by EndofMysteries 61 Replies latest jw friends
Eom, simply because your ancestors were white, you benefit from white privilege. You are pulled over less often by the police, you enjoy a higher employment rate and can shop in public without suspicion, among other things.
Please research this. It's a verified phenomenon. It's designed to be invisible to those who benefit from it.
simply because your ancestors were white, you benefit from white privilege. You are pulled over less often by the police, you enjoy a higher employment rate and can shop in public without suspicion, among other things.
you say this like it is absolute fact everywhere. Where I have lived poor whites were not treated any better than blacks or mexicans. Indeed there was prejudice but not just toward blacks. Mexicans in this area were often treated worse than blacks and poor whites were refused service just as blacks.
Please speak about what you know about. i can only speak for the area I grew up in and have lived all my life.
GrreatTeacher - First I'll say Russian and Italian immigrants, and especially Asians were very discriminated against as well in the early 1900's. Anyway are you saying that blacks are pulled over more often for no reason because whites and asians are committing just as many crimes, and that whites have a higher employment even though most blacks value education and getting a good job, and that from all survellience cameras and caught criminals, whites and asians shoplift and steal from stores just as much as blacks but only blacks are scrutinized?
My thoughts so far, and please correct me if I'm wrong, are that it's not a phenomenon at all. But that whites enjoy a higher employment because STATISTICALLY more whites have both parents in their lives, more often they value education, college, and advancing in work and due to those things they are less likely to be in poverty and motivated to steal things.
I feel really bad for all the blacks who DO try to live a good life. I think the real issue is that a large percentage of the black community look down on education, and getting a good job or even any job which is the real reason for the lower employment levels. A huge percentage don't have their fathers around(I have no idea how race plays into that phenomenon but it's true), there is just a big part that keep themselves down and try to keep everyone else down with them. Those ones while bringing the low or non employment on themselves, committing many crimes, etc, all blaming it on the white man and it makes those trying to do the right thing look bad and those people get upset because police look more or they may get suspicious looks in shops, etc. So the ones to blame are those of that community keeping everybody else down. Whites in this country did oppress and keep them down for a long time, but now blacks have even more rights then whites, and many employers, colleges, etc, have to make sure they have 'diversity'. Blacks as a whole community can be advancing and working their way up. But as long as they think it's cool to have kids with 5 or 10 different girls, idolizying the thug lifestyle, thinking that education, proper grammar, and a good job are 'too white', they'll continue to be a disproportionate amount in jail because of crime, unemployment, etc, and somehow they'll still be blaming whites for that, even though it's their own choice.
@EOM. So, now you know the reason for white privilege? It's because blacks really do do things to deserve the discrimination? That's an ugly accusation.
This is actually an academic area of study, not just a theory. It is backed by statistics. And there is no evidence that blacks are encouraging the phenomenon. In fact, there are academic discussions about the function of the kind of shaming that you speak about. It's about policing group boundaries. A subjugated group survives because of group cohesion. Again, research it. I am unable to write an academic paper on the subject for this forum.
@Violia, I, of course, can't speak to your personal experience, just as you can't speak of the experiences of other ethnicities. Which, of course, is the point. This is a macro phenomenon not well understood at the personal level.
Sorry, EOM, I forgot to answer the question in your first paragraph and the answer is yes. Blacks are victims of all of those things even if they don't statistically commit the most crimes. That's called institutional racism when a minority is singled out for things that are not statistically supported by real world statistics.
Blacks form less than 20% of the population. White people commit more crimes, but blacks are punished more harshly for the same crimes.
Blacks with the same level of education as whites suffer from higher unemployment and lower salaries.
When all other things are equal, blacks have worse outcomes than whites. Proven with statistics, it's a phenomenon called institutional racism and its counterpoint is white privilege where statistics show a white person to be more likely to have a positive result.
Re: the black / black or white / white crime ...
Statistically, whatever your color, you are more likely to be murdered by someone of the same color. This is because people typically live in the same communities and have the same circles so it doesn't mean as much as people imagine it does when expressed as percentages.
