Does SJW-reated stuff get helled because the term is pejorative?

[3_nights]

it's 1:20 in the morning I should not be typing this right now but

What i'm seeing - and I see this a lot - is that (white) people who oppose the concept of white privilege (as in, they don't believe it exists) are people who take personal offense to the insinuation that they benefit from it. The truth of the matter is that the point of explaining white privilege shouldn't be to make white people flagellate themselves (and rarely is it ever), but to make white people aware of how they can, intentionally or not, reinforce existing racial biases. It's not an attack on white people, and it's not an accusation.

Likewise, I see lots of people go like "SJW's are just offended for the sake of other people" but time and time again I see people in the social justice corners of the internet who are black/non-white/lgbt/etc. who get called SJW's. So which is it? Who are SJW's? Are they privileged, misguided teens on the internet who don't fully understand leftist/feminist concepts, or are they members of minority groups who say things you don't like to hear?

[Flesh420]

3_nights said:

it's 1:20 in the morning I should not be typing this right now but

What i'm seeing - and I see this a lot - is that (white) people who oppose the concept of white privilege (as in, they don't believe it exists) are people who take personal offense to the insinuation that they benefit from it. The truth of the matter is that the point of explaining white privilege shouldn't be to make white people flagellate themselves (and rarely is it ever), but to make white people aware of how they can, intentionally or not, reinforce existing racial biases. It's not an attack on white people, and it's not an accusation.

Likewise, I see lots of people go like "SJW's are just offended for the sake of other people" but time and time again I see people in the social justice corners of the internet who are black/non-white/lgbt/etc. who get called SJW's. So which is it? Who are SJW's? Are they privileged, misguided teens on the internet who don't fully understand leftist/feminist concepts, or are they members of minority groups who say things you don't like to hear?

What about Asian privilege? They make more money than Crackers and are vastly better educated. They are currently at the top of Privilege Mountain.

[Koko Ricky]

I'm really surprised this is still going. It started to get heated and I backed the fuck out. I don't have the energy to go through page after page of debate. I opened up a can of worms, I did!

[Li'l devil]

Goatlord, you really have a talent of starting threads that turn into long agressive discussions. Seriously, a lot of threads you started turned into wars. Tbh, i like reading this kind of topics, even though i don't usually understand much of what everyone is talking about, i just find it funny watching people roasting each other, and eventually it ends with someone getting losered or thread helled.

[sudo459]

3_nights said:

What i'm seeing - and I see this a lot - is that (white) people who oppose the concept of white privilege (as in, they don't believe it exists) are people who take personal offense to the insinuation that they benefit from it.

I personally oppose it because the concept it not a coherent concept, or at least I've never seen it be defined as such. It's vague, and the definition is usually tailored specifically to push the narrative of the speaker.

3_nights said:

The truth of the matter is that the point of explaining white privilege shouldn't be to make white people flagellate themselves (and rarely is it ever), but to make white people aware of how they can, intentionally or not, reinforce existing racial biases. It's not an attack on white people, and it's not an accusation.

I'm going to use the definition of racism as: discrimination based on race.

Then they are failing miserably because it's never explained how this works. Let's say I accept the concept of white privilege. Then what? Admit that it helps me? How exactly is that going to make me less racist, when I already wish all of humanity to be treated equally? I don't even like the concept of race in the first place. Also, this sounds pretty racist to me. It insinuates that all the racism in America is white people's fault. You can claim that it's not an accusation all you want to.

[Decay]

GoatLord said:

I'm really surprised this is still going. It started to get heated and I backed the fuck out. I don't have the energy to go through page after page of debate. I opened up a can of worms, I did!

But the real question is, did your initial question get answered sufficiently?

[AkiraZXE]

If you look at a white person's life, how easy do you think it would be to point out the influences of white privilege with any level of certainty? Any situation where you could say their race was a positive influence in their life, you could just as easily attribute it to any other thing. This is especially true with poor white people, who already aren't experiencing much in the way of social advantages. You just can't distinguish coincidence from white privilege in the vast majority of cases.

Racial privilege in our society is an extraordinarily difficult thing to find once you get down to the scale that matters to individual people. That's, at least, part of the reason it's often rejected outright. You can't say "be aware of your privilege" and have it mean anything, because even if "being aware" somehow made a difference, you're going to struggle to find anything to be aware of without resorting to ridiculous hypotheticals.

Now, there are times that racial disadvantages exist, and they're very clear. Especially in specific cases, police profiling and the like, but even just being born in specific places. I, at least, am certainly not arguing that racism doesn't exist. However, trying to distinguish the absence of disadvantage without finding a clear and obvious advantage is just silly.

White privilege doesn't work on scales that matter to individuals. You may be able to find a trend in society, but once you get down to actual people, they're either such a small part of it that it's irrelevant to their lives, or people actually involved are so rare that some sections of society may be completely unaffected. Simply speaking, trends only work in one direction. You can find trends in society by looking at the big picture, but you can't then divide up that trend evenly among all people in society and have it work out.

Hell, I'd argue it's not all that different to a stereotype. It suffers all the same flaws as a stereotype, it just also is supposed to serve a functional purpose, which it apparently fails to do.

These aren't complicated ideas I've come up with, they're extremely simple and obvious problems at the very core of white privilege, and that's not even all of them. They're not misunderstandings or caused by being blinded by privilege or secret bigotry, and the insinuation that they are is what gets people riled up.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Flesh420 said:

What about Asian privilege? They make more money than Crackers and are vastly better educated. They are currently at the top of Privilege Mountain.

Excuse me?! What asian privilege is there, if I may ask? If by asian you mean japanese, I would have understood, to a very limited extent. But seriously, look at India, or Thailand, let alone China. All that, and more, is Asia right there for you, and I'd highly suggest you pointed your finger elsewhere, when it comes to privileges, because vast parts of Asia are miles, if not lightyears away from being privileged.

If you mean asian minorities living abroad, it's a whole different story. But education is something that is earned, you're not born educated. That is a big difference in comparison to whatever privilege white people are deemed to be born with. Not that I believe that being white comes with inherent privileges, but some people sure think so.

Sorry if that was a little harsh, but that "positive racism" towards asian people is really something I've had enough of by now. As someone who has asian roots I can assure you it is a real pain to be constantly confronted with these high expectations, regardless of how meaningless it is that you are being asked to do.

[fraggle]

I think this thread has run its course.