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Have you actually checked your privilege? As a white male you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society. If you feel otherwise

Have you actually checked your privilege? As a white male you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society. If you feel otherwise it's likely something going on in your own head. EDIT my point is that you're complaining you can't celebrate your white privilege, when in fact every day is a celebration of that. Not that because you are white you necessarily are any of those things - just that it is easier to be. EDIT2 > All it leads to is an endless loop of arguments Or, if you step back and don't get so "offended" it's also known as a "discussion". There's a huge amount of people who really, really don't know how good they have it. Talk about how they need more. Then get offended when you point out there are people worse off. Inequality is a serious issue, and yes we do need to have a discussion around "privilege", who is or isn't "privileged", and comparison of levels of "privilege".

laichzeit0 10y ago
> As a white male you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society. Yes. I don't want to feel that I need to apologize for this or be treated in a negative way. I get that we're at the top of the ladder, now leave us alone.
- ricksplat 10y ago
  >Somehow it feels "frowned upon" to celebrate that you're a white male. Clearly it isn't.
- noobermin 10y ago
  I'm not sure you need to apologize and it doesn't look like you have been treated in a negative way. I hope you don't consider this thread as "being treated in a negative way", it's a just discussion. EDIT: I really appreciate you replying. We are supposed to talk to you about it all, apparently, and it's good to have that discussion.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
flukus 10y ago
Where is all this wealth I get just for being white?
- labster 10y ago
  Everywhere around you. You have a indoor plumbing and electricity and always-on internet, correct? You eat three squares a day, right? In global terms, you are likely to be quite wealthy. Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%.
  - konart 10y ago
    >Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%. You do realise they are what they are because they made it so? Or at least becasuse their parents grandparents did. They weren't born pro developets, not a single one of them had any guaratees of being succesful or fairly paid. And no - not all of them were born into a wealthy family of the 1% of the first world countries. You can check some noatable bios and see for yourself just how many of the so called 'world's top 5%, if not the top 1%' started at the bottom of the world.
    - labster 10y ago
      You seem to be attacking me for stating a fact. Who cares about why they are wealthy — people in the computer industry are astonishingly wealthy in historic or global terms.
      - Chris2048 10y ago
        It probably wasn't the fact, but the intent of stating that fact in context.
      - konart 10y ago
        >astonishingly wealthy in historic or global terms Like if we compare a junior sys.admin to some kid of the similar age from an african village that has problems with drinkable water? Yes, well, no shit.
mindcrime 10y ago
Telling people to "check their privilege" is pretty close to the worst way to advance any kind of meaningful dialogue, from what I've seen. Speaking that way manages to be simultaneously presumptuous, condescending and demeaning. I'll go out on a limb and posit that we should drop use of the term "privilege" altogether. All it leads to is an endless loop of arguments about: the nature (or existence) of "privilege", who is or isn't "privileged", and comparison of levels of "privilege". I have yet to see one of these discussions change anyone's mind, or lead to any increased understanding.
- belorn 10y ago
  Fully agree. Labels which aren't falsifiable is generally very bad and is mostly used as a pejorative term.
- cabalamat 10y ago
  > Telling people to "check their privilege" is pretty close to the worst way to advance any kind of meaningful dialogue, from what I've seen. Speaking that way manages to be simultaneously presumptuous, condescending and demeaning. Given the closeness of the election result, it may well have been the straw that tipped it over into a Trump victory. People who have spread the "check your privilege" meme should reflect on that. But I bet most of them won't.
imtringued 10y ago
Maybe you should start to see people as individuals instead of treating them as members of a group and putting all of them into a box labeled "privileged". Not every white male is part of the "wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society".
- 7Z7 10y ago
  Society does not treat individuals as individuals. People are put into boxes every day, and it's really only now that people are saying, "hey you know that being white means you probably get put in less boxes, and boxes of less negative importance, let's just acknowledge that", that people are suddenly imploring people to not put people in boxes.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Klockan 10y ago
> As a white male you are the ..., healthiest, ... in modern society. Not true, Asians are healthier than whites and females are healthier than males. White males have some privileges but they certainly don't have all of them.
- ainiriand 10y ago
  When you say asians I think you are forgetting that the 'asian' group is mostly chinese people with really bad life expectancy. http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-life-expectancy http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-life-expectancy
  - Klockan 10y ago
