White privilege... really? In schools??!

[stellenbosch]

To quote Bastille, 'the world's gone mad' ...

Was chatting to my olds about this today
We're not white
It's vanishingly rare for the three of us to agree on anything

But we all think this campaign is a terrible idea and will increase racism
Many such things seemed to have led to increased racism over the years
When white people are made to feel like they have to apologise for being white, nobody gains....except racist groups maybe? I don't know.

In fact, while this particular campaign is very explicit, I think one reason all my family feel racism has increased in the last few years is that strings are being pulled which make it more divisive instead of less

I'm not one for conspiracy theories but frankly I puzzle over what's going on recently....almost as if there are political groups who think they'll gain from labelling people more and more.

It seems as though the white people, are telling black people what they must think and feel, and minimising their views to fit their own narrative.

Riverside were you discussing it because you saw it on here or are you in Canada?

Sorry sprinkles she's more privileged than other people overall? I honestly don't follow?

I think you can say she has white privilege (i.e. No racism for being white) but that doesn't make her more or less privileged than anyone else. We'd have to compare each individual circumstance surely?

Ps sorry hamster for using you as an example so much, I just don't know how anyone could read your post and see privilege.

White privilege is privilege. It’s not the absence of racism

Just been reading the story about the abuse of girls in Telford which has been going on for 40 years. The police and social services weren’t interested until a 16 year old girl (who had given birth to her abusers baby at 14) was murdered along with her entire family. Ditto all the girls in Rochdale and Rotherham. I wonder if those girls would agree they have white privilege?

I suspect most people who believe they have ‘white privilege’ actually have privilege because of their class and wealth. But of course it’s convenient for them to claim their privilege is because of their skin colour, because they can’t change that. If they actually had to admit it was because of their cash and connections and because other people of the same class extend privilege on the basis of class then they might have to admit that there were things they could do to change it. If they wanted to. Which they don’t.

The vast majority of inequality regardless of colour is because of wealth and class. As people who are not white tend to be newer citizens and therefore don’t benefit from inherited wealth, of course they are disproportionately affected by inequality of opportunity. But that probably has more to do with their wealth than race.

Of course the idea of white privilege is beloved by the middle class. And the idea of racism. They are playing a complicated game of divide and conquer amongst the working class by pretending that race is the basis of inequality.

We should stop playing this game or divide and conquer by race and start looking at the people it benefits - the wealthiest in society who can shift the blame onto race rather than the privilege they have based on wealth, class and power.

I think you’re mixing up situations. Child abuse doesn’t mean white privilege doesn’t exist

An understanding of Crenshaw's work on intersectionality of oppression by means of race, class, and sex, would discourage these kinds of counterproductive efforts, I think.

And, of course, telling black people they should resent their white working class neighbours. And depend on the oh so enlightened middle classes to protect them. But it’s not their white working class neighbours who aren’t giving them the best jobs or who are excluding them from the best educational opportunities. It’s exactly the white middle class people who claim they are the enlightened ones who understand these concepts and are doing the best to display their non-discriminatory credentials. They just have this awful habit of forgetting them when they’re on interview panels! Funny that, isn’t it?

It's interesting how resistant people are to the idea of privilege. You only have to look at the education boards to see it. It's easier to believe that anything can be achieved by anyone if only they work hard enough. And crucially, if someone doesn't achieve, it's because they didn't work hard enough. Nothing to do with the cards being stacked against them before they even started.

Ditto all the girls in Rochdale and Rotherham. I wonder if those girls would agree they have white privilege

Funny how we never hear about all the black and mixed race girls that were also part of the Rochdale abuse, it’s made out that they were all white.

“But it’s not their white working class neighbours who aren’t giving them the best jobs or who are excluding them from the best educational opportunities.”

No one thinks it is? I don’t really understand your point

Someone at the beginning asked about how a Jewish person with family in the holocaust would feel about it

I am one such person, and I’m fine with it. The wording is a bit off, but the message is sound. I am Jewish and have suffered some negative effects from that including bullying/violence, as well as having 2 holocaust survivors in my late family.

BUT. I have white skin. And as horrid as it sounds, if I feel unsafe I don’t have to oy vey and tell the world that I’m a Jew. I just look like your average white person. Anyone that isn’t white can’t do that. So I have the privilege of having white skin.

Just my 2 cents :)

Very well said there Bertrand

Agree with both your posts shaniatwainexperinece

Aw thank you Sprinkles!

It’s a difficult one with jews because we have a history of subjugation and genocide BUT the ones like me in the west are white skinned so it’s a complicated axis of oppression. Very confusing!

Sprinkles, I saw it on social media, I'm not in Canada.

My husband is Jewish. He doesn’t have a massively Jewish name (think David Taylor rather than Jacob goldenblatt!) and people generally wouldn’t know in a job interview, college interview etc what his religion is.

