Racist - The Bear and Badger

LivDiv

There is a certain amount of mental maturity and humbleness associated with accepting that something totally out of your control such as skin colour affords you privilege. This is especially true for skin colour as it a person's default. To understand it one must take a step back and view it from another angle, many people just don't have that in them. I'll tell you who does have that capacity though, kids.

Diluted Dante

I think Trevor Noah has a reasonable explanation of white privilage.

davyK

re that Trevor Noah thing. That does explain it but it exposes the phrase "white privilege" as not being entirely useful to the narrative as it requires explanation as is done in that clip. Black impediment or black exploitation might have been better (even with the exploitation having been carried out by whites).

Roujin

It requires like 10 seconds of explanation.

GooberTheHat

When I was growing up people looked down on me because of the street I lived on. People looked down on me because of the clothes I wore. People looked down on me because I was from a single parent family. When I was a teenager the police used to pull me over regularly (probably once a month or so).

I certainly didn't feel like I enjoyed any privilege in my life compared to anyone else. My life was hard, if you'd have told me I was privileged I have told you to fuck off and asked you where is my privilege, what privilege am I enjoying? My life is just as shit as anyone else's.

I get it now, I did have advantages, or privilege, but it's hard to see or acknowledge them when you're trying to dig yourself out of a hole with your finger nails. That's why I dislike the phrase. Not because it is incorrect, but because it is easy to misconstrue as an attack on people who are themselves struggling, and it can feel like dismissing peoples struggles, or even blaming them for them "even with all that white privilege your life still shit, you must be a proper pathetic cunt". I know that's not what is being said at all, but it can certainly feel like that when you're close to the bottom rung.

Tempy

Given how my life is going these days, I don't feel like I am a recipient of the privilege of my race, but I know that in so many ways I am. I don't have an issue with the phrase, I think it's easy enough to understand with a little digging, but Goobs is right that it has emotive weight behind it.

It's our duty as mature adults to understand these things though, and understand that everyone in the world has a complex set of advantages and disadvantages that they are born with, or grow become burdened or elevated by.

GooberTheHat

Yeah, but you're an intelligent, educated, world wise individual. You are a minority.

GooberTheHat

Armitage_Shankburn

I don't find the concept of white privilege useful, helpful or tactically astute if one's aim is to promote equality and fairness. For me its rise to prominence is the epitome of a culture that looks to deploy sharp elbows sideways, to blame one another, instead of forming alliances to do the only thing most people can do, which is to use their collective bargaining and social power to demand change.

It is ultimately rooted in a sense of powerlessness and the endorphin release caused by quick wins. Same deal with JK Rowling and so on.

I do find the concept of male privilege useful up to a point. Like, I just went for a walk in the park in the dead of night. Stuff like that. I don't need to wash as often or use chemicals on my face and whatnot. I have had work encounters when I stepped in and my word was accepted, but fundamentally I wasn't saying anything different to a female colleague. That kinda stuff.

Class privilege is where it's at. My class privilege, acquired in another country, was sufficient to get me to Oxford. People I met later on in life - my friend GBK Dave, whose father owns a burger stall outside white hart lane, I realised what privilege I had compared to him. For me to talk to him about his white privilege would be insane.

But then again, I'm not black. Or Pakistani. Still, let's just talk about racism then.

LivDiv

It can be as simple or complex as you want to make it really.
It can be as basic as "black people are prejudged by the colour of their skin in a negative way".

Or you can start to explore the depth as it is touched upon in that video and I feel doing so is really very important in finding a solution to this.
Noah makes a good point at the end that this isn't about the white guy asking the question or Noah, a mixed race South African. It is between Black Americans and the American gov.

Its important to see how exactly that privilege or lack of manifests because it is different across countries and histories.

At a very basic level American soil was toiled by black slaves whose descendants still live there while Europeans generally benefited by the trade or using slaves away from the mother land. This changes how reparations should be paid, while America can look at its own population the UK, France, Holland should be paying to countries that have since become independent of their empires. We should really be paying a portion of the reparations to Black Americans.

BTW the Samuel L Jackson docs on iPlayer are excellent.

GooberTheHat

Class privilege is where its at. With you on that gonzo.

Tempy

Class is very important in the UK, but it frequently goes hand in hand with race too. I do think there's a lot of blending of these issues though.

Roujin

I'm for the breaking down of all privileges through the betterment of society tbh, no reason why they can't all have some form of scrutiny passed over the systemic issues which cause those privileges to perpetuate as there's a whole load of places where they start to cross over.

Armitage_Shankburn

My father grew up with 8 siblings, in a village in the atlas mountains.

On my mum's side, she missed that by a few years.

How come I had that class privilege? Well, those two,. My father in particular, were educated gratis by a country that only just was leaving the French system. Then they had good jobs in a country that was being built. It all went to shit in the end but my position is the result of opportunities given them (and therefore me) in the 60s and 70s by a socialist system. Socialism massively undermines or unskews class.

Like I was poor here. Or lower middle class. My father drove cabs and owned a grocers by the end. But the effect was in already.

hunk

White privilege is kindof a shit term but a very real concept.
It's a divide and conquer strategy usually employed by the right; keep them (the lower class) divided (racism!) so they can't unite in realisation they're getting screwed over by the higher castes. In times of (economic) downturn just blame the minorities for everything and the natives will vote conservative. Tried and tested over aeons of human history.

In return, society's privileges are allowed to be skewed (biased) to the native side; in our case white. In the end it's definitely a class thing and socialism is a definite threat to this class hierarchy. Which is why conservatives and the right are doing everything they can to keep the class pyramid intact. Why should they give up the positions of power and accumulated wealth they worked so hard to earn over generations of time?

davyK

Roujin wrote:

It requires like 10 seconds of explanation.

