Explaining "Privilege' to Straight White Male nerds....

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I'm well aware of that, but someone who is black AND on the autistic spectrum will face even more prejudice, both from neurotypical people of any color and from old, white and native American people.

Or conversely, why should a person be knocked down simply because they were born into money. I wouldn't mind working hard to provide for my kids ,if I ever have any, so that they have a better chance in life. Isn't that what most parents want for their kids?

Paraphile? That's a new one. For the love of God don't let him latch on to that tree

Which is why we should be ashamed of being born white?

No one said that you should be.

Maybe he doesn't deny their existence, but he doesn't seem to recognize the size of some of those advantages.

I'm not arguing that minorities are privileged, nor gay people. Because, if they are, I haven't seen how. It's the male part I take issue with.

For example; it's harder for women to rise to prominent positions in business or government. I won't argue with that. Over on the other side of the socio-economic spectrum however, it's harder for men to avoid homelessness. Yeah, if you only look at the top of the heap, it's mostly men up there. But no one ever looks at the very bottom where, surprise, it's mostly men too. And guess what, the people at the bottom vastly outnumber the people at the top.

Or another example; much is made of the fact that black people recieve much harsher sentences than white people for similar crimes. But very few seem to notice that gender is an even better predictor of how harsh a sentence will be than race is.

The fact that women have to be fearful of sexual assault while men do not is used as an example of male privilege. And it is one. But the fact that men are exponentially more likely to be the victim of literally every single other type of violent crime up to and including murder is never seen as female privilege.

I don't know, I guess I just don't see "more likely to end up homeless" or "treated more harshly by authorities" or "more likely to be beaten or robbed or murdered" as "playing on the easiest setting."

I dunno i dont feel as priviledged only making 800 a month and paying 500 a month rent in a 5x10 room and not collecting food stamps or ssdi.

Everyone has some form of privilege, and some form of oppression. As Audre Lorde said, there is no hierarchy of oppression. A disabled person is no more oppressed than a black person, a woman or an immigrant, and vice versa. The combination of different forms of oppression (ablism, classism etc.) is called intersectionality.

For example a black woman can be more privileged than a white man. While the white man may have race and gender privilege, the black woman could have employment privilege, thin privilege and English fluency privilege over the white man.

Privilege is a matrix that we swim in and everyone is in this soup of screwed over and not screwed over at the same time. It took us years for society to recognize what Trayvon went through. It will take more years for society to recognize what the autistic Trayvon is probably going through right now. BTW Obama does not have white privilege because he looks more black than white. What you are seeing is class privilege, and class is linked with race in society though it is not a perfect linkage (it's hard to explain?)

I have zero desire to make light of a social problem or another group's suffering. At the same time I could run off a laundry list of all kinds of grueling forms of suffering that either know no gender or alternately could care less about whose said to have what privilege. In this particular direction if you find a white guy in a wheel chair on section 8 with diabetes who's lost most of his lower digits he probably won't have a lot to say on the issue, nor will the scruffy bubba who works a lower level job, lives by himself in his late 30's, and drinks himself to sleep in order to fight off the voices in his head screaming failure. Cruelty's isht, I hate to see it, but in nature and in society it really seems to know few limits.

I suppose where I beg to differ with the general thrust, aside from just detailing 'intersectionality', is I'd much rather the positive approach - ie light a candle rather than curse the darkness, be an example of what's right myself and hope to out-illuminate what's wrong, and really impart what I think it's the bottom line wisdom that if you outclass (behaviourally, ethically, emotionally, just as a person in general) you'll win. I think that last factor gets ignored by so many and it's tragic. The newspapers still do way more than they should to gin up dissent - the problem is that bitterness keeps the business going.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 08 Nov 2013, 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

One thing that belongs in the article: when you play on the easy level, you have to put up with people flaming you and saying stuff like "well of course you beat that quest, you're playing easymode, you'd have to work to fail at it", "wtf are you complaining about, try playing on a harder level", "you noob, i've got way more accomplishments than you and you're playing on the baby level". It sucks, is often immature and stupid, and makes playing on a harder difficulty sound better, but it doesn't change the fact that it IS the easiest setting, and often the complaints are justified.

I don't think that's the case. If a man cheats on his wife when he's on some business trip, she's expected to forgive and forget; if a woman cheats on her husband while she's away on business, she can expect a divorce and a custody battle.

deleted for repetition of points already made.

Last edited by LKL on 08 Nov 2013, 2:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

outliers do not disprove the median or the mean.

Would you be better or worse off if you had been born under the exact same circumstances, but were born a black child to black parents?

White straight women have it better no one way about it when you are a straight white woman you might as well be using and old school game genie. If they don't want to work they don't have to if they don't want to take care of their kids they don't have to they can have a job not do anything at the job if they want to. If they are intelligent and attractive life gets even easier for them if they are intelligent attractive and hard working then almost anything they want they can get have. While even rarer if a woman is intelligent attractive hard working determined and resourceful then you have a woman who can do have or be anything her heart desires. I have know lots of men more than I have fingers toes and teeth that have those rare qualities but through so much luck and useless people in there lives have lost time and time again. Besides pretty soon it will be straight Asian men who lazy and stupid people will say are privileged when really the only true privileged people have tit and pus. Keep doing what people like you do best live in a bubble where reality can never get inside.

Dudes like you are a huge part of the reason so few people take men's issues seriously.