[LeftNationalist]

I have always marveled at the economic disparity that exists between white proponents of white privilege theory and white opponents of white privilege theory, and just why this is the case.

People who probably believe in white privilege:


(as I've always said, if these brats are that concerned with injustice, they should go home and shoot their parents)

People who almost certainly believe the very concept to be rubbish:



Now of course I should point out right away that I myself believe that white privilege exists in some respects - absent whiteness as a social construction, one simply cannot deny the fact that there are certain inescapable privileges associated with belonging to a demographic constituting a majority in their respective social environments. What interests me, however, is how a simple observation can evolve into such a smelly hodgepodge of self-serving nonsense. And I believe there is a pathological explanation for this:

I believe the theory is attractive because the convenience of dissociation; personal responsibility becoming collective responsibility. After all, these are people who are educated - they have an understanding of the suffering brought on by inequality, and the glaring economic discrepancies resulting from the current economic system - a system from which they themselves are the beneficiaries. And because most people have a need to feel good about themselves - virtuous, decent, caring - the facts as they exist in reality, of which they are well aware, are simply irreconcilable with their pathology.

Hence, "white privilege" is a defense mechanism by which they come to believe their own affluence and privilege is simply the result of something of which they cannot help or control: their race. It also allows for the delusion that they are fighting in the interest of equality - not by fighting against their own economic empowerment and privileged access to capital - but by fighting against an abstract notion of privilege, through which personal guilty, free-agency and responsibility, rather than affluence, is shared equally and liberally among all members.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Privilege exists for people among many different groups, and in some respects, white privilege is a real notion depending on where you go or what the context is. If you want to teach English in China, being non-white, even if you are a native speaker of English from one of the inner circle Anglophone countries, will put you at a disadvantage. Tutsis in Rwanda were favored by the Belgian colonists because they were perceived to be less black, and slightly more white, than their other countrymen. Imperialism, slavery, and colonialism have existed since the dawn of civilization and none were invented by whites or Euro-Americans. Yet, the modern world is largely shaped by white, European imperialism and colonialism. Nary a corner of the globe hasn't been affected by Euro-American imperialism.

However, Western (or, perhaps, MENA liberals) liberals could be complaining today about Arab privilege had the Battle of Tours gone another way. Europeans simply learned how to build bigger empires, made the slave trade truly international and global in scope, and discovered far more land to colonize than their rivals. The root cause of inequality today is not race, or whites, it is an economic system that exists only through exploitation and inequality itself.

I agree with your sentiments that self-serving virtue-signalling white liberals "fighting against" white privilege are, well, self-serving. These people do nothing to address the fundamental elements of exploitation and inequality of capitalism. At the same time these idiots try to peddle their shit to the working class, the robber barons go by unaffected. The fact of the matter is that one day, Asia's development will continue forward and may eclipse the West. We could look into the future, see Asians leading the global economy, and there will undoubtedly be people complaining about "Asian privilege," while completely missing the point about any ethnic group or race being in a more advantageous position is a matter of history and economics, and entirely missing the point about capitalism, exploitation of most of the population, and the relegation of most people into the position of selling their labor for a pittance at best, is the actual driving force behind inequality.

[Rich]

We WIgs, White Infidel Gentiles have done great things, but we have inherited an ideology of self hate. Cultural Marxism although starting out as a strategy to spread the Bolshevik system has become the vehicle for an atheistic Christianity. Christianity was started by a self hating homosexual Jew called Paul. Judaism is pack of lies about Israelite / Jewish superiority. Christianity inherits this nonsense but attempts to obfuscate it, adding ever more layers of nonsense, but the disgusting bigoted racist lie that the Jews were the creators chosen people remains.

White privilege is a lie. WIg's are massively under-represented by at America's top universities. The reason that Blacks do so badly is their culture. Its got nothing to do with White privilege. Blacks that are not descended from US slaves do as well or better than Whites in America. Obama becoming President was very much emblematic of their success. White privilege is just another version of Christian self hate. Check out the Medieval monstery, created for the sole purpose of allowing the privileged to engage in endemic virtue signalling.

[Zagadka]

I think that "white privilege" exists in the terms that some people do not understand how difficult people in lower "castes" have with the problems in their lives - the assumption that they can just stop being poor/avoiding an education/stop doing drugs/gangs/single parenthood/whatever as easily as flicking a switch, since the "privileged" have never had to deal with those problems their entire daily life since being born.