    You need to compare within countries or it doesn't matter. Asians in the US lives a lot longer than whites in the US. Also if you want to find poor whites you just have to look at Russia where they live shorter than even China. Therefore we can conclude that being born in the US is a privilege in terms of life span, but being white is not. http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/russia-life-expectancy http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/russia-life-expectancy
gozur88 10y ago
You realize women live longer than men, right?
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Congratulations, you've just perfectly proven the GP's point. This kind of reaction is what makes it forbidden for white westerners "to cultivate, maintain, and respect" their own culture. This kind of reaction, multiplied milionfold via media - both social and traditional alike - which can sometimes lead you to lose your job, or home. I get it - mistakes were made, some people in the past got trampled in order for the West to get where it is. We can, and should, absolutely talk about it[0]. But living our lives in despair over the "privilege"? Feeling constantly guilty for being born? That's an overreaction. Frankly, all that privilege talk seems to be just an attempt to guilt-trip the west into self-destructing. -- [0] - I'm talking pretty recent times; if you want to go back to the beginnings, then each culture has humongous amounts of blood on its hands.
- vacri 10y ago
  Horseshit. "white male" isn't a culture. Culture is movies and religious holidays and cuisine and clothing and birthday songs and literature and public holidays and sporting events and driving style and living arrangements and art preferences and so on and so forth. I must have missed the meeting where we declared it verboten to sing Happy Birthday, wear blue jeans, and burn sausages on a mass-produced barbeque when we have a day off and the sun is out. Culture is not "has white skin and a dick". That's a phenotype, not culture.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Replace white with another race, and replace your list of stereotypes with a list that is more appropriate. Would you now consider your comment racist? If so, congratulations you are a bigot.
    - vacri 10y ago
      Americans don't like to sing Happy Birthday, wear blue jeans, and bbq things on sunny days? Are any of these negative stereotypes? Who would be offended by saying that it's common in the US for people to do these things? Where did I pass judgment on wearing blue jeans? Denigrate people for singing Happy Birthday? Defend the humble sausage? My 'list of stereotypes' before that bit was intentionally culture free, apart perhaps from 'birthday songs'. Every (major) culture has all of those aspects. How is it bigoted to say that cultures have religious holidays or sporting events? -- I can't believe that I just got called a bigot for saying that in American culture, people sing Happy Birthday. In a thread that came from a guy whining that he can't celebrate patriarchy and white men holding all the positions of power, no less. How ridiculously over-sensitive are you?
ericd 10y ago
This ignores the many white men for whom there is no economic hope, because their towns and regions are dying. Many of these white men are living off of disability because their jobs left and aren't going to be coming back. Many are addicted to pain killers and other drugs to help distract them from the reality of their situation. That is an existence without much hope, a slow, depressive sinking into despair. With that in mind, I think you can imagine why the drum telling them about how privileged they are and have no right to complain might inspire more than a little anger. Have the same empathy towards poor white men as you would to anyone else, and encourage your friends to, for everyone's sake.
- noobermin 10y ago
  Can we stop this tired meme? The median income for Trump voter at least in the primaries was higher than the nation's median and higher than Clinton's or Sanders'[0]. [0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-...
  - ericd 10y ago
    That article has very suspect figures. It says that all the major candidates had supporters with median incomes above the national median income. Which tells me that the population they're polling isn't representative.
    - wool_gather 10y ago
      That's not cause to suspect the analysis. Yes, the sampled population may not be congruent with the nationwide population. There's a reason for that: these are exit polls at the primaries. Only those who showed up to vote in those primaries can be polled. The article links to its source data: http://www.cbsnews.com/elections/2016/primaries/republican/virginia/exit/ http://www.cbsnews.com/elections/2016/primaries/republican/v... The VA results there, for example, also show that the majority of respondents for both Republican and Democratic primaries are over the median state (and national) _age_.
RandomOpinion 10y ago
>Have you actually checked your privilege? I'd check my privilege but President Trump already cashed it. /s Please never use that condescending phrase again. As last nights election shows, a lot of people are tired of being condescended to.
Chris2048 10y ago
> you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society. individuals experience reality as individuals, not in aggregate. Also, you can slice the cake as you wish - you can specify a group as "the wealthiest/celebrated" group directly, without conflating this with race or sex, whatever correlations might exist. The wealthiest white males live on the liberal coasts of CA and in NY, mean FA to rust belt white men who are being told to stfu because they are so wealthy/powerful/celebrated... in aggregate at least. White men can reject the establishment too - there is no contradiction in the fact that the "establishment" consists mainly of white males, so long as you understand that race/sex/etc aren't the only way to group the world.

