On privilige
Apr. 2nd, 2008 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrEDIT: *cough*, meant to post this to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
debunkingwhite. But hey, you guys may be able to help too :)(*) If you're unfamilar with the concept of "white privilige" I reccomend White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.
A statement I've seen pop up fairly frequently is "I don't want to give up my white privilege, I want to share it with everyone". I've seen enough criticisms of this statement not to say it myself, but I don't have quite enough of a grip on it's wrongness to explain it to other people.
The counterarguments that I can see (which combine together in complex ways):
-Maybe POC don't want to live exactly like white people, but to have their own lifestyles validated (ie it's like turning women into men to remove male privilige)
-It may not be possible (ie it's like giving all peasants a castle to remove class privilige)
-Certain priviliges only work if there's another, less priviliged group (ie "not getting suspected of shoplifting")
But I have a feeling that's not all there is to it, and can't express it very well.
So, in words of one syllable: why is this wrong? It is wrong, right?
(*)n.b. to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sonnlich, I realise this oversimplifies the position you were taking in our particular discussion, but I decided to pare down the question to it's simplest form rather than adding a bunch of qualifiers etc, esp. since I'm interested in general.
debunkingwhite. But hey, you guys may be able to help too :)(*) If you're unfamilar with the concept of "white privilige" I reccomend White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.A statement I've seen pop up fairly frequently is "I don't want to give up my white privilege, I want to share it with everyone". I've seen enough criticisms of this statement not to say it myself, but I don't have quite enough of a grip on it's wrongness to explain it to other people.
The counterarguments that I can see (which combine together in complex ways):
-Maybe POC don't want to live exactly like white people, but to have their own lifestyles validated (ie it's like turning women into men to remove male privilige)
-It may not be possible (ie it's like giving all peasants a castle to remove class privilige)
-Certain priviliges only work if there's another, less priviliged group (ie "not getting suspected of shoplifting")
But I have a feeling that's not all there is to it, and can't express it very well.
So, in words of one syllable: why is this wrong? It is wrong, right?
(*)n.b. to
sonnlich, I realise this oversimplifies the position you were taking in our particular discussion, but I decided to pare down the question to it's simplest form rather than adding a bunch of qualifiers etc, esp. since I'm interested in general.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-02 03:17 am (UTC)Because the issue of *rights* and equal rights is a very different issue from "privilege," but I wonder if sometimes, for many of us (us meaning whites) they aren't sort of jumbled together in a messy way in our minds, not to mention the even messier question of how much white privilege overlaps with class privilege overlaps with gender privilege overlaps with heteroprivilege (is that a word?), etc.
Must go to bed, tomorrow is 5 am day *martyred sigh*
no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 04:42 am (UTC)Hmm. Good points.
Though I will add that replying to my posts is MUCH more important than sleep :)