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

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*sigh* Fine. *In the US* Why do Asian people get less + privilege than whites, as they outperform whites on both education, income and life expectancy?


Asian Americans with the following origin: Taiwanese, Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and Bangladeshi.... all surpass whites in having bachelor degrees or higher education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Americans#Education

Taiwanese, Indian and Pakistani Americans even surpass American Jews on the same scale.

Ha. Ever been to Kazkhstan? The pro-Kazakh policies can be quite nasty there. As can the policies in many central Asian countries (although those tend to target ethnic Russians more than westerners). I experienced real racism in China and North Korea. In many places in Japan it can be quite difficult to be a foreigner of any kind. There are also many places in the world where being white just makes you an outsider and the privileged few are the favoured ethnicity of a different ruling class, in those environments you are marginalised by xenophobia. South Africa can be quite difficult also, google Julius Malema.

Racism can be interesting for a westerner because the majority of places that we will encounter overseas will the internationalised areas of those countries. In somewhere like Bali westerners are very well treated but if you travel to Jakarta you can find a totally different environment. Likewise in China, Shanghai and Hong Kong are both international cities but Beijing certainly is not. Then in dongbei, Jilin, Shengyang etc you can meat very racist people. I had one had chap in Yanji barge into my room and order me to get him a drink. Whenever I am in Beijing my patience runs out very fast and I just refuse to spend time there now (the pollution is also a factor in my dislike of the city). One of my friends, who is ethnically Chinese but is a born and bread New Yorker could hardly believe the amount of taxi drivers who would scream at me or refuse to pick me up in Beijing. Eventually I just gave up and got into the habit of jumping into the back seat and even then they would often scream at me or act confused.

In South Africa, the level of intimidation can be very high. There is real racism there, try listening to people singing 'kill the boer, kill the farmer' (its actually a song there).

when you concede that privilege is also factored by local issues, any attempt to make a global privilege scaling system becomes redundant.

As far as the US is concerned, I would surmise that Asian people are more likely to be victim to violence or hate criminality than white people.

Last edited by thomas81 on 10 Nov 2013, 10:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

I subjectively find that chart slightly more accurate than the previous one. All such charts are meaningless though because they are not backed up with scientific data.

However, I think it's debatable how much the idea of privilege is backed up with scientific data. It seems there is some data to back it up - i.e. studies where you have people applying for the same job with the same kind of experience/qualifications, but they change the names on the application forms to reflect different social backgrounds. There are repeated studies that show men and people with Anglo-sounding names are at an advantage. However, this only really shows how privilege works on a shallow level. The issue is that intersectional oppression is by nature a bit too complex to prove and quantify. It's a useful idea, but not something that should be treated like dogma. I use it with caution for that reason.

Last edited by puddingmouse on 10 Nov 2013, 10:15 am, edited 2 times in total.

Affirmative Action explicitly discriminates against white Americans on the basis of them being white. How - by any standard - is this not racist?

I've never found the concept of "privilege" to be particularly useful.

Not ever have been a white heterosexual male, I have no basis for comparison for my own experiences. The best I can tell, "white male privilege" only applies to certain men in specific circumstances. It means absolute squat to men who are just scraping by. At best, if I had been born male, some of my habits may not be considered as odd as they are, but, on the downside, I probably would've gotten beaten-up more.

In any case, I think it's obnoxious when people feel the need to lecture me about how "easy" I have it based on nothing but arbitrary physical characteristics; therefore, I don't do it to others.

Best answer ever!

Affirmative action was ment to combat discrimination against black people, allthough the system itself reeks of white guilt. It is a black privilege though, but apart from getting into prestigious universities with a lower GPA, black people do not really have any privileges over white people. Furthermore, you're taking the reason why AA is there out of context. While I'm against this system (and many black people are as well), it's not intended to discriminate against anyone, but to compensate for some of the disadvantages black people face in employment.

Is it racist that there's no white history month?

Regardless of the intent and history of Affirmative Action, it does discriminate against white Americans, and it does so because they are white. It does even more so against Asian Americans, which further undermines its justification. Furthermore, Affirmative Action is backed by *law* (at least for now. Fisher v. University of Texas might change that), making it institutionalised to the same degree as Jim Crow laws in the Southern US States.


Black History Month - as silly and one-sided as it is (I believe Morgan Freeman said it best) - does not deprive any individual of access to education or employment. Affirmative Action programmes do.

If everything else was the same and I was black then I can't say my life would be all that different. I would still have two parents who stayed married, didn't do drugs, and worked full time jobs. 'Or is it white privilege to have those:? As I mentioned I grew up in black neighborhoods and went to black schools, if anything I'd probably have an easier time fitting in, would of benefited from Affirmative Action, and would have had to a lot less expected out of me in general. The only racial violence I knew growing up was black on white(mind you, I didn't live in 1960s Mississippi like you guys apparently do), having epithets thrown at me was basically an everyday thing in the city, and jobs? There aint no jobs for anyone. I do wonder how my college admittance would of gone otherwise...

As I've mentioned, everyone has their own unique experiences and challenges, nothing is universal. Something people struggle with in one aspect of their lives might be advantageous in another, remember what forum you're on by the way. Does that privilege go both ways? You could replace race, sexuality, or gender with literally anything. For the idea of privilege to have any merit then you would need to factor in every little minute aspect of life into it and at which point the term 'white male privilege' would be completely meaningless.

I don't feel qualified to argue with you, since I don't fully understand the US situation. I just wanted to point that you were misrepresenting the other side's argument.

But based on what I do know about the US situation, and some of the horror stories I've heard, I will say this. If I was a disembodied soul about to be born, and God told me "You are going to live in the US your whole life. Do you want to live in a white body or a black body?" I would choose the white body every single time.

I absolutely agree - as I said, I think that this guy pulled the specific numbers out of his ass, and his numbers are too simplistic (there are different levels of impairment for different levels of mental illness, for another example). However, for the guys who don't get the idea of privilege at all, it demonstrates the fact that you can have privilege added for some characteristics and subtracted for others, such that even if you're a cis white male, you can still be living on the street, and still be experiencing more privilege than a black guy in your same situation (for example, when the cops show up to roust you off of your bench).

i know guy who is always talking about cultural/societal privledge in a preachy sort of way,a self described marxist.

one day,forgot the context.but i called him educated and he fliped out and got defensive and deensivley maintained he is not educated.

the guy has 2 masters degrees,not 1 but 2.

a bachlors and masters from university of massachusetts and a second masters from U Conn.both very good schools.

people always want to point the finger of privledge at someone else but never are willing to admitt it themselves

What if the white homeless guy is living on the streets in an area dominated by a racist black street gang?

Privilege doesn't exist in a vacuum. A white person in the middle of a black panthers meeting is less privileged than a black person, and vice versa for a klan meeting. Privilege arises because people prefer people who are similar to them (OH NOES! Kin selection!), and so, when an accident of fate results in people with a particular trait becoming dominant, it tends to become self-sustaining (but it's not so strong that it can carry on indefinitely, unless deliberately maintained). If China had been dominant, rather than Europe - something which very nearly did happen - we'd be talking about Han privilege, and perhaps being white would enable me to take advantage of affirmative action brought in by Han guilt of their oppression of my ancestors.

It would be interesting to repeat the experiment with the CVs, except this time, finding out the details of the person who reads them. Is it systematic bias towards "white" names? Or is it that the person reading them is simply biased towards people most like them? In fact, I'd be willing to wager (not much, just a few bananas) having the same name as the person reading your application will help you a lot, and the more dissimilar you are to them, the worse your prospects.