Are You SORRY You're WHITE?

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Are You SORRY You're White?
6.12%
3 votes
Yes
87.76%
43 votes
No
6.12%
3 votes
Maybe
49 votes. You may not vote on this poll




You're right. Using the term white privilege is far from using the n-word. That's a fair and considerable example of a white privilege. We don't have a term that can be used against us that is as powerful as that one.
I didn't click on Cob's video but I think that's probably the same bit where Louis CK says "I'm a white man, you can't even hurt my feelings," right? There's certainly something to that.

I'll just double down on the pop culture stuff and reference the South Park episode where Token's mad at Stan for trying to empathize with him for being black and then Stan has the epiphany that to "get it" he has to recognize that he'll never get it.



I think that makes more sense if someone believes that "white privilege" is actually more like what's described in the OP: being told you should be "sorry" for it.
Slappy pointed out here that's not what this is. She isn't being asked to apologize for it only to acknowledge it and it's not even a requirement. Nobody looked into this they just went straight to outrage and denial.



I assume you're young and from an affluent white family who was able to send you to college where you could earn a degree and set yourself on the path to financially security? I assume also you're a caring person who's aware of past racial injustices and you have empathy, and you think about all the advantages your family was able to give you and you feel guilty about those minorities who are living in abject poverty with little hope? Is that close to your personal truth?

If so I suggest you have 'white guilt' and you're not 'white privilege' but you are 'economic privilege'.

In order:
Young? Probably, I'm almost 30 though so I'm confronting the grim visage of my own mortality. Which is to say that my body doesn't feel invincible and it sucks.


Affluent family? Eh. My dad is a preacher and my mom is a public school teacher (my mom makes more than my dad). I felt pretty middle class for whatever that's worth. Maybe I didn't have everything I wanted, but I never felt worried about getting basic needs met.

Parents paid for college? Actually, it was the reverse, I paid for myself (and took out loans) and let my parents keep me as a dependent for tax relief which meant I didn't get financial aid!

There's this odd tax deduction thing that exists for preachers that totally screwed me over on the FAFSA. They didn't pay for any of my college and that deduction made it so that I didn't qualify for any grants. I went to community college for a couple years (and found out I loved it) and that I could handle because community college is an AMAZING deal. I transferred for a 4 year and I let my parents keep me on as a tax deduction (which, honestly, was a financial miscalculation, turns out I would have been better off paying my parents that deduction and not being a dependent, unfortunately by the time I took econ courses on this I was off their dependency). When I turned 26 and was off my parent's tax dependency I qualified for LOTS of aid. I also won a few scholarships in economics that helped out a lot. I only took out loans on 2 years of state university, but it was quite a bit of money still and I'll be paying it off for a decade at least.

Of course, the costs of providing for me over my life were far more than what I lost out on during college. But to your question, no, they didn't contribute to my ability to go to college (and would not be able to without financial stress on their part, I'm not blaming them).

And I don't feel much "white guilt", because again, I anticipate doing my best to use the partially unearned position in society I have to extend the opportunity I have to others. Maybe I'd feel guilt if I didn't do that? Dunno.

But I definitely feel privileged. For being white, and for many other things.


To be totally honest, my family wasn't totally good or kind to me during my developing years. We're cool now, for the most part. The "family" privilege I feel is the completely incredible and nurturing group of friends I lucked my way into.



A system of cells interlinked
Should those people that have the various privileges acknowledge them? Yes. Just the way that whites should.
Why? What will that achieve?

Secondly, why is it important to you that other people, some that you will never meet personally, acknowledge this?

Personally, whether or not I was to acknowledge this or not, I will still treat people the same way I always do, no matter their race, gender, etc.

