Privilege. How can it be talked about and acknowledged in today's society

[chomalungma]

Just a follow up from the recent threads. Male privilege. White privilege. It exists. But some people think it is a poor concept as they don't seem privileged. This thread is just to carry on the conversation.

"Black men are 26% more likely than white men to be remanded in custody."

There is certainly a bias in the criminal justice system. Men typically receive 63% longer sentences than women taking all factors into account..

'm a bit skeptical that teaching the police about their white privilege would make any difference, but I'd be open to it if there's evidence it would work

Making the police more reflective of the communites they serve might help.

The right wing don't like to discuss privilege because it challenges their self attribution bias

Whereas the left loves the “privilege” doctrine because it enables them to convince the gullible that all their failures in life are not their fault, but are instead due to a lack of “privilege” that can conveniently be defined in any way they like. The narrative of perpetual victimhood, in other words.

Class privilege is the top trump because there is nothing intrinsically awful about being a woman, gay or black.

There is something intrinsically awful about growing up or living as an adult in poverty- homeless, relying on food banks, being hungry, not being able to access adequate health care and education.

the media focus on knife crime though. Media have a history of focusing on crimes that young black men get arrested for

And if the media didn't focus on knife crime right now you would be saying, "The media don't report on knife crime because the victims are mainly black and they don't care about black victims".

Is Laurence Fox pissed off by his lost of status or just trying to sell some record s ( which I guess is keeping his status)

He was quite happy to eat jerk chicken and give it all the 'jah man' business a few years back in one of my local pubs - i'm really surprised he hasn't bought up that with a 'I was really good mates with the jamaican chef' story for the Daily Mail

He's just playing a narrative so he can make some money off his album. It was such a contrived reaction - he jumped right on it

Whereas the left loves the “privilege” doctrine because it enables them to convince the gullible that all their failures in life are not their fault, but are instead due to a lack of “privilege” that can conveniently be defined in any way they like. The narrative of perpetual victimhood, in other words.

Wow

It's divisive because it lumps us all together in separate groups, divided by our differences rather than what we have in common

Not really - because we all belong to lots of different groups. If you looked at enough characteristics, you would probably find few people in the same group as you.

Some of your characteristics help in some ways.
Some are disadvantages.

Would you like those things that disadvantage you or people close to you to be less of a disadvantage in the future?

Or are you happy with the way things are?

@Oakenbeach

Read your answer to my question and its entirely incorrect. The fact that you have to construct the white person in a BAME community (please tell me where the one that is 97 percent of the population btw) is ridiculous. however individual in those situations may face some challenges based on the colour of their skin from day to day, but there will not be institutionalised or structural issues that based on the colour or their skin will provide significant challenges for them.

The rest of your point signifies yet again that you do not understand the concept of privilege or intersectionality, despite it being explained on a great many occasions.

Public policy has not discriminated against these areas because they are majority white. The public policy that has most damaged these areas has been austerity, and deindiustiralisation, which were both implented by the tories many of these areas have just voted for. Nor has public policy been a zero sum game where these areas have been abandoned so that BAME people living in others can be funded.

@endofthedays but we are not playing Trumps here

It is about inequalities - we can tackle them all you know !

Making the police more reflective of the communites they serve might help

It might do, but difficult to achieve in practice. In Northern Ireland they basically built up the entire police force from scratch to try to make it more representative of the community and I think it's still only something like a third of police officers who are Catholic.

The problem also is that in many parts of the country a largely white police force is representative of the community.

I could say I'm privileged in lots of ways. I don't need to worry about money because my partner earns a lot, I don't need to worry about food. I'm white. I'm reasonably well educated. On the other hand, I'm disabled, I'm female and I have no money of my own, it's all my partners. I have PTSD and I'm autistic. I'm from a working class background.

Really I think the whole idea of claiming our areas of privilege, or lack of, is flawed. It may work well in a sociology paper but in real life it has proven to be divisive. I think that is harmful. If a concept is so frequently misunderstood or results in division and hatred, then I think it needs to be binned or reworked into something that actually achieves it's aims.

SO @CendrillonSings the thread is about how we can talk about privilege in a way that makes sense for everyone so that people don't feel threatened by the conversations.

Since you don't believe in it what is the point of your being on this thread?

You are adding nothing positive to this conversation

We can certainly tackle a range of inequalities but not through concepts like privilege.

We can certainly tackle a range of inequalities but not through concepts like privilege

Women achieved a lot of policy changes and a more equal society by pointing out the privilege men have.

@CendrillonSings not at all

In fact the right had a tactic of making powerful majorities feel like oppressed minorities, hence the perpetual stories in the Mail and Sun about the white man being the most discriminated against.

It goes very well with the LF point too.

There is no perpetual victimhood on the left, hust striving for greater equality and for a better society.

Of course your thing abour failure doesn't really ring true, when Labour and Lib dem voters make up a larger proportion of the AB and C1 socio economic group than Conservatives.
People with high level qualifications are also more likely to vote Labour than Conservative. Of this group Labour and Lib dem make up 60 percent.

So no your little spat there isn't accurate.

‘Public policy has not discriminated against these areas because they are majority white. The public policy that has most damaged these areas has been austerity, and deindiustiralisation’

Heavy industry is and was overwhelmingly white, so of course policies that particularly target those areas are a form of targeting white people. Just as targeting mill areas targets white and Pakistani origin workers.

Since you don't believe in it what is the point of your being on this thread?

You are adding nothing positive to this conversation

What I’m adding is informing you that the whole basis of the ideology is a load of bollocks, which seems a pretty helpful piece of info to me

Interesting threat and topic. So many different views and opinions.

I don’t think you can get much more privileged than a white middle class male... in general.

How many of the above are in the top public schools, go to the too universities, end up in the top jobs in the top company’s?

You take pretty much any sector and at the top will be white, middle class, males.

CEO’s
Judges
Doctors
Solicitors
Accountants
Banking
Parliamentary positions- how many black MP’s do we have?

Women aren’t represented in anywhere near the same way in those top jobs and the ones that are are likely not to be on the same salary.

I agree with the white privilege but on a separate issue, while MALE privilege.

Women’s rights were gained through pointing out the ways women were disadvantaged and demanding basic rights.

People constantly going on about male privilege have not contributed to this at all.

Heavy industry is and was overwhelmingly white, so of course policies that particularly target those areas are a form of targeting white people

But the policies didn't target people BECAUSE they were white.

Heavy industry wasn't overwhelmingly white in the midlands and other areas.

Whilst they have negatively effected white people, it wasn't because of the colour of their skin.

Of course your thing abour failure doesn't really ring true, when Labour and Lib dem voters make up a larger proportion of the AB and C1 socio economic group than Conservatives.
People with high level qualifications are also more likely to vote Labour than Conservative. Of this group Labour and Lib dem make up 60 percent.

One amusing point you omit from your statistics is that in the recent election all classes were more likely to vote Conservative than to vote Labour!

It’s almost as if the left’s ideological obsessions don’t carry much weight with the electorate...

Something doesn’t have to be done deliberately to contribute to disadvantage for a particular group.