartment that things would have been so hassle free.
Counter-example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-woma...
<edit> Another example indicating the dependent variable is not always wealth:</edit> https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/michael-bennett-las-vega...
While that is anecdotal, the overall statistics of police stops based on race are damning. This is just in the realm of policing, let alone workplace social dynamics, education, and the list goes on. So while class and white privilege are a venn diagram, their overlap is not at all total.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...
Roland is a black economist from Harvard.
It seems many people from both sides just decide the data that refutes their opinion is misinformation. The topic of police discrimination is far more nuanced than either the left or right makes it appear.
And it is easy to find anecdotes that support any narrative you want so your links do little to sway me in the same way if I were to share a link of a white person being harassed it would likely do little to sway you.
Agree about anecdotes. Disagree my opinion cannot be swayed (this is not twitter and I certainly don't fully agree with "the left").
If the assertion is that all rich people are treated the same, regardless of race, then only examples are needed to refute it.
But, beyond anecdotes, the national statistics indicate there are disparities in policing based on race ((1) your citation strongly supports this assertion (2) as an aside and without reference, there are similar damning statistics for incarceration rates and jail sentences, and this is still just in the realm of criminal justice):
https://abcnews.go.com/US/abc-news-analysis-police-arrests-n...
"ABC News analysis of police arrests nationwide reveals stark racial disparity Black people were arrested at a rate five times more than white people in 2018."
"In 250 jurisdictions, black people were 10 times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts"
This one is more anecdotal since it is localized to just one (large) town, but is quite clear and damning: https://www.yahoo.com/now/beverly-hills-police-sued-racist-1...
It's really that simple.
>Whiteness is an invisible veil that cloaks its racist deleterious effects through individuals, organizations, and society. The result is that White people are allowed to enjoy the benefits that accrue to them by virtue of their skin color. Thus, Whiteness, White supremacy, and White privilege are three interlocking forces that disguise racism so it may allow White people to oppress and harm persons of color while maintaining their individual and collective advantage and innocence.
Or from another "scholar"
>How can we account for the ways in which white people refuse to acknowledge their possessive investment in whiteness even as they work to increase its value everyday? We can't blame the color of our skin. It must be the content of our character.
I can't find it now, but I once read a passage from one of these CRT nutjobs' work that really shed light on their insanity. It went something like
>whiteness and white supremacy is not seen directly but rather is society itself. It is the tapestry we are woven of, and we are therefore blind to it. It exists even where it cannot be seen as it is the source of rather than a detail within society.
They are all somewhat careful with what they say. But their effect is real. They are turning being white into an evil, one that cannot be rectified but is an irremovable stain on one's being.
Of course there is this classic response: "I don't think white people are evil, just whiteness, which you are by necessity a part of because you directly contribute to it."
I don't object to the use of "white privilege" to attempt an objective description of reality.
I do object to the notion that more discrimination on the basis of race is the answer. You don't solve a structure fire by adding gasoline.
Interpreted literally, it implies all whites are privileged. This is categorically untrue.
It encourages racism through associating an immutable trait with a negative word. "White privilege" is no more true than saying "Jewish privilege" or "Asian privilege" when referring to trends that do not reflect the whole. For the latter two one would be accused of anti-semitism or racism but for the former it's common parlance. Therefore, to be logically consistent, "white privilege" must also be racist. Associating a negative trait of a minority of a race with the entire race, is in fact, the very definition of racism.
To further exemplify the point whites still hold a majority in the US. This means, by the numbers, there are many more disenfranchised whites than literally any other race. Consequently, there are more very disenfranchised whites who are probably experiencing the same, if not worse, conditions as others races. The right wing gets it wrong, the largest welfare recipient group is in fact low income whites. This makes sense when you actually look at the numbers.
The entire structure of the term "white privilege" is designed first to divide and then to discourage. During the BLM riots you had white people groveling, begging for forgiveness, like this so-called "privilege" is some sort of original sin (which is how it is sold) that can only be cleansed through constant, deliberate self-flaggelation. This repentance ceremony is further promoted (and even incited) by the bigoted and racist Kendi and D'Angelo. Both suggest the only solution to this privilege is constant, deliberate, self-flaggelation. CRT is rightly criticized because being encouraged to denigrate yourself for some alleged (in reality, manufactured) original sin is simply gaslighting.