If they are a jerk, I probably won't be nice to them. If they are not a jerk, I probably will.
__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



ha, i've seen you tell people to do very similar.
I think you've seen me call people out for arguing one thing over and over to avoid arguing another. I don't think you've seen me try to ding people for minute distinctions in how frequently they discuss things, though.

you are definitely concerned with making sure everyone is being as fair and unbiased as is possible
Wouldn't make a lot of sense to fight "bias" if it's just going to be defined as "wanting to talk about a given topic more than any other given topic," since that's universal. As you said, everyone is biased. I do try to push people to be more civil (and less glib) within their preferred topics, but I think that's a different thing.

but of course, you're biased, too. we all are in fact. it's literally impossible for people not to show bias. so you should probably stop expecting it from others and you might not hear it from them as much. though, you're Top Mod, so probably not, but yeah... just the 2 cents from a random forum goer.
I think the mod thing is what's really going on. I think there's an unstated expectation that I should have to be relatively "even" in heated threads even if my natural interest or inclination is to argue with one thing a little more than another (as it is for literally everyone).

Anyway, the implication is presumably that I have some underlying sympathy with the comparison, so I overlook it in order to nitpick someone I have less underlying sympathy for, right? Something like that? I think I have enough of a post history to prove that what I respond to is almost always a function of the type of disagreement I have with it. That I care a lot more about logical fallacies or invalid comparisons than I do about people just exaggerating, for example. That's how I ended up arguing with conservatives more than liberals for pretty much a year straight.



Why? What will that achieve?

Secondly, why is it important to you that other people, some that you will never meet personally, acknowledge this?

Personally, whether or not I was to acknowledge this or not, I will still treat people the same way I always do, no matter their race, gender, etc.

If they are a jerk, I probably won't be nice to them. If they are not a jerk, I probably will.
I don't think I've been unclear on this, it's a part of healthy self-reflection. You should find out which parts of your life were shaped by particular forces, and I think that sort of privilege is a big part.


If you want a specific principle as an example, approaching Rawl's Veil of Ignorance. I can expand on that if you'd like.



Slappy pointed out here that's not what this is. She isn't being asked to apologize for it only to acknowledge it and it's not even a requirement. Nobody looked into this they just went straight to outrage and denial.
Aye, I saw that post. Even repped it. But I haven't actually been talking about the nurse story at all. I took it merely as a jumping off point for the OP question: "Are you sorry you're white?" That's all I mean when I reference the OP.



Let the night air cool you off
Good, and sorry for the pithy final sentence. Trying not to fatigued by this.


Killer Mike still rules.
He does. I met him before a concert. He's a really nice fellow.



Let the night air cool you off
@Slappydavis

How much do you think your whiteness added to your current position? Does your whiteness ever keep you from feeling proud of what you've accomplished or whatever it is that you are on track to accomplish? Do you think of being white as being akin to taking steroid? And by that, I mean that even if you take a steroids, you still have to work out for it to do anything for you. And I know that people choose to take steroids, but they don't choose to be white. That part of the metaphor is not what I'm referring to.



A system of cells interlinked
I don't think I've been unclear on this, it's a part of healthy self-reflection. You should find out which parts of your life were shaped by particular forces, and I think that sort of privilege is a big part.


If you want a specific principle as an example, approaching Rawl's Veil of Ignorance. I can expand on that if you'd like.
I read your claim earlier, so I get it. But what will that self-reflection achieve? I already treat people well. I treat them with respect and I try to get to know them for who they are, and the things they care about.

My life was shaped by my family and I being poor in the 70s and 80s. My single mother bought my clothes at a second hand store and we stood in line for Government cheese. I could self-reflect about that, and how it seemed unfair at the time, but instead I choose to look forward and make an effort to actively change my situation. I have made a lot of progress through a lot of hard work. I have also seen people of all stripes do both better and worse than me, usually due to the decisions they make in their lives.

You seem smart, and thought experiments are fun to think about, but I always find that reality tends to play out a little differently when I try to apply them to my life.

Personally, I dislike grouping people into groups based on race, gender, or social status, because it never seems to end well, and only seems to cause strife. I will continue to approach people in society the way I always have - with fairness and an equal chance to either be a jerk, or not. I will then react accordingly.