It is essentially cultural misunderstanding, not something anyone is "guilty" of or something that needs to be engineered against. There are better ways to address these issues.

[Wellsy]

I think from the material conditions there are status effects that are their core reflect relations of power and wealth but then become associated with concrete appearances.
The only reason race has any social significance is because of a history where it happened that many countries with darker people were colonized and enslaved.
The shape of the world and it's relations made things like skin color socially significant and with a social meaning derived from their relations which have then been carried on into new forms.
It's from this that a black person could be in a well off position in society, but still subject to negative effects and actions on the basis of status associated with their skin color as still relevant in racialized societies.
Hence, Obama was able to be president but he was subject to particular hostility because he was black.
Why is there a status affect on being black relative to being white, because on average, despite the mobility of the Obamas positionally, the majority of black people in the America as concieved and experienced by other Americans are as an underlcass and all that is associated with such poverty.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

The Supreme Court seems to share that sentiment. The past two decades have witnessed a rollback of the progressive legislation of the 1960s. Liberals have found themselves on the defensive. In 2008, when Barack Obama was a candidate for president, he was asked whether his daughters—Malia and Sasha—should benefit from affirmative action. He answered in the negative.

The exchange rested upon an erroneous comparison of the average American white family and the exceptional first family. In the contest of upward mobility, Barack and Michelle Obama have won. But they’ve won by being twice as good—and enduring twice as much. Malia and Sasha Obama enjoy privileges beyond the average white child’s dreams. But that comparison is incomplete. The more telling question is how they compare with Jenna and Barbara Bush—the products of many generations of privilege, not just one. Whatever the Obama children achieve, it will be evidence of their family’s singular perseverance, not of broad equality.

But skin color is reified into a static identity...
http://unityandstruggle.org/2013/09/12/i-am-a-woman-and-a-human-a-marxist-feminist-critique-of-intersectionality-theory/

For several pages, Fanon argues that black people must embrace blackness, and struggle on the basis of being black, in order to negate white supremacists social relations. But to stop there reproduces our one-sided existence and the forms of appearance of capitalism. Identity politics argues, “I am a black man,” or “I am a woman,” without filling out the other side of the contradiction “…and I am a human.” If the starting and ending point is one-sided, there is no possibility for abolishing racialized and gendered social relations. For supporters of identity politics (despite claiming otherwise), womanhood, a form of appearance within society, is reduced to a natural, static “identity.” Social relations such as “womanhood,” or simply gender, become static objects, or “institutions.” Society is therefore organized into individuals, or sociological groups with natural characteristics. Therefore, the only possibility for struggle under identity politics is based on equal distribution or individualism (I will discuss this further below). This is a bourgeois ideology in that it replicates the alienated individual invented and defended by bourgeois theorists and scientists (and materially enforced) since capitalism’s birth.

And this staticness essentially summarizes their reactionary core in which they don't wish to essentially change much. They're prone to charity over justice, they essentially like the very relations that underpin such disparity but want to soften it a bit and cleanse the space of nasty epithets so that out of sight out of mind.

[LeftNationalist]

I've been very busy and am just now getting back to this - I apologize.

I think that "white privilege" exists in the terms that some people do not understand how difficult people in lower "castes" have with the problems in their lives - the assumption that they can just stop being poor/avoiding an education/stop doing drugs/gangs/single parenthood/whatever as easily as flicking a switch, since the "privileged" have never had to deal with those problems their entire daily life since being born.

It is essentially cultural misunderstanding, not something anyone is "guilty" of or something that needs to be engineered against. There are better ways to address these issues.

I agree with this. By no means do I endorse victim blaming - the idea that white privilege is an excuse to explain away white performance and non-white underperformance and that minority communities should "fall in line and do right" couldn't be any further from my motivations.

Speaking of which, for me personally, one of the most frustrating aspects of opposing the popular conception of white privilege is the type of people it attracts - and there is no better example of this than the blatant fascist who replied right after Bulaba Jones.

[Suntzu]

No doubt the 15 point I.Q. advantage has much to do with it. Don't believe it? Look at the advantage of European Jews and Orientals.