The level of crime in either group is more important and of course the 15% or so of cross-ethnic murders which tend to get all the news attention.
It's a shame if some see the answer to problems in their community and claims of unfair opportunitites is to make sure that people in the community don't take the opportunities available to better themselves.
Really, if someone has a problem with anyone else getting educated or getting a job, speaking properly or dressing with some self respect then they deserve the world they chose to live in.
you benefit from white privilege.
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A term coined in the 60's - utterly ridiculous and offensive -nothing more than a way to continue to divide a country into color. sw
Tal Fortgang '17 / April 2, 2014
There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. “Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung. “Check your privilege,” they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world.
I do not accuse those who “check” me and my perspective of overt racism, although the phrase, which assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it, toes that line. But I do condemn them for diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of white maleness who places it out for me before I even arrive. Furthermore, I condemn them for casting the equal protection clause, indeed the very idea of a meritocracy, as a myth, and for declaring that we are all governed by invisible forces (some would call them “stigmas” or “societal norms”), that our nation runs on racist and sexist conspiracies. Forget “you didn’t build that;” check your privilege and realize that nothing you have accomplished is real.
But they can’t be telling me that everything I’ve done with my life can be credited to the racist patriarchy holding my hand throughout my years of education and eventually guiding me into Princeton. Even that is too extreme. So to find out what they are saying, I decided to take their advice. I actually went and checked the origins of my privileged existence, to empathize with those whose underdog stories I can’t possibly comprehend. I have unearthed some examples of the privilege with which my family was blessed, and now I think I better understand those who assure me that skin color allowed my family and I to flourish today.
Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded Poland, leaving their mother and five younger siblings behind, running and running until they reached a Displaced Persons camp in Siberia, where they would do years of hard labor in the bitter cold until World War II ended. Maybe it was the privilege my grandfather had of taking on the local Rabbi’s work in that DP camp, telling him that the spiritual leader shouldn’t do hard work, but should save his energy to pass Jewish tradition along to those who might survive. Perhaps it was the privilege my great-grandmother and those five great-aunts and uncles I never knew had of being shot into an open grave outside their hometown. Maybe that’s my privilege.
Or maybe it’s the privilege my grandmother had of spending weeks upon weeks on a death march through Polish forests in subzero temperatures, one of just a handful to survive, only to be put in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she would have died but for the Allied forces who liberated her and helped her regain her health when her weight dwindled to barely 80 pounds.
Perhaps my privilege is that those two resilient individuals came to America with no money and no English, obtained citizenship, learned the language and met each other; that my grandfather started a humble wicker basket business with nothing but long hours, an idea, and an iron will—to paraphrase the man I never met: “I escaped Hitler. Some business troubles are going to ruin me?” Maybe my privilege is that they worked hard enough to raise four children, and to send them to Jewish day school and eventually City College.
Perhaps it was my privilege that my own father worked hard enough in City College to earn a spot at a top graduate school, got a good job, and for 25 years got up well before the crack of dawn, sacrificing precious time he wanted to spend with those he valued most—his wife and kids—to earn that living. I can say with certainty there was no legacy involved in any of his accomplishments. The wicker business just isn’t that influential.Now would you say that we’ve been really privileged? That our success has been gift-wrapped?
That’s the problem with calling someone out for the “privilege” which you assume has defined their narrative. You don’t know what their struggles have been, what they may have gone through to be where they are. Assuming they’ve benefitted from “power systems” or other conspiratorial imaginary institutions denies them credit for all they’ve done, things of which you may not even conceive. You don’t know whose father died defending your freedom. You don’t know whose mother escaped oppression. You don’t know who conquered their demons, or may still conquering them now.
The truth is, though, that I have been exceptionally privileged in my life, albeit not in the way any detractors would have it.
It has been my distinct privilege that my grandparents came to America. First, that there was a place at all that would take them from the ruins of Europe. And second, that such a place was one where they could legally enter, learn the language, and acclimate to a society that ultimately allowed them to flourish.