laichzeit0 10y ago

> As a white male you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society. Yes. I don't want to feel that I need to apologize for this or be treated in a negative way. I get that we're at the top of the ladder, now leave us alone.

ricksplat 10y ago
>Somehow it feels "frowned upon" to celebrate that you're a white male. Clearly it isn't.
noobermin 10y ago
I'm not sure you need to apologize and it doesn't look like you have been treated in a negative way. I hope you don't consider this thread as "being treated in a negative way", it's a just discussion. EDIT: I really appreciate you replying. We are supposed to talk to you about it all, apparently, and it's good to have that discussion.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

flukus 10y ago

Where is all this wealth I get just for being white?

labster 10y ago
Everywhere around you. You have a indoor plumbing and electricity and always-on internet, correct? You eat three squares a day, right? In global terms, you are likely to be quite wealthy. Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%.
- konart 10y ago
  >Most software developers easily make it into the world's top 5%, if not the top 1%. You do realise they are what they are because they made it so? Or at least becasuse their parents grandparents did. They weren't born pro developets, not a single one of them had any guaratees of being succesful or fairly paid. And no - not all of them were born into a wealthy family of the 1% of the first world countries. You can check some noatable bios and see for yourself just how many of the so called 'world's top 5%, if not the top 1%' started at the bottom of the world.
  - labster 10y ago
    You seem to be attacking me for stating a fact. Who cares about why they are wealthy — people in the computer industry are astonishingly wealthy in historic or global terms.
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      It probably wasn't the fact, but the intent of stating that fact in context.
    - konart 10y ago
      >astonishingly wealthy in historic or global terms Like if we compare a junior sys.admin to some kid of the similar age from an african village that has problems with drinkable water? Yes, well, no shit.

mindcrime 10y ago

Telling people to "check their privilege" is pretty close to the worst way to advance any kind of meaningful dialogue, from what I've seen. Speaking that way manages to be simultaneously presumptuous, condescending and demeaning. I'll go out on a limb and posit that we should drop use of the term "privilege" altogether. All it leads to is an endless loop of arguments about: the nature (or existence) of "privilege", who is or isn't "privileged", and comparison of levels of "privilege". I have yet to see one of these discussions change anyone's mind, or lead to any increased understanding.

belorn 10y ago
Fully agree. Labels which aren't falsifiable is generally very bad and is mostly used as a pejorative term.
cabalamat 10y ago
> Telling people to "check their privilege" is pretty close to the worst way to advance any kind of meaningful dialogue, from what I've seen. Speaking that way manages to be simultaneously presumptuous, condescending and demeaning. Given the closeness of the election result, it may well have been the straw that tipped it over into a Trump victory. People who have spread the "check your privilege" meme should reflect on that. But I bet most of them won't.

imtringued 10y ago

Maybe you should start to see people as individuals instead of treating them as members of a group and putting all of them into a box labeled "privileged". Not every white male is part of the "wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society".

7Z7 10y ago
Society does not treat individuals as individuals. People are put into boxes every day, and it's really only now that people are saying, "hey you know that being white means you probably get put in less boxes, and boxes of less negative importance, let's just acknowledge that", that people are suddenly imploring people to not put people in boxes.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Klockan 10y ago

> As a white male you are the ..., healthiest, ... in modern society. Not true, Asians are healthier than whites and females are healthier than males. White males have some privileges but they certainly don't have all of them.

ainiriand 10y ago
When you say asians I think you are forgetting that the 'asian' group is mostly chinese people with really bad life expectancy. http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-life-expectancy http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/china-life-expectancy
- Klockan 10y ago
  You need to compare within countries or it doesn't matter. Asians in the US lives a lot longer than whites in the US. Also if you want to find poor whites you just have to look at Russia where they live shorter than even China. Therefore we can conclude that being born in the US is a privilege in terms of life span, but being white is not. http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/russia-life-expectancy http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/russia-life-expectancy

gozur88 10y ago

You realize women live longer than men, right?

