Kemi Badenoch appointed new Minister for Women and Equalities

Q1 - because racism still exists.

Q2 - I know. I have suffered racism and I am white. (The racism was pretty trivial, and, ironically, targetted me for something I am not!)

He has done some great stuff with Glenn Loury:

I will read in full later.

See, I don't think that way at all. When I talk abut white privilege I can imagine two 16 year old boys, councils estate, single mum, poverty, etc etc. I can see that the white boy does at least have the advantage that he is not facing day to day racism.

I can see that Sunak and Kwarteng lack white privilege whilst having every single ounce of class privilege going.

"Working class white boys are the group who are struggling most educationally in the UK." Yes, and they have white privilege compared to the comparison group "Working class black boys".

Also are you sure white working class boys are the most struggling group? More struggling than black working class boys? What if you split the black working class boys into african and afro-carribean, does the answer change?

"Having white skin may be an advantage in certain specific situations but what really counts is family, money and class." translates to "white privilege exists but other things not less a stable family and money are much more important" and I agree 100%!

I cannot see the problem with the term unless you don't understand it or you don't believe that racism exists.

So you've never seen it used to shut down debate?
You've never seen it where when somebody disagrees with it as a concept they are called racist for not accepting that they have "white privilege"?

You believe that white people always have privilege and black people are always disadvantaged and this is something that they are born with and cannot escape ever until racism no longer exists? That white people are born racist?

And you honestly cannot see why people may have a problem with it as a concept?

I cannot see the problem with the term unless you don't understand it or you don't believe that racism exists.

So you've never seen it used to shut down debate?
You've never seen it where when somebody disagrees with it as a concept they are called racist for not accepting that they have "white privilege"?

You believe that white people always have privilege and black people are always disadvantaged and this is something that they are born with and cannot escape ever until racism no longer exists? That white people are born racist?

And you honestly cannot see why people may have a problem with it as a concept?

Google threw up this definition "inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice."

What "inherent advantages" do white people have? I don't get this at all. Perhaps because I also don't believe we live in a society "characterised by racial inequality and injustice." Again, this is the CRT/woke version of the world, or rather, the West. Yes, there is racism and there are injustices, but that is not the fundamental character of our society. We live in a country where laws and customs stand against racism and where black and Asian people can hold the highest offices of state! To say that we are a country characterised by racial inequality and injustice is to profess belief in the pseudo reality of the woke ideology.

I believe that a white person will always (so long as racism exists) have the advantage of being white over a black person (in a country like UK or USA).

Why do you think being white is an advantage that you have over others?

White privilege is maybe another way of saying "does not risk suffering the racism that minorities tend to suffer". I cannot see the problem with the term unless you don't understand it or you don;t believe that racism exists.

But white people are subject to racism, too.

Google threw up this definition "inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice."

People (or some people) who believe in CRT might believe that "some people are born bad"... but I think that the term makes sense and does not need to be associated with the idea that some people are born bad.

I definitely have things to consider, and I definitely believe that there is a risk that using the term "white privilege" suggests that the way to address the issue is to restrict white people or elevate black people, whereas I am increasingly coming to the view that the main thing that needs addressing is economic equality, and in doing so one reduces how racist society is.

That article in the Critic is very good. When people talk about white privilege they are often actually talking about class privilege.

Working class white boys are the group who are struggling most educationally in the UK. To say they have a privilege or an advantage because of the colour of their skin is just ridiculous, even if they don't experience racism (although depending on the area, they often do). Young black boys from wealthy families have many more advantages, regardless of whether they also experience racism.

What are real privileges? Having two parents who stay together. Having enough money to have opportunities in education and beyond. Being able to go on school trips. Having a childhood where you are supported and not having to grow up too fast. Having white skin may be an advantage in certain specific situations but what really counts is family, money and class.

Maybe I am just really really clever, but I really don;t get the issue IN THEORY.

"believing and behaving as though a black person is always disadvantaged and a white person is always advantaged can create." I don';t believe that at all! I believe that a white person will always (so long as racism exists) have the advantage of being white over a black person (in a country like UK or USA). That a white person has privilege in one respect, and potentially a relatively small privilege at that, says nothing about the two people's "net privilege" position which could be massively in favour of the black person. It could even be the case that two teen girls want to become singers and the black teen has the privilege of better education, more stable family, more wealth, nicer area to grow up in, straight not gay like the white girl, AND because of the "urban" style of music they both make the music industry prefers the black teen. But I would still say that the white teen has white privilege, even if overall she is massively disadvantaged, and even if her white skin disadvantaged them in their music career.