To anyone who will listen, yes.

Armitage_Shankburn

Why not speak of racism, racial justice, justice, equality of opportunity, etc etc?

Armitage_Shankburn

I mean, it doesn't bother me, I just think it is easily manipulated by the bastards.

LivDiv

hunk wrote:

It's a divide and conquer tactic usually employed by the right; keep them (the lower class) divided (racism!) so they can't unite in realisation they're getting screwed over by the higher castes. In times of (economic) downturn just blame the minorities for everything and the natives will vote conservative. Tried and tested over aeons of human history.

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

Herman Goering at Nuremburg.

hunk

Yup, tried and tested.
It's a nasty tactic but it fucking just works. Hence Trump and Boris having no qualms deploying it as an effective election strategy.

LivDiv

The most effective counter attack to such is to reject otherism at all levels and to treat and react to individuals as individuals.

GurtTractor

I think the thing to remember is that privilege goes all the way up and all the way down, there's always someone who's in a more or less advantageous position than you. Like I've known people that wouldn't see themselves as privileged relative to me at all, despite them growing up with parents that could afford to take them on skiing holidays and other travels, whereas being able to go abroad was inconcievable to me with our financial situation. And I know that there are many others that have had a less well off upbringing than me, if we aren't aware of these differences then we cannot empthasise with other people and groups and make allowances to try and reblance things.

It might be that there's a better term than white privilege, for race it's usually that non-white people are relatively disadvantaged as apposed to white people being positively advantaged. You could say that lack of disadvantage / advantage is just the same thing, but I think there's a subtle emotive difference. Personally I have no particular problem with the term white privilege as applied to myself, I understand the wider context enough that it makes sense, but I can see how many others might feel some offence towards it.

Perhaps it could be called 'white advantage', or 'non-white disadvantage'. Probably more cumbersome than the snappy white privilege but I think it's very important to use language carefully and consider the nuances, especially with social issues.

Just a quick search and others are also thinking about this - https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/11/15/why-its-better-talk-about-advantage-rather-privilege-essay

Unpacking systematically unfair systems through the language of advantage affords nuance. The poor white farmer lacks economic advantage but still possesses white advantage, and he can thus interact with law enforcement without fear. The wealthy black businessperson lacks racial advantage but can mitigate some of the negative effects of that through the strategic use of wealth. The difference? The white farmer will always be white. The black businessperson may not have always been wealthy, may lose his or her wealth, and his or her wealth can be ignored by a more powerful government.

The language of advantage also implies intersectionality, and this allows for a better understanding of one’s net advantage. For example, I am a Mexican-American man. I do not have “male privilege.” I am a man, and that affords certain unjust advantages when it comes to the salary I can earn and where I can work. However, for a person of color that salary may come with expectations for more service that, for all their merit, can be distracting and lead to less productivity.

All this leads to a certain uncomfortable truth: we are not -- and have never been -- equal when it comes to the advantages we possess. All lives do not matter equally in practice (although they should). It is time we adopt language around racism, sexism, etc., that helps move the conversation forward. Only then can we begin to measure and understand the mechanisms of inequality that lead to needless suffering.

When we shift the language to that of advantages and disadvantages, it foregrounds how unjust and arbitrary some of those advantages are -- while also allowing us to quantify relative (dis)advantage better. The language of privilege, on the other hand, obfuscates the systems of oppression it is meant to highlight. It is time we move on from using it.

Armitage_Shankburn

Who gives a shit, this all sounds so theoretical. In what scholarly book is this covered? It's pop philosophy and is of no practical use. Sorry, bit you don't make an alliance with young white men in darlo, either on the dole, or working in some fucking giant warehouse, by explaining to them that they are privileged relative to Muslims or summat. It's utterly self defeating. You build a better country together and good things will happen if you get it right when it comes to redistribution

I'm really sorry but I think this is all fucking mad, honestly. It's horribly impractical, and insofar as it's some kind of theoretical framework for viewing the structures in our society it's utterly second rate compared to, well, Marx, Piketty, th Fabians stuff, the levellers, the Chartrists or whatever the fuck you want to read. It's the last refuge of the desperate angry individual, socialism in one person. It's madness. Make common cause with others, don't ask them to confess their sins first. Anyway, that's just me innit. Mad old fucking ozno

davyK

Aye. When people are doing are OK and feel it, I'd predict that they'd tend not to give a toss about colour or creed. And won't be fodder for populists.

Of course there will be cunts still.

hunk

Rage against the machine.
Don't blame the people, blame the system.
Then offer change; a way out. Socialism on the left can be that option.

The game is obviously rigged from above, it takes education and perhaps a bit of life experience for people to see through the bs. As (former) Edge readers I'm guessing many here have enjoyed higher/uni education coming from a working class background. We're intelligent enough to see through the propaganda nonsense while others who have not enjoyed that privilege aren't so lucky.

LivDiv

LivDiv wrote:

The most effective counter attack to such is to reject otherism at all levels and to treat and react to individuals as individuals.

Minnesänger

Unlikely wrote:

Facepalm.

GurtTractor

I disagree that all this is of no practical use. The whole point is or should be to generate empathy and understanding for each other, and recognise that we are all essentially the same human just under different circumstances and contexts. By appreciating other people's experiences of life we create connections and move towards unity and away from otherism, bringing clarity to the real big problems we face. This is how we will make progress.

Vela

Diluted Dante wrote:

I think Trevor Noah has a reasonable explanation of white privilage.

This is the same Trevor Noah who racially attacked indigenous australian women and didn't apologise to anyone yeah?

He might be right, but he is still a hypocrite.

hunk

Aye, Trevor Noah can be a fucking hypocritical knob sometimes. Too focussed and self centred on his ethnic background. He's right in that vid tho.

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