what is 'white privilege'? Nobdy seems to want to explain

Every time I see someone say white privilege. They won't explain or say 'pay up' or give a simple context saying 'look around you'. Then get frustrated with people who are not understanding. So, I was wondering if you could explain what 'white privilege' is.

Do you think it exist? What is your explanation of the meaning white privilege?

a reply to: CaptainHook

The world is the way it is because white privilege. Hope that helps.

Basically it's a crappy excuse for not taking responsibility to improve your life--and instead--just blaming some bogeyman white devil.

a reply to: CaptainHook

God Damn Evil Assed White People!

a reply to: CaptainHook


Ummmmm, They explain it alright, but if you have a critically thinking mind it just might put you on a 72 hour stay in a mental ward for trying to understand the nonsense behind it!

a reply to: CaptainHook

White people (who suck) have privilege that everyone else doesn't have because they suck and that's true because there are no poor white people because they are actually brown people who look white but aren't because only white people suck.

As far as I can tell it is the notion that being born white allows you to have an easier and better life relative to those in similar social standing who are non-white, simply by virtue of being born with 'white skin'. A notion that is demonstrably false by any number of obvious examples and standards and ludicrously reductive, but is oh so alluring to a simple minded subset of professional victims and enablers, hell-bent (perhaps unwittingly) on maintaining the status quo.

Hope that helps

a reply to: DBCowboy

Sure Equinsu Ocha, if YOU say so.

It's the term used by jealous people who can't stand the fact that some people actually work hard, succeed and pass on wealth to their families. If non-white people do the same (and there are millions of them), they or their families don't have any privilege, of course, and shouldn't pay poor lazy people. Only white people need to pay poor lazy people because of their privilege.

originally posted by: Indrasweb
As far as I can tell it is the notion that being born white allows you to have an easier and better life relative to those in similar social standing who are non-white, simply by virtue of being born with 'white skin'. A notion that is demonstrably false by any number of obvious examples and standards and ludicrously reductive, but is oh so alluring to a simple minded subset of professional victims and enablers, hell-bent (perhaps unwittingly) on maintaining the status quo.

Hope that helps

Thank you!

You explained it much more eloquently than I was capable of doing.

a reply to: CaptainHook

I made a thread about this a while ago explaining why some people believe white privilege is real.

Where I come from, LA, there are very few white working class people. Many of them are upper to upper middle class people. The majority of poor and working class are Latinos, Blacks and some Asians.

In LA, there is a racialization of class where whites are perceived as rich and minorities are perceived as poor. if you ask a black person or any minority to describe what a white person looked like, they'll say they look like Harvey Weinstein or another rich upper class white person.

They will never mention working class and poor whites in the South and Mid West.

Also, another problem is many of these white people especially the ones in Beverly Hills are racist and ironically it is they who called Trump and conservatives racist.

To me, white privilege means being born into a world that's already been long primed or conditioned to the rule of those of fairer skin. For centuries, the light skinned Europeans ruled over the majority of this planet. Not only was Europe under their rule and their religion, but the Americas, Africa, Australia and large parts of Asia. Many countries in South America and in Africa still speak French, Spanish, English or Portuguese as their main language. Many Indians are still fluent in English from young age and Indian food is everywhere in Britain.

This does not mean that a white person is automatically placed in a higher position, but we are all conditioned to accept it when it happens. Throughout the centuries the white folks have established themselves in government, trade, manufacturing and so on. Those businesses and money are passed down, which means those who have had an advantage for centuries naturally start with an advantage. This is no conspiracy, it's just the way money and ownership works.

Do I like it? No. But I do understand why it is so, and I understand it will still take much, much longer until it is overcome and real equality is attained. It took centuries to get here, it may take just as long to unwind it, fully.

This is the "White Privilege" I grew up in, in Eastern Ky.
I feel so special.

Eddie Murphy already researched this years ago.

