Douchebags - An article everyone should read :)

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I chimed in here regarding the consistency of his argument that was pointed out by another. The premise of his argument is that white people don't get categorized. He did not use those exact words, so if you want to say, "he didn't say that", then OK yes he did not use these specific words. However, he has to come to that conclusion for his argument to be consistent, and it is what he means when he says he is seen as just a man, [and not a white man] i.e., he is not categorized as "white". And yes he did not specifically, say "not a white man", however, that is what he is meaning.




Yes. Echoing what you said, I think he may mean when you see a, "black man" , you incorporate all the sterotypes associated with black people into your recognition of that man. However, not sure how he can say that he is just a man, and not a white man. Other people will see him as a white man and make conclusions about him.



Many Arab people are white, so I don't think that argument works. In America, I don't think skin color is the reason for the disdain towards these people; it is because America has long warred with middle eastern countries, plus the 9/11 event, and lately there have been many Muslim attacks on Americans .... i.e., Arab people are seen as an enemy.



How can they be "privileged" when they are white and are a categorized group ? In his view, they lose their individuality once they get categorized as "Arab" ? The case of a white Arab person would appear to foil his logic ?

Okay, surprisingly, you're right about the black man bit. The part you're not getting about whites is this: White people are the dominant class in the US and they get to determine what conclusions "stick" to what group. Unlike the negative conclusions that stick to blacks, the conclusions that stick to whites are usually all positive--whites are competent, whites are honest, whites are safe, etc.

The conclusions that stick to blacks are usually--blacks are uneducated, blacks are dishonest, blacks are violent, etc.

This is just another dimension of white privilege.

Also, whites generally shrug off any labels they don't like, arguing that they are individuals (as can be seen abundantly in this thread), and other whites in the dominant class allow this. This is something minority folks CANNOT do because the dominant class still thinks in stereotypes about them regardless...

This is illustrated pretty vividly in the vids I posted earlier.

Here's another vid that shows just how pervasive white privilege is:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk[/youtube]

internalized oppression is just another perk of white privilege in America.

Nobody is telling this stuff to black children. This is simply the conclusions they draw from our culture, media, etc.

Some Arab people might be white but how much anti-Arab sentiment is directed at them?

I have no doubt that Islamophobia is a motivating factor behind anti-Arab racism, but you have not followed my point. It's important that you read what people say very carefully or you'll never understand anything.

Again, racists do not identify Arabs by actually looking at ancestry, they're identified by features of their phenotype associated with Arab ancestry, including skin colour.

I do believe my previous two answers explain this

If you still do not understand, then it might help if you think of "Arab" as another group that experiences discrimination. In the same way that he points out that homosexual, trans gender, and lower socio-economic standing white men can experience this "lumping" deindividualisation, if you think that "Arab" is not mutually exclusive with "white" then consider "Arab" as synonymous with "gay" or "Hispanic".

Right, just like the slurs of "red neck", and "white trash" may be applied to white people when discriminating against them. He argues against it though. He says white is seen as an individual, not a category. So, how does that resolve with what you said above ?

Also, consider the example of a white person from say Germany who does not know English will face discrimination from white people in America. Is this "foreigner" seen as an individual or categorized as a foreigner? According to the author, this person is seen as an individual because of the white skin.

White is not a 'class' of people....class is based on your economic status, not all white people are of similar economic status...so not getting quite what you mean by that. Also it would seem if anything there is a population of upper class white people who are privileged, this privlage does not exactly extend to everyone white, if you're poor and white you aren't going to be assumed to be honest and safe.

Also are you saying minorities don't have the ability to shrug of any labels they don't like? They just go with whatever people label them as? I have not seen anything like this. Everyone technically speaking is an individual.....Also apparently it would seem many in the 'dominant class' aren't holding on to negative stereotypes about minorities or making negative assumptions based on skin color, so isn't it a little unfair to imply all white people are in on this when it is really not the case.

His point is that in a White dominated society (such as the USA) Whites of Eurpean descent are the "default setting" for what is human. Other races get labeled as members of races because they are regarded as deviant varaties of humans. And thus get racial slurs. Whites just get slammed by what nonracial subdivision of the White population belong to (region, or class) but there is no stinging epithet against American Whites in general.