No one should be made to feel this way on the basis of their skin color. It is simply the race hustlers promoting such terms to sow further division. Division among races means they cannot unite and focus on class issues. Racism, as a tool, is the perfect way to induce this division. "White privilege" is one of many examples of this racism.
Also, assuming you mean Robin DiAngelo, what of hers have you read? She's pretty clear in both White Fragility and Nice Racism in advocating against "constant, deliberate, self-flaggelation" because they center the person doing it and take energy away from productive action.
It's essentially saying 'It was an honor to meet him;' that could mean that you were undeserving, or simply that it was something unusual that most people didn't get to do; if it were common, it wouldn't be a privilege, would it?
In the thread's context, usually it's associated with not granting the privilege to someone else, as well - you have a privilege that others do not, one that you do not do anything to deserve.
I don't know about you, but I don't really believe that 'white privilege' is intended as a positive. It's intended to have a negative connotation, otherwise there would be no impetus for change.
I also agree that terms like "white privilege" are intended as criticism. However I don't see them as criticism of the individual who has the privilege, but rather of the society whose circumstances gave them that privilege. The term is an attempt to promote systems thinking.
> In the thread's context
> but I don't really believe that 'white privilege' is intended as a positive
It's not. Within the context of CRT it has a pretty tight definition: "undeserved benefits"
It doesn't mean that all white people are rich, it means that poor white people are in less of a shitty situation than equally-improverished black people. It could be as simple as just living in a better ZIP code with more opportunities in it[0], for example. But it's still a shitty situation, in the same way that third-degree burns are bad but different from a broken arm.
The constant self-flaggelation approach is actually opposed by a lot of anti-racists specifically because it takes focus away from the victims of racism and to people who benefit from it.
[0] Thanks, Robert Moses.
"Jargon" like that is not accrptable. Would you allow it for any other group? And many people use the term white privilege to mean an intrinsic power held by white people as a result of their oppression of blacks. So you are wrong on all acounts.
>but I've yet to find better terminology than this.
It's hard to come up with a name for something that barely exists in tbe first place. "You're zip-code is privileged" doesn't invoke the same guilt does it?
I grew up white and lower middle class, but I've never been worried about being arrested hanging around my own house (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_contr..., https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/0..., https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/09/17/wisconsin-bla...) or helping one of my neighbors (https://www.npr.org/2022/09/10/1121857070/black-pastor-water...) or taking out my trash (https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/body-camera-footage-re...) or going to a coffee shop (https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/14/17238494/what-happe...) or going to a bank (https://www.gq.com/story/ryan-coogler-bank-of-america-handcu..., https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/black-man-c..., https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/banking-while-black-poli...) or even by police chasing someone completely different (https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/04/us/massachusetts-wrong-suspec...).
Fortunately, I don't jog (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/us/san-antonio-black-jogger-c...), but I do like to eat out (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-apologize-after-...) and I might get sick (https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/10/12/boston-police-arrest-po..., https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/va-resigns-taser-pepp...). I've only been pulled over without cause once (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traff..., https://www.aclu.org/report/driving-while-black-racial-profi...).
Police killing black people for being black as some sort of racist unwritten policy is a myth. The rates shown here make perfect sense. And most (99%?) were armed. Also consider that there are hundreds of millions of Americans. It's difficult to fully grasp just how large that is. The media likes selling stories but that doesn't change the facts. A dozen news articles won't change that.
Second, keep in mind that data about police violence, including deaths, are complete shit because police are not required to report data and no one has an incentive to do so. (I don't know what Statista's data sources are, but did you notice how the number of "unknown" race deaths increased in 2020 and 2021?)