Here's what it is: A last gasp effort to maintain a sense of outrage over discrimination that has been all but wiped out via laws and behavior in the last half century. Discrimination in employment, for example, is highly illegal and woe to any employer who refuses a job to a minority based on race. Companies bend over backwards to avoid that charge even to the point of hiring unqualified people so they can "prove" they don't discriminate. Or how about entrance into schools? There are so many scholarships and "full rides" open to minorities these days that there is no good reason why any one cannot be accepted to the most prestigious schools if they merely put in a modicum of effort. Discrimination in housing? You'd better not even try. Discrimination in public? You must be kidding. Look at someone the wrong way and you are "disrespecting" them. In fact, we've replaced the idea of "equality of opportunity" with "equality of achievement." "White privilege" is what is left over, the fact that you have an advantage just because you are white. My Daddy was a near-alcoholic bartender who had a hard time keeping a job and made barely over the minimum wage his entire life. We were poor, but I didn't know it because I had this attitude that I could do well. That's why I benefit from 'white privilege.'

I see a lot of minority privilege where I live but if I pointed out how racist they are to me, I'm racist

a reply to: CaptainHook

A few definitions from Urban Dictionary

White Privilege:

The racist idea that simply being white benefits people in some unexplainable way, and that discriminating against white people is not only okay, but enlightened and necessary.

The excuse some extremists use to justify pretty much any level of racism, as long as it is coming from someone identifying as Non-Caucasian.


Essentially it's the claim that being White affords one access to universal, institutional or systemic advantages, used by any other ethnicity (who use the code-word "anti-racist" to disguise their intentions) to justify overt racial discrimination against people who look white, in the hopes of equalizing social and economic outcomes between races.

If you question it you're called "ignorant" (in reality you are a skeptic), and the fact that you questioned it in the first place is used as further proof that you have "White privilege".



The misconception that somehow whites have more benefits than other other races, which is used to guilt whites into feeling shame for things they are powerless to control.

It is a broad generalization and the term is very offensive in itself because it implies the lighter skin person should feel guilty or responsible over something they have absolutely no control over.

a reply to: CaptainHook

White Privilege is hard to see for a white person who has always benefited from it, it is all they know and don't see how they are privileged over others.

It's the ultimate 'entitlement', that no matter how poor they have it, "...At least, I'm not .....".

Any erosion of that privilege is seen as an attack or slight.

It is the unconscious belief that an unearned attribute of birth makes one better than ..... (pick your own 'other' group - let's say women, or black, or hispanic, or polish, or..... whoever you believe is lower on the status ladder)

That's my awkward description.

White privilege is the CONTEXT of all language and discussion as well as the main attribute of the status quo. (the idea of 'it's always been this way'.

A more lucid definition:

White privilege refers to the collection of benefits that white people receive in a racially structured society in which they are at the top of the racial hierarchy.

Made famous by scholar and activist Peggy McIntosh in 1988, the concept includes everything from whiteness being equated with being normal and native to the U.S. to being represented in the media, being trusted, and easily finding makeup products for one's skin tone.

While some might view some of these privileges as trivial, it's important to recognize that no form of privilege comes without its counterpart: oppression.

www.thoughtco.com...

White privilege is hard to define because the 'norm' of our society is based on being White and being Male and everything else is considered somehow deviant.

a reply to: CaptainHook

It means if you are white..... you are the problem to everything in the world.

"White privilege" is just another one of those coverall racist terms bandied about by people who have lost touch with the society they purport to understand. It's an excuse by some people who are non-white to fail. It' an excuse for pseudo intellectuals to appear intelligent.

originally posted by: Kharron
To me, white privilege means being born into a world that's already been long primed or conditioned to the rule of those of fairer skin. For centuries, the light skinned Europeans ruled over the majority of this planet. Not only was Europe under their rule and their religion, but the Americas, Africa, Australia and large parts of Asia. Many countries in South America and in Africa still speak French, Spanish, English or Portuguese as their main language. Many Indians are still fluent in English from young age and Indian food is everywhere in Britain.

This does not mean that a white person is automatically placed in a higher position, but we are all conditioned to accept it when it happens. Throughout the centuries the white folks have established themselves in government, trade, manufacturing and so on. Those businesses and money are passed down, which means those who have had an advantage for centuries naturally start with an advantage. This is no conspiracy, it's just the way money and ownership works.

Do I like it? No. But I do understand why it is so, and I understand it will still take much, much longer until it is overcome and real equality is attained. It took centuries to get here, it may take just as long to unwind it, fully.

White privilege does not exist...