To ask when you’ve experienced white privilege

[Whitepriv]

Sadly I know I have. In East London at a high rise, was checking into an Airbnb and couldn’t find the lockbox despite instruction so was looking extremely dodgy, looking under lots of the block of flats windowsills. There’s a young black man hanging out a few metres from me smoking a cig.

Police come by and ask me if I could do with any help and if I’m okay. I tell them that I’m fine but thank you. In less than a minute, I see the same police moving on the young black man for hanging around outside the flats, with a ‘you can’t loiter here’. Sad 😞

@Fosler You're racist and also wrong. Black people were the first to set foot in this land. Look up Cheddar Gorge Man if you don't believe me.

This country has been conquered so many bloody times it's impossible and pointless to try and talk about who was here first / Christianity / white people.

You are a sad joke of a man.

Wasn’t Jesus an Arab?

Fosler, are you in the UK?
Originally it was a land mass attached to a larger landmass called Pangea, after movement of the continental plates, various ice ages and periods of more temperate climate we were separated from what is now the European mainland by a tiny strip of water.
We were inhabited, over the years, by people who it is believed originated in the East African rift valley. I don't think they were Christian because it was a while before Christ was born.
We have been repopulated over the centuries by numerous different people, some aggressively by invasion, some by invitation.
Your post is misinformed and very sad.

A lot-all the time really. The fact that being white means absolutely nothing to me is exactly what white privilege is all about.

But here’s an example-the two ethnic minority mums from DD’s class are pretty much ignored by almost all the other mums and I am not, despite the fact that I am quite miserable really.

Never.

I grew up on a shithole council estate in a dump of an ex-mining town in Derbyshire in the 1980s. I went to a bog-standard comp, from which I somehow managed to earn a place at a good university despite the standards of teaching and facilities at the school.

Therefore, if you don’t mind, I will leave the guilt-ridden performative self-abasement to those who have actually experienced privilege.

Throughout my life. Except I can’t think of specific scenarios and that is the whole essence of the privilege.

Fuck off Fosler.

We travelled between Sri Lanka and UAE on Mihin Lanka, an Asian budget airline. We were the only white people on the plane, apart from a Russian crew. It was eight hours late leaving and arriving so we landed at 4.00am, with an eight year old who had not slept. The immigation supervisor opened a lane for us, and ushered us through. I was extremely grateful; DS was the only child, and we had travelled a long way, but I don't think passage would have been facilitated for a Sri Lankan family. It was white privilege.

" I look mostly WI,"

Before I finished reading the sentence, this is what I imagined:

Set up for white Christians.
Such stupidity is always astounding.

Yes. I went into a local high end luggage shop that had a notice for Saturday staff In the window. I was 16. Walked in at the same time as a black girl. She was a little older than me I’d say. Shop owner asked her if she had any experience and she said she’d had about 1 year of shop experience. Was told to leave her CV, all the time I was stood there. She left, I was asked if I had any experience and said no. Was offered the job.

I didn’t take it. Was young and feeble and didn’t say why. But I knew that on paper I was less qualified for the job. told my mother and the shop was thenceforth Known as the “racist luggage shop” until it closed. It was really eye opening at the time. 30 years ago and I can still remember how unfair it was.

And yet again, white privilege does not mean that you don’t have a hard life, it simply means the colour of your skin doesn’t make it harder, that of all the barriers you have to face, your skin colour isn’t one.

@AgeLikeWine
White privilege doesn't mean that you didn't have a shit life, it means that the reason your life was shit wasn't because of your skin colour.

Is the reason you lived in a council estate and went to a comprehensive because you were white? Is that the reason why? I doubt it.

Jesus fucking Christ. No one tell her about the Anglo-Saxons, okay?

In the grand scheme of things, the Anglo-Saxons are fairly recent immigrants from Germanic Europe. In all fairness, maybe the poster meant that the country was created for Germanic European immigrants.