"Across all races and states in the USA, we estimate 30 800 deaths (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 30 300–31 300) from police violence between 1980 and 2018; this represents 17 100 more deaths (16 600–17 600) than reported by the NVSS. Over this time period, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was highest in non-Hispanic Black people (0·69 [95% UI 0·67–0·71] per 100 000), followed by Hispanic people of any race (0·35 [0·34–0·36]), non-Hispanic White people (0·20 [0·19–0·20]), and non-Hispanic people of other races (0·15 [0·14– 0·16]). This variation is further affected by the decedent's sex and shows large discrepancies between states. Between 1980 and 2018, the NVSS did not report 55·5% (54·8–56·2) of all deaths attributable to police violence. When aggregating all races, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was 0·25 (0·24–0·26) per 100 000 in the 1980s and 0·34 (0·34–0·35) per 100 000 in the 2010s, an increase of 38·4% (32·4–45·1) over the period of study." (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6..., https://www.healthdata.org/news-release/lancet-more-half-pol...)
Here's another good article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z I'd suggest following the endnotes. "About 1,000 civilians are killed each year by law-enforcement officers in the United States. By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime. And in another study, Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed."
That is because they commit more violent crimes. Did you know that?
>Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed.
See the last point.
In 99.9% of cases, people killed by police are commiting crimes.
Also note that asians have the lowest rate of being killed by police. I suppose it was asians that were the real whites all along? Or perhaps you simply can't make sweeping conclusions from this data.
"Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed."
The absurd idea that whites are the ones brutalizing blacks in America is an extremely offensive joke.
And do keep in mind that "White alone, not Hispanic or Latino" make up 60% of the population.
Do you refuse the insurance payout after a structure fire because it'd be unfair to the neighbor whose house didn't burn down?
Many people who strongly argue in favour of things like white privilege tend to be well-off, so from their experience the generalisation holds true, but they fail to realize that their experience is not universally shared and dismiss people with things like "racists" or "handbasket of deplorables", without even attempting to understand where the opposition might be coming from.
The entire thing is a catastrophic failure of empathy, which is ironic because the concept of privilege is useful IMHO exactly to understand that your experience is not shared by everyone.
No. He is going to do what everyone is doing. Compete with every tool in his arsenal.
And from his point of view, the competition is a whole bunch of people who inherited THEIR wealth and plenty of people MORE wealthy. Does he see himself as having a privilege compared to all of those people?
Is he going to want to give up any privilege he's got? Especially if some of his competition aren't affected?
I'm not saying it is right. But you'll never get them to agree.
That's why "white privilege" sells so poorly.
Ironically many of them live in liberal, multi-cultural cities filled with rich people who are much more high status than vast swathes of inland rural white people.
IMO, the only thing that makes "white privilege" somewhat interesting, is the extent to which the country made laws and regulations around race. If it were merely tribal preferences of liking people who were genetically closer to you, I'd view it more like being tall as a privilege. But the fact that we used the government and other legal instruments to prop one above the other gives me a certain level of discomfort that I don't have with all the other forms of privilege that exist.
Ultimately we need to allow everyone to have a life with dignity while creating a system that rewards hard work. It'll never be perfect, and trying to play the "luck" / privilege game ends up in the biggest lottery of all, genetics.
Sometimes the current left wing of the Dems work at cross purposes to themselves. On the one hand we need to legislate laws for everything, and on the other hand enforcing laws is discriminatory & abusive and whats a little broken windows here & there, you have to crack some eggs to make an omelette!!
My favorite example is all the gun control rhetoric in NYC while at the same time the Manhattan DA announced he was not going to seek jail terms for non-violent illegal gun possession charges. "LOL nothing matters" is how it feels.
"Two days after being sworn in, Alvin Bragg shared a memo with staff Monday noting that his office will not prosecute low-level offenses like marijuana misdemeanors, refusal to pay for public transportation fare, prostitution and resisting arrest, unless given alongside a felony charge. Instead, they would be offered a community-based diversion program."
Does that sound unreasonable? When about 1 in 150 Americans are currently incarcerated?
The heavy use of the crude tool of locking people up as a solution for crime is a peculiarity of the American judicial approach, in contrast to other Western nations. Certainly there are crimes that warrant it, but possession of something that hasn't caused harm may not meet the bar for this approach, when you look at how counterproductive 'corrections' like this measurably are, and the larger history of its use as a tool of prejudice, poor police work, and the profit motive of privately owned prisons.
John Oliver recently put out an explanation of how bail reform is desperately needed in this country, if you're interested in learning that way. An alarming takeaway I had from it is that half a million Americans are currently in jail awaiting their case to be heard, unable to post bail. They are not convicted, only charged. Some non-zero number of them are innocent, their lives completely upended and in indefinite limbo.