IN PRACTICE, if a term is misunderstood regularly then the people using it need to think about the best way forward.

When I talk about racism I talk about it from the point of view of living in a majority white country, the UK. I would never presume to lecture African nations on racism!

White privilege is maybe another way of saying "does not risk suffering the racism that minorities tend to suffer". I cannot see the problem with the term unless you don't understand it or you don;t believe that racism exists.

I do think that the shift (especially from the left) should be massively towards addressing economic underprivilege, and if one addresses economic underprivilege in a society which protects people from racial discrimination under the law, then huge swathes of black lack of privilege would also fall away.

Believing that white privilege is a thing does not mean that to address the inequality one must approach target dragging ethnic minorities up or (worse) dragging white people down. I think that racial disadvantage is best addressed by doing things like makign higher education free for all, and such a policy also helps those people who struggle to comprehend how they have white privilege.

White privilege is a concept that is born from CRT. You can't really separate them. If you can see how crazy CRT is, can you not see that the idea that some people are born bad is also completely mad/dangerous/stupid?

What right allows Men to use womens toilets?

The problem is isn’t the academic concepts or the linguistic choices per se, the problem is in the application of white privilege/white fragility to the real world and the ‘road to hell is paved with good intentions’ effect that believing and behaving as though a black person is always disadvantaged and a white person is always advantaged can create.

John McWhorter is excellent on this, as is Coleman Hughes.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=O3JJ633Pf_0

No point in me summarising badly when you can hear respected black academics and commentators directly via youtube.

I’m not personally convinced white privilege is a useful concept because it reinforces the sort of myopic western lens we’ve been trying to get away from.
Does white privilege exist in an African nation? Or in an Asian nation? How does it work in a country where there are many races and ethnicities?

Are we really talking about ‘majority privilege’ and ascribing that to white/black because we’ve imported an Americanism and not really thought about it? How is it useful in a way that improves material conditions?

Thanks :)

This British comedian dude’s take on Robin D’Angelo is well worth a listen as well.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=6sFdi5iZJ5Q

Will read properly later, but from a quick glance it backs my view up... by definition if a black person is disadvantaged compared to a white person then by definition that white person is advantaged compared to the black person.

If a deeply underprivileged unemployed male white Brit objects to the idea that he has white privilege why would he not also object to being described as having white advantage? In what way does he feel advantaged?

He does a regular thingy with Glenn Loury that is always worth a listen.

Thanks. I've not listened to anything by McWhorter before (goes off to find a longer interview).

I’m not convinced you can divorce white privilege from CRT?

This is a Toby Young article, so obvs, take that into consideration, but it’s published in The Critic, which is always an interesting read!

thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-2019/no-need-to-plead-guilty/

This is the (fascinating!) chap who is credited with inventing the phrase ‘white privilege’ but like a lot of concepts, the modern day online social justice activists seem to have twisted a once interesting academic concept so far beyond the original point until it’s been rendered meaningless:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois

see also ‘intersectional’ in the twisted until meaningless category!

Don't you understand the meaning of "sex", DadJoke?

And do transwomen want to exclude religiously observant Jewish and Muslim women from women's toilets?

It was a truly terrible book about cartoon characters that he read as a child:

Yes, again, repeating, I DO want male people to stop invading and using female only spaces. They are meeting their own needs by failing to care about female ones and excluding and harming females by doing it.

Now would you do the courtesy of stating your position too?

For the third time of asking: do you believe that females should have no right to spaces away from males, or a right to equality of access and inclusion with male people? And that it is ok to exclude females from female spaces so that male people can have all the spaces?

CRT, like QT, is utterly insane and dangerous and regressive. I am not sure I knew or needed to know how insane!

I am still (for now) happy with the concept of white privilege.

Transwomen don’t have any legal rights because there is no such thing as a transwoman in UK Equalities law. Kemi Badenoch can’t take away a right that never existed.

Providing a single sex toilet does not meet that criteria. There isn't a single legal precedent for this. I'd like to see someone try, though - it would require a provider to designate the space as such which to the best of my knowledge, no one has. It's certainly not illegal for a provider to allow them to do this.

There are no legal precedents because this has not yet been tested in court. That doesn't mean it isn't the law. It is in black and white in the Equality Act that TW can be lawfully discriminated against and excluded from single-sex spaces where there is a proportionate means to achieving a legitimate aim. What do you think this means?