I read your claim earlier, so I get it. But what will that self-reflection achieve? I already treat people well. I treat them with respect and I try to get to know them for who they are, and the things they care about.
Well, Devil's Advocate, but respect isn't exactly binary. Presumably we all have some blind spots that stop us from being better people, even if we're "good" by most standards. And obviously by definition you won't have any idea what specifically it might achieve (if anything), because if you did it would no longer be necessary to achieve it.

It's kinda like asking someone if they're right about everything (we'd all say no), and asking them what specific thing they're wrong about (we wouldn't be able to come up with anything, because if we knew it was wrong we wouldn't believe it any more).



In order:
Young? Probably, I'm almost 30 though so I'm confronting the grim visage of my own mortality. Which is to say that my body doesn't feel invincible and it sucks.


Affluent family? Eh. My dad is a preacher and my mom is a public school teacher (my mom makes more than my dad). I felt pretty middle class for whatever that's worth. Maybe I didn't have everything I wanted, but I never felt worried about getting basic needs met.

Parents paid for college? Actually, it was the reverse, I paid for myself (and took out loans) and let my parents keep me as a dependent for tax relief which meant I didn't get financial aid!

There's this odd tax deduction thing that exists for preachers that totally screwed me over on the FAFSA. They didn't pay for any of my college and that deduction made it so that I didn't qualify for any grants. I went to community college for a couple years (and found out I loved it) and that I could handle because community college is an AMAZING deal. I transferred for a 4 year and I let my parents keep me on as a tax deduction (which, honestly, was a financial miscalculation, turns out I would have been better off paying my parents that deduction and not being a dependent, unfortunately by the time I took econ courses on this I was off their dependency). When I turned 26 and was off my parent's tax dependency I qualified for LOTS of aid. I also won a few scholarships in economics that helped out a lot. I only took out loans on 2 years of state university, but it was quite a bit of money still and I'll be paying it off for a decade at least.

Of course, the costs of providing for me over my life were far more than what I lost out on during college. But to your question, no, they didn't contribute to my ability to go to college (and would not be able to without financial stress on their part, I'm not blaming them).

And I don't feel much "white guilt", because again, I anticipate doing my best to use the partially unearned position in society I have to extend the opportunity I have to others. Maybe I'd feel guilt if I didn't do that? Dunno.

But I definitely feel privileged. For being white, and for many other things.


To be totally honest, my family wasn't totally good or kind to me during my developing years. We're cool now, for the most part. The "family" privilege I feel is the completely incredible and nurturing group of friends I lucked my way into.
That was a very complete answer and frank too, which I appreciate. So thanks for that and I repped you.

I don't have any follow up questions, but I suppose it's only fair that you can ask me questions now about what I mean. Assuming you're interested.

See I'm thinking some people have a different ideas in mind when they say the term 'white privilege'. I know what's in my mind, but no one can know what's in another persons mind. That's why I don't think it's a good or accurate term.



@Slappydavis

How much do you think your whiteness added to your current position? Does your whiteness ever keep you from feeling proud of what you've accomplished or whatever it is that you are on track to accomplish? Do you think of being white as being akin to taking steroid? And by that, I mean that even if you take a steroids, you still have to work out for it to do anything for you. And I know that people choose to take steroids, but they don't choose to be white. That part of the metaphor is not what I'm referring to.
Re: How much did being white contribute to my life-
Oh it's definitely hard to say with certainty. And I wouldn't expect basically anyone to tell.


The piece that really stands out for me is how much I was pushed into college. Like I mentioned before, my highschool grades were not great, and yet people told me all the time that I seemed like the kind of person that would just go to college. Some of that was probably due to my parents both being educated (my dad was halfway to being an engineer before having a powerful dream that made him quit and take up being a pastor), some of that was due to me hanging around kids that DID get good grades, but some of that was almost certainly that I was white.


Another piece where there was a noticeable difference is that that I wasn't bullied in school. By all accounts, I was your typical bullying target, I was small (still am), quiet (less so now), and nerdy (definitely). But I wasn't bullied. The kids of color were bullied (to the point that one of the black kids at my school had to loudly talk about how much he hated black culture seriously ALL of the time just to get it to stop) and the LGBT kids were bullied (incessantly, seriously it was crazy). But I grew up in a white & conservative area. So while I was a seriously fantastic bullying target, I was still "in" because I was straight & white.


