Is There Such A Thing As "White Privilege"?

[Hazi-Hammenuhoth]

Or is it a racist invention?

[Old_Geezer]

No
Yes

[Mamyalynne]

It's an old term and is one no doubt often misused, which doesn't help debate very much.

It was probably more evident i its original sense when it was first coined by (reputedly) William Du Bois in the 1930s.

[jourdain2]

Not these days.

[Atheist]

It's the good time that white people have when they live in a white dominant culture; i.e. where servants, slaves, inferiors happen to have dark skins or the wrong type of ancestor. Imagine if things were the other way round, then I expect you would understand what black privilege meant.

[Hymie]

If you are white then you have white privilege, if you are not white – then you do not.

[Hymie]

It could be argued that there is something called black privilege – if you are black and drive an expensive flashy car, you will have the privilege of the police regularly pulling you over to search for drugs/guns etc.

[Theland]

Yes there is a white privelege.
Its summed up in one word, Freedom.
Its characteristics, are equality of opportunity, freedom of religion, or none, freedom of speech, democracy, social security and health care, a culture of national pride, and consensual policing and laww and order.
Yes indeed we are privileged to have had previous generations willing to make the ultimate sacrifices so that we, their progeny, were given a decent start and something worthy on which to build.

[mibn2cweus]

Privilege is best recognised by those from whom it has been withheld, withdrawn or denied. Any distinction made on the basis of race is racist.

[LadyCG]

Perhaps we should ask a non-biased non-privileged person.

Lewis Hamilton?

[emmie]

I'm white and don't feel myself privileged in any respect.
yes i believe it is racist intervention.

[Theland]

Mibs - Who in this country is denied equality of opportunity and the freedoms we enjoy?

[Canary42]

How can it be a racist invention when racists are the very people who deny it exists ?

[sevenOP]

https://archive.org/details/racialoppression0000blau/page/26/mode/2up

[dannyk13]

It probably existed pre 20th century.

[Peter Pedant]

// I'm white and don't feel myself privileged in any respect.//.

1978: 150 labourers in the background carrying sand from pt A to Pt B - chanting in arabic as they worked - for we were there ( araby )

Me (PP) to the american director's wife: you must believe when you look at this, you have won the first prize in life being born an American citizen in the land of the Free (*)

and she said: no I dont actually, I was born to very loving parents and they taught me to wak in the way of the Lord and make best use of my talents and opportunities

and at the age of 24 my jaw sagged in disbelief at a denial that opportunities in USA and Britain were stratospheric compared to those available then in Northen Sudan.



(*) born British, the first prize in life was an old C19 imperial expression

[andy-hughes]

mibn - // Any distinction made on the basis of race is racist. //

That's a dodgy position in my view, because it infers that simply to acknowledge the distinction is racist, which clearly it is not.

I acknowledge what fascism is, it doesn't make me a Nazi.

[Theland]

MIBs - Races tend to form their own communities do they not?
Then within that community a culture evolves, shaped by forces within and without, and then distinctions arise between differing groups.
Is that racism?

[andy-hughes]

Theland - // MIBs - Races tend to form their own communities do they not?
Then within that community a culture evolves, shaped by forces within and without, and then distinctions arise between differing groups.
Is that racism? //

No, that's cultural diversity.

Racism occurs when one group engenders hostility to another simply on the basis of its ethnicity.

"I hate curry …" is not racist.

"I hate Pakistanis … " is racist.

[webbo3]

no.

[johnny.5]

Lewis Hamilton !
isn't He in a race of his own ?