Of the roughly 1 million people incarcerated in state prisons, over 60% are there for violent crimes. About 3.8% are in prison for drug possession - about 40,000. So yes, too many, but not 1 in 150. Now, 1 in 5 people are in jail for some kind of drug offense, but that's not simple possession.
It's definitely worth having the conversation about what to do about that, but don't think that 'possession of something that hasn't caused harm' is the cause of most incarcerations.
Pretending the jails are filled with non-violent simple drug offenders is someone either ill informed or not wanting to have a serious conversation. Either way, they are probably not in a position to be harmed one way or the other by increased criminal violence because they are high status enough to believe their zip code or income insulate them from it.
Further, to your stat of 60% of incarcerated being their for violent offenses probably undersells how many were "violent". The NY bail reform laws were passed by pols who said it only applied to "non violent" offenses.
However the criminal law definition & intuitive civilian understanding of "non violent" do not necessarily align. There were plenty of cases in NYC post 2019 of people getting pushed down the stairs of subways, or sucker punched on the sidewalk which somehow fell into the "non-violent" bucket, for the purposes of the law.
The whole argument on bail reform would be moot if suspects were getting a speedy trial. We shouldn't be hearing of cases where people are out on the streets able to commit 5 different offenses over 9 months while still awaiting trial on the first charges.
Agreed that if speedy trials were a thing, the local jail and bail reform problem would be greatly reduced. But there has been some refuted talking points around someone commiting 5 or 9 (or whatever made up number) of multiple distinct crimes while awaiting trial. If it happens it's exceedingly rare. Please link me to them if you find them.
I mentioned in 1 in 150 Americans because that's the ratio of 2 million to ~300 million of the US population.
PPI did not estimate that 400,000 are currently incarcerated for drug possession. They estimated that 400,000 are currently incarcerated for drug related crimes. In the state system, among people convicted (again, we agree about bail reform, so I wasn't talking about the 500,000 people not convicted, and fed is a totally different animal so focused on what is most likely), only 40,000, according to the PPI estimates, are there for drug possession.
And again, though yes, entering someone's home at night for the purpose of theft is considered a violent crime in some jurisdictions, 600,000 people are estimated to be incarcerated in state prison for violent crimes - of those, maybe you could say that there is an exaggeration in some of the 120k there for robbery. According to that PPI sheet, 140,000 or so are in state prison for murder.
Removing those currently incarcerated while awaiting trial, you have 1.5 million in all prisons and a 453/100k incarceration rate. That's about 4X Canada's. Removing all drug convictions, not just possession, would decrease that number to about 1.25 million. To match Canada's rate, we'd need to have about 350k incarcerated individuals; right now, according to that PPI sheet, we have about 290,000 incarcerated for rape/sexual assault, murder, and manslaughter alone.
Incarcerated for what and for how long? You're just giving numbers without specifying their offenses nor whether they are locked up awaiting trial or the end of their sentences.
Critical theory is a postmodernist (postmarxist?) method, also used by rightwing researchers (Furet immediatly come to mind) to improve our knowledge of certain "facts" beyond the myths our ancestors built.
For example, we applied critical theory to old European cairns, and decided to do more analysis on squeletons we found in the 70s and 80. It appears that we misgendered some, and just because someone was buried with weapons did not mean it was always a man, it could also (in some, limited cases) be a female.
This discovery is actually aligned with the discovery of Celtic law texts (which are very rare, as Celts were mostly an oral culture, sadly).
CRT is basically the same thing, but applied with race. Its basically says "lets review this experiment/discovery from the 50, what could have been a bias of the researchers at the time".
In my opinion, this shouldn't have been separated from critical theory: CRT suffer the same syndrome most of the US does, and the focus on race hide the class issues. My pet theory is that liberals kinda liked the method, but disliked the fact that it was heavily inspired by historical materialism (and carries with it the idea of classism). Taking a marxist global concept and applying it to a limited scope to avoid disturbing everything too much is basically what they did when they transformed the concept of "emancipation" into "empowerment" for feminism. Sure, short-term it works to keep everything still, at what price though.