I was young and stupid and in the States, driving well over the speed limit late at night. I was stopped by a traffic cop. Instead of scaring me, he reduced the speed I was going on the ticket so I didn't get a reckless driving charge and told be to go to court so I wouldn't get points/a fine.

Why are people so desperate to deny that the existence of white privilege?!

Janleverton this is so random but the town I grew up in, there was a luggage shop and the owner was really arsey and if there were Black people in the shop they would be treated particularly badly and sneeringly. I remember noticing but (unbelievably) not naming it internally as racism at the time. Wonder if it’s the same shop?

A friend's dad pulled his car up to chat to his grandson a woman came up and demanded to know what he was doing, he explained that this was his grandson (grandson confirmed this), thought that was the end of the matter, till the police turned up at his front door, and the local facebook group, was flooded with accusations of him being a kidnapper and god knows what.

Would love to know if he had been white whether that would have happened.

Also, I am white, but am very mediterrian looking, I get asked where I am from, been told to go back where I come from, its rare it happens, but everytime it does I get the fleeting thought that at least it doesn't happen to me every fucking day

@Xiphisternum well said

I am distinctly average but I get through life fine with my efforts commended. I've had blunt workplace conversations that don't raise hairs, but witnessed more mild requests from a black female colleague which have been branded "agressive". It's ridiculous.

Probably all the time without me noticing, especially since my part of the UK isn't very multicultural. The most obvious, and frankly shocking, case of white privilege was when I was young and based on nicknames. I originally come from the Yorkshire Dales where 99.9% of the population is white and it's common for young people in their teens to be given nicknames which stick for life. 30 years ago the only BAME people who lived locally were two men, one of Indian Heritage and one mixed race black/white, both born in the UK. Their nicknames were P Harry and Nick the N**. Obviously these labels were horribly racist, but beyond that, not one local white person was given a nickname based on their skin colour or general appearance, not even a 'Freckly Jim', 'Swarthy Bob' or 'Ginger Sue'.

There is no point telling @Fosler to fuck off, nor to report her. She is the silent majority of voters, and not engaging with her point of view will entrench the issue. She has some valid points and plenty that are just not true. Yes, this is a Christian country. We also chose to export Christianity and our language to most of the world by invading those countries, and established ourselves very successfully through a combination of bribery/diplomacy, trade and force. I bet they also those countries also had feelings about that at the time. What their inhabitants have also done over the years is acquired some of our culture, and as a result they also came here. There is definitely an issue with the lack of cultural assimilation in some communities, but the thread was about racism, not about more nuanced issues of culture and religion.
The problem is that because people feel threatened by any "otherness", they lump it all together into a thing they don't like. Fear leads to hate, so the fear needs to be addressed. There's no point saying it's wrong to be afraid. It comes from a position of weakness, and that won't go away. People voted for the Tories because they were all sick of a lot of the bollocks about all manner of "minority" groups that does no one a favour. Labour suspending Trevor Phillips for simply putting across a view about Muslim integration is a case in point of the weird omerta that seems to surround all debate on race, gender, religion or culture, and the lack of free expression is chilling. But, she is entirely wrong to equate any of this with the much simpler fact that people make assumptions based solely on the colour of a stranger's skin.

So you can have Farage. Something like his granny or great granny was the progeny of Germans. Johnson has German ancestry. Indeed, no one can doubt the Royal Family's Germanic provenance.

Don't want to derail. I'll stop now.

"Therefore, if you don’t mind, I will leave the guilt-ridden performative self-abasement to those who have actually experienced privilege."

Ah yes, but privilege here doesn't mean actual privilege, it means a lack of under-privilege. You were under-privileged, but you might have had even more challenges if you were black as well.

UK and USA born white people are born with it. I am certainly highly mindful of it and hate the fact that people's skin colour is the reason why one human being is treated differently from another.

I have white privilege just by existing. It's not an if and when, it's a constant.