Whether an Arab individual passes for "White", or not doesnt change what he said.

Okay, white privilege isn't a binary--an either/or kind of thing--it's more of a spectrum.
At the top end we have white, wealthy, male, attractive, tall, Nordic looking. At the lower end we have poor, female, unattractive, ethnic looking. The more you have in common with the upper end of the spectrum the more privilege you have. The more traits you have with the lower end of the spectrum, the less privileged you are.



Well, you are certainly entitled to that opinion, but I think there's plenty of evidence for lot's of negative stereotyping in America.

Just look at your own experience. You believe that people perceive poor whites as less safe and honest but somehow blacks don't experience this sort of thing too? That seems a bit inconsistent to me.

Everyone is naturally biased against those they see as different from themselves. The people at the top, wealthy, white males are not immune to this, and since they have the most power in our society, what they believe carries the most weight. They tend to behave more favorably to other people who are like them and less favorably toward people who they perceive as different. That is the essence of white privilege.

The whole point of discussing white privilege is not to demonize any particular group, but to make people aware of these natural biases. That's actually good for everyone.

ConcernIlng white priviIege, and other kinds of what is called privilege by social theorists; I can see why a lot of people find it aggravating to be criticised as if they are personally responsible for broad social ills when they don't personally perpetuate them, and if they were in a position to change them would. Especially if they have to live with social hurdles themselves due to autism and other factors.

Last edited by Nebogipfel on 11 Nov 2014, 2:05 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Despite talk of an American identity, there's always the sense of "the other," especially when the other is of a lower economic/social status. Throw in non-white skin color, and an American identity hardly applies anymore.

First part make sense for the most part, though not sure nordic (if you mean in the sense of scandinavians as it would be questionable what amount of people in this group are actually scandinavian) and tall are actually qualifiers I think wealthy, white, male and attractive(though a lot of those rich douchebags don't look attractive to me) are about it. Well then there are the females who get with these types of guys and I feel the then also benefit from this privilege.

Of course there is lots of negative stereotyping in america, and I am one of the people that sees that as an issue....but I think its also important not to just zone in on racial stereotyping and sort of downplay other sorts of stereotyping that are just as serious...not saying you are doing that but sometimes it seems the focus is always racial stereotyping.

Also I never said black people are not stereotyped as dangerous, dishonest of course they experience that so I certainly don't deny they face that kind of judgement from society at large....just pointing out there are other groups that also experience this and some of them include white people, or people who look white but have other ethnicity. Also that some of these groups do not have acccess to this privilege so it woudln't seem to make sense to lump all white people into that catagory when it's a specific group that essentially consists of wealthy white males, which is different than white people in general. Only difference being maybe these a**holes would judge a white person outside their group like say not as high up on the wealth spectrum a little less harshly than a minority in the same position as this white person based on skin color, but even then they'd still be looking down on them both.

In this sense, the word Nordic is a more all encompassing term like WASPish, or white of north west European stock.

Eww, I wish people would quit using nordic that way....for one knowing some of the history of the culture and nordic mythology and such it just seems kinda insulting.

Yet those same Nordic Scandinavians have a common ethnic, linguistic, and cultural origin as other northern peoples as Germanics and Anglo-Saxons. They all had shared very much the same Pre-Christian mythology.

I think you've touched on something indirectly.

People within privileged categories feel criticized when privilege is pointed out to them, which is unfair. Recognizing that privilege exists isn't the same as blaming the people who benefit from it for it existing. People conflate these two notions and respond as though they're being personally attacked.

People arguing over one category will sometimes be blind to other categories, so it may make more sense to draw these people's attention to other categories of privilege. People who you feel are attacking you on the basis of being white or male may need to be reminded that NTs enjoy privilege over those who suffer ASDs or mental illness. If they've never examined privilege from that angle before they should. For the most part all privilege means is that you're far less likely to encounter certain hurdles (and may have additional methods available to overcome these hurdles), but even someone who falls into many privileged categories is likely to encounter a number hurdles in their life.

Privilege doesn't say anything about the person benefiting from it inherently, but we shouldn't pretend like it doesn't exist either.

My point is White american protestant is not the same thing as scandinavian....even if there are people of more Scandinavian decent within that group. White American protestant does not really reflect actual nordic culture or roots of it.