[Pants-of-dog]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-cro ... 69255.html

[Suntzu]

I can see where having white skin in an all white or nearly all white society would be an advantage. Some how the Vietnamese, Chinese, Korans and even the Mexicans have overcome this disadvantage. Only the Black can't seem to make it. What is the difference? I.Q.

[mikema63]

"scientific" racism

[Suntzu]

Interestingly, Blacks have a bifurcated I.Q. distribution. The higher subgroup does well, lots of Black doctors and lawyers. Seems like if Blacks work hard, get and education they will do O.K. Same goes for Whites. Sit on your ass, drop out of school, knock out some illegitimate children and you will be poor.

[LeftNationalist]

So black people suffer as a group because they are prone to sitting on their ass, dropping out of school and having children out of wedlock?

Has it occurred to you that perhaps those are symptoms of a cause and not the cause itself? After all, aren't disadvantaged people of any race more prone to such? Isn't it absolutely inevitable that the effects of economical/societal disadvantage manifest in one's lifestyle?

Do you actually expect people subjected to generations of poverty and exploitation to have a "Father Knows Best" type of home life? And then when they don't, you have the gall to name that as the cause? Isn't that like shooting someone in the foot and then blaming their scream?

[Suntzu]

Have you taken a look at Blacks in other parts of the world, say London or sub-Saharan Africa or just about any other place you find large Black populations?

[Godstud]

Apologies for Suntzu. He's a blatant racist.

Zagadka's correct, and I agree with your assessment of it, LeftNationalist.

it's something people have to acknowledge, but by no means feel guilty about.

[Suntzu]

I can remember when I was privileged to work 14 hours a day seven days a week.

[Pants-of-dog]

White privilege has been discussed by academics and progressives for decades now. I find it amusing that conservatives have only heard about it in the last few years.

At this rate, they will discover intersectionality by 2035.

[Zagadka]

White privilege has been discussed by academics and progressives for decades now. I find it amusing that conservatives have only heard about it in the last few years..

Well, it is academics, so that explains why conservatives have never heard of it.

[Atlantis]

To deny that white privilege exists is to be completely delusional and ignorant of the world. With a German or US passport, you can travel freely to most countries, get a job and residence permit, or even live as expat better than many natives. Try to do that with a Somali passport and you'll immediately understand the difference. If you don't get killed, mugged or raped on the way, you'll most likely end up in the gutter no matter where you go.

To be aware of this fact is not pathological and has nothing to do with a guilty consciousness. On the contrary, it is the only way of justifying the privilege and of working towards greater equality.

Deep down, most whites understand that they don't deserve the privilege. That's why they turn to racism and white supremacy to compensate their fear of losing it. Since hating non-whites isn't enough, they also hate the so-called elites, which they depend on for the very privilege they imagine to be their birthright. However, the source of white privilege is the knowledge revolution that started during the Renaissance. Those who are at the cutting edge of that revolution will have the privilege, no matter whether white, brown or green.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The more egalitarian societies become, the more privilege or similar concepts are invoked to explain away differences. Otherwise, the house of cards on which the world view of progressives is built comes crashing down. That's pretty much at the heart of most of our problems today.

[ThirdTerm]

Now of course I should point out right away that I myself believe that white privilege exists in some respects - absent whiteness as a social construction, one simply cannot deny the fact that there are certain inescapable privileges associated with belonging to a demographic constituting a majority in their respective social environments.

It's easier to get a job if you have an English name in Britain rather than an Asian one and Asian Britons are more likely to fail to land a job upon graduation regardless of their excellent grades in school. But this is similar to Japanese individuals who are more privileged in their own society than Korean or Chinese residents, who are almost excluded from the formal education system and the job market. Calling it white privilege is a misnomer but we can fairly say that resident aliens are discriminated.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) workers are much more likely than white workers to be in insecure jobs such as zero-hours contracts, according to the Trades Union Congress.

The TUC is urging policymakers and employers to tackle bias and racism in the workplace after its research found one in every 13 BAME workers is in temporary or zero-hours work, compared with one in 20 white workers.

Its analysis of the 3.1 million BAME employees in the UK, showed that nearly a quarter of a million were in temporary jobs or on zero-hours contracts that do not guarantee workers a minimum number of hours in any given week.

Black workers in particular faced insecurity at work, and were more than twice as likely as white workers to be in temporary and zero-hours work, the research found. One in eight black workers were employed on that basis, compared with one in 20 white workers.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/ ... y-jobs-tuc