Maybe that's just the way my schools are, and it's idiosyncratic to my life, but it's something I realized after doing the sort of self-reflection I'm talking about.






Re: Steroids- The steroid example is interesting, and I think I see where you're going with it. Without putting a ton of thought into this metaphor, to me high economic status are steroids, where being white is more like just being default (that sort of default status comes in a lot to conversations about white privilege too, as you probably know) and being non-white is more like someone making you carry a barbell. Is it always totally debilitating? No. Is it harder than it should be? Yeah.




Re: Pride- I'm totally proud of who I am and what I've done! I'm not proud of everything, but I like myself a whole lot! Probably too much! But a lot of my pride in myself is totally separate from economic status (which is one of the most direct places where race comes into play).


If I'm guessing at where you're going correctly: would I tell someone who is very proud of their economic status that they should be less proud because they were on "easy mode" (so to speak)?


Not really. It's more like this for me. I think you should totally be proud of the way that you took the advantages given to you and were able to find a productive spot in society. But you should ALSO take pride in the advantages themselves, and recognize the parts that you didn't do on your own, and maintain them for other people to use.


I'll put it a different way. If someone was able to produce on fertile soil in such a way that they died a millionaire but the soil was left arid/useless, I probably wouldn't think they should be very proud. If someone was able to produce on fertile soil AND they were able to help other people get access to similarly fertile soil, then yeah! Be proud!


Getting a random advantage isn't something to be ashamed of, it's more like something that you owe to society to keep it going. The parts that I might say would be "shameful" would be getting an advantage that comes at the expense of other people. But the world isn't a zero-sum game, so you CAN both get an advantage AND share it with others so that everyone is a little better off.



I read your claim earlier, so I get it. But what will that self-reflection achieve? I already treat people well. I treat them with respect and I try to get to know them for who they are, and the things they care about.

My life was shaped by my family and I being poor in the 70s and 80s. My single mother bought my clothes at a second hand store and we stood in line for Government cheese. I could self-reflect about that, and how it seemed unfair at the time, but instead I choose to look forward and make an effort to actively change my situation. I have made a lot of progress through a lot of hard work. I have also seen people of all stripes do both better and worse than me, usually due to the decisions they make in their lives.

You seem smart, and thought experiments are fun to think about, but I always find that reality tends to play out a little differently when I try to apply them to my life.

Personally, I dislike grouping people into groups based on race, gender, or social status, because it never seems to end well, and only seems to cause strife. I will continue to approach people in society the way I always have - with fairness and an equal chance to either be a jerk, or not. I will then react accordingly.

I believe you when you say that you treat people with respect, but I think the self-reflection helps define what treating people with respect means.


The reason I bring up Rawl's Veil is that it's actually not just a thought experiment, it's a true guiding principle that you can test social structures against. I love those overly technical iterations of weird convoluted thought experiments too, but this is a truly practical baseline test.


Basically, the question it asks is how would you design society if you didn't know where you'd fall into it. If you can truly reflect on your beliefs about what society should look like and think that it would be best even if you happened to be born a different person, then it "passes" Rawl's Veil.


The people I disagree with (conservatives, generally) can totally pass this test if they honestly believe what they preach too. There are absolutely some wealthy people that think (and are possibly correct) that the wealth distribution TRULY benefits all people including those in the lower income brackets, they'd pass Rawl's Veil.


Technically, white supremacists *could* pass Rawl's Veil too. If they truly think that white people are actually the best suited to be the ruling class, and the world is better off that way, they pass Rawl's Veil. But it's my belief that if they were able to enter true self-reflection that most of the time they'd recognize that no, really it's just that I want like-me's to be the ruling class. That's why I think self-reflection is important, and that methods that encourage self-reflection (like acknowledgement of privilege) helps guide people towards better outcomes.