It was their privilege to come to a country that grants equal protection under the law to its citizens, that cares not about religion or race, but the content of your character.
It was my privilege that my grandfather was blessed with resolve and an entrepreneurial spirit, and that he was lucky enough to come to the place where he could realize the dream of giving his children a better life than he had.
But far more important for me than his attributes was the legacy he sought to pass along, which forms the basis of what detractors call my “privilege,” but which actually should be praised as one of altruism and self-sacrifice. Those who came before us suffered for the sake of giving us a better life. When we similarly sacrifice for our descendents by caring for the planet, it’s called “environmentalism,” and is applauded. But when we do it by passing along property and a set of values, it’s called “privilege.” (And when we do it by raising questions about our crippling national debt, we’re called Tea Party radicals.) Such sacrifice of any form shouldn’t be scorned, but admired.
My exploration did yield some results. I recognize that it was my parents’ privilege and now my own that there is such a thing as an American dream which is attainable even for a penniless Jewish immigrant.
I am privileged that values like faith and education were passed along to me. My grandparents played an active role in my parents’ education, and some of my earliest memories included learning the Hebrew alphabet with my Dad. It’s been made clear to me that education begins in the home, and the importance of parents’ involvement with their kids’ education—from mathematics to morality—cannot be overstated. It’s not a matter of white or black, male or female or any other division which we seek, but a matter of the values we pass along, the legacy we leave, that perpetuates “privilege.” And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Behind every success, large or small, there is a story, and it isn’t always told by sex or skin color. My appearance certainly doesn’t tell the whole story, and to assume that it does and that I should apologize for it is insulting. While I haven’t done everything for myself up to this point in my life, someone sacrificed themselves so that I can lead a better life. But that is a legacy I am proud of.
I have checked my privilege. And I apologize for nothing.
Tal Fortgang is a freshman from New Rochelle, NY. He plans to major in either History or Politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
This is the, "I've suffered, too." response. It does not negate either the person's unique life experience nor the existence of institutional racism.
Whining about people who say the meritocracy is a myth doesn't make it any less true. Just because people have succeeded despite difficult circumstances means neither that the meritocracy myth is not true nor that others who have put forth equal effort haven't failed.
True, life is unequal and unfair, but it's more unequal and more unfair for others simply because of their race.
GrreatTeacher - "@EOM. So, now you know the reason for white privilege? It's because blacks really do do things to deserve the discrimination? That's an ugly accusation." - I will answer and spell this out real clearly. Blacks who drop out of school and think getting educated is too white, doing well in school is too white, do not deserve high paying jobs because they don't have the skills and qualifications needed. Would you let a black who didn't finish high school and didn't get training perform brain surgery on you? Or are you being racist by not letting them be a brain surgeon? Now when 'those' blacks turn around and complain they can't get a job or advance in life because of discrimination, it was their choices. Now if on the other hand you have a black who did go through school, college, etc, and is on every aspect fully qualified then THAT would be true discrimination and I would be on their side that they are being wronged.
"This is actually an academic area of study, not just a theory. It is backed by statistics. And there is no evidence that blacks are encouraging the phenomenon."- Can you link me these statstics and studies? I have never heard of such things. Now before 1965, I would have agreed. After the civil war and after blacks had freedom, in the southern states where they could vote they were kicked out, then a new form of slavery, the company stores came out, then many laws and the jim crow laws which held them back and had many jailed for no good reason, etc.
"Blacks form less than 20% of the population. White people commit more crimes, but blacks are punished more harshly for the same crimes."Now as for the white people commit more crimes, do you mean in the sense of if there are 100million whites and 10 million blacks, if 20% of whites commit crime and 50% of blacks commit crime that it's 20million whites vs 5 million blacks? Or do you mean statistically out of 10 or 100 whites or blacks that whites have a higher percentage of criminals?
Is this about crime statistics or racial stereotyping?