I recall a black friend and I discussing what anti semitism was all about, having never met anyone who dislikes Jews. She said “I can almost understand racism as there is an immediate physical difference and people can be scared of that..”

I think you’re mixing up situations. Child abuse doesn’t mean white privilege doesn’t exist

Refusing to investigate crimes because you don’t want to be accused of racism does mean white privilege doesn’t exist. If you are a 14 year old white girl who has no access to the justice system because your abuser is from a more favoured race, then you do not have white privilege.

If those girls had ‘white privilege’ when they reported abuse by non-white men, the justice system would instantly swing in to action. It didn’t. Over 40 years. Across the country.

In fact, the situation has been akin to those found in the Deep South in the worst abuses of the segregationist era. The services refused to act despite appalling crimes because they privileged one race over another. In the Deep South white people could do appalling things to black people confident in the knowledge they could do it because the authorities wouldn’t get involved. Exactly the the same thing has happened in Telford and Rochdale and Rotherham.

So yes, it does mean white privilege doesn’t exist when the police won’t investigate crimes on the basis that you are white and your attacker is not.

One of the biggest criticisms of intersectionality is that it treats wealth inequality as just another characteristic which leads to oppression, rather than recognising it as a mechanism of oppression in itself..

Besides, Intersectionality has been used to justify some singularly unpleasant behaviour and ways of thinking. Particularly those which are most damaging to the white working classes by creating inverse hierachies, particularly those which justify black people saying and doing absolutely appalling things on the basis that they ‘can’t be racist, because they don’t control the power structures in society’.

I think a 12 year old girl who can’t get the police to prosecute her rapist might have a few choice things to say to anybody who suggested that she benefited from societies power structures.

White privilege is privilege? Not the absence of racism? So what is it in addition to the absence of racism?

And I still don't understand how you can describe one person as privileged over others if you only know their race.

I am not goading. I feel like I disagree sprinkles but I'm willing to discover I'm wrong.

But again Elton this isn’t about individuals. I agree with you, those girls did not benefit from their whiteness. But they were hundreds of girls in a world of billions. Their experience doesn’t mean white privilege doesn’t exist

I’m massively struggling to understand those who say it doesn’t. Do you also find it hard to understand male privilage? Despite the fact some males have awful lives? To me it’s clearly the same

So yes, it does mean white privilege doesn’t exist when the police won’t investigate crimes on the basis that you are white and your attacker is not.

So that instance means that white privilege doesn't exist, full stop?

No, sorry. As we've tried to say several times on the thread, a number of factors are at play in determining a person's starting block. These girls were disadvantaged because of their socioeconomic background, their age and their sex. No-one is suggesting that white privilege should counteract all of that.

This comparison example is trivial, but it's like looking at the recent cases of disabled people receiving negative treatment on trains. Some of them are white, but have still been treated badly. Does that mean white privilege doesn't exist? Of course not. There are other factors at play - namely their disability - that puts them at a disadvantage.

No-one is asserting that white privilege means everything is fine and dandy for white people and nothing bad ever happens to them.

I think a 12 year old girl who can’t get the police to prosecute her rapist might have a few choice things to say to anybody who suggested that she benefited from societies power structures

Not every form of privilege applies to every situation.

In the sort of incident you're describing, male privilege is much more relevant. The speed with which a woman or girl who is raped becomes the subject of intense questioning - "what were you wearing? did you lead him on? were you drunk? did you have sex and regret it afterwards?" - is part of male privilege; the notion that men are animalistic creatures driven by their genitals and it is the woman's responsibility not to dress or behave in such a way as to provoke these uncontrollable male desires.

She will benefit from being white in her life, in the same way that she'll be disadvantaged by being a woman, and potentially by her socioeconomic background, any disability she may have, her potential sexuality etc. Something bad happening to someone white does not invalidate the existence of white privilege.

Eltonjohnsyrup

We rarely agree on MN, but in this instance, hear hear.

You made the case far better than I could have.

sprinkles I have a very Jewish sounding name and look very Jewish. My brothers have deep olive skin and every single time they go through airport security they are pulled over. I do feel our name and our appearance have singled us out as not just the average white person. I do have white skin but don’t look remotely British. I am very easily identifiable as a Jew. Ironic, as I am a complete atheist who cares deeply that we look for what makes humanity the same rather than looking at what makes us different. I am not singled out for my skin colour so in that regard I have white privelige. But I have been treated differently because of very un-British aspects of my appearance. It’s hard to know how much advantage in life my colour has afforded me though because how do I compare and to whom. I agree with Shania that is IS confusing at timesMy DF wrote CofE on his call up papers having being told NOT to write Jewish or he would be given a very hard time. Well he was anyway because he couldn’t not declare his Jewish physical features.

Justanothernap I don’t mind you talking about my situation at all. It goes somewhere to show the issue isn’t simply ‘black and white ‘ but that as someone said, we all fit somewhere on a scale of privelige and at times it can be hard to know precisely how to measure it or at what point colour comes into it.