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Congratulations, you've just perfectly proven the GP's point. This kind of reaction is what makes it forbidden for white westerners "to cultivate, maintain, and respect" their own culture. This kind of reaction, multiplied milionfold via media - both social and traditional alike - which can sometimes lead you to lose your job, or home. I get it - mistakes were made, some people in the past got trampled in order for the West to get where it is. We can, and should, absolutely talk about it[0]. But living our lives in despair over the "privilege"? Feeling constantly guilty for being born? That's an overreaction. Frankly, all that privilege talk seems to be just an attempt to guilt-trip the west into self-destructing. -- [0] - I'm talking pretty recent times; if you want to go back to the beginnings, then each culture has humongous amounts of blood on its hands.

vacri 10y ago
Horseshit. "white male" isn't a culture. Culture is movies and religious holidays and cuisine and clothing and birthday songs and literature and public holidays and sporting events and driving style and living arrangements and art preferences and so on and so forth. I must have missed the meeting where we declared it verboten to sing Happy Birthday, wear blue jeans, and burn sausages on a mass-produced barbeque when we have a day off and the sun is out. Culture is not "has white skin and a dick". That's a phenotype, not culture.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Replace white with another race, and replace your list of stereotypes with a list that is more appropriate. Would you now consider your comment racist? If so, congratulations you are a bigot.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Americans don't like to sing Happy Birthday, wear blue jeans, and bbq things on sunny days? Are any of these negative stereotypes? Who would be offended by saying that it's common in the US for people to do these things? Where did I pass judgment on wearing blue jeans? Denigrate people for singing Happy Birthday? Defend the humble sausage? My 'list of stereotypes' before that bit was intentionally culture free, apart perhaps from 'birthday songs'. Every (major) culture has all of those aspects. How is it bigoted to say that cultures have religious holidays or sporting events? -- I can't believe that I just got called a bigot for saying that in American culture, people sing Happy Birthday. In a thread that came from a guy whining that he can't celebrate patriarchy and white men holding all the positions of power, no less. How ridiculously over-sensitive are you?

ericd 10y ago

This ignores the many white men for whom there is no economic hope, because their towns and regions are dying. Many of these white men are living off of disability because their jobs left and aren't going to be coming back. Many are addicted to pain killers and other drugs to help distract them from the reality of their situation. That is an existence without much hope, a slow, depressive sinking into despair. With that in mind, I think you can imagine why the drum telling them about how privileged they are and have no right to complain might inspire more than a little anger. Have the same empathy towards poor white men as you would to anyone else, and encourage your friends to, for everyone's sake.

noobermin 10y ago
Can we stop this tired meme? The median income for Trump voter at least in the primaries was higher than the nation's median and higher than Clinton's or Sanders'[0]. [0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-...
- ericd 10y ago
  That article has very suspect figures. It says that all the major candidates had supporters with median incomes above the national median income. Which tells me that the population they're polling isn't representative.
  - wool_gather 10y ago
    That's not cause to suspect the analysis. Yes, the sampled population may not be congruent with the nationwide population. There's a reason for that: these are exit polls at the primaries. Only those who showed up to vote in those primaries can be polled. The article links to its source data: http://www.cbsnews.com/elections/2016/primaries/republican/virginia/exit/ http://www.cbsnews.com/elections/2016/primaries/republican/v... The VA results there, for example, also show that the majority of respondents for both Republican and Democratic primaries are over the median state (and national) _age_.

RandomOpinion 10y ago

>Have you actually checked your privilege? I'd check my privilege but President Trump already cashed it. /s Please never use that condescending phrase again. As last nights election shows, a lot of people are tired of being condescended to.

Chris2048 10y ago

> you are the wealthiest, healthiest, most celebrated segment in modern society. individuals experience reality as individuals, not in aggregate. Also, you can slice the cake as you wish - you can specify a group as "the wealthiest/celebrated" group directly, without conflating this with race or sex, whatever correlations might exist. The wealthiest white males live on the liberal coasts of CA and in NY, mean FA to rust belt white men who are being told to stfu because they are so wealthy/powerful/celebrated... in aggregate at least. White men can reject the establishment too - there is no contradiction in the fact that the "establishment" consists mainly of white males, so long as you understand that race/sex/etc aren't the only way to group the world.