Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege - a freshman perspective

[emeraldkity4]

<p>They do that to anyone who isn’t personally known to them as a customer, at least that has been my personal experience.</p>

[actingmt]

<p>Also, frequently salespeople are not following you to make sure you don’t steal anything. It’s their job to service potential customers. They make 10-bucks an hour to look busy. It’s not always personal. They don’t want to get fired.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>Lately I’ve been wondering if sales clerks have been switched with waiters.
I had ten different sales people swoop upon me at Nordstroms recently while I made my way through the store, but when I actually wanted to purchase something, no one was around.</p>

[oldmom4896]

<p>emeraldkity4, ask any dark-skinned person. It is much more prevalent for them.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>How dark is dark?
I have friends who are minorities who aren’t any darker than my friends who hail from Southern Europe.</p>

<p>A lot depends on how you dress.
When I dress like I just came from the woods, I get clerks who are insistent upon helping me, even when I assure them I don’t need any, than when I make a point to dress like I was going to court or to the office.</p>

[oldmom4896]

<p>It’s not a matter of dress.</p>

[oldmom4896]

<p>Here’s a fairly recent news story about Barney’s and Macy’s.
<a href=“Profiling Complaints by Black Shoppers Followed Changes to Stores’ Security Policies - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/nyregion/black-shoppers-at-barneys-and-macys-say-they-were-profiled-by-security.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[emeraldkity4]

<p>This is where I see logical consequences coming in to play.
You don’t like how a private business treats you?
Go somewhere else & tell your friends why.
If they want your money, they’ll change their tune, otherwise, who cares?
You know how many car dealerships I had to go to before the salesperson spoke to me instead of my husband?
It was worth it.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

While I’ve only heard the phrase used in an insulting way and I don’t care for the phrase, I think this essay simplify demonstrates that the writer doesn’t understand what white privilege is. White privilege doesn’t mean you haven’t worked hard. It doesn’t diminish what you have accomplished. It is simply admitting that our society favors your race and gender and so you have had one or two fewer obstacles.

</p>

<p>The way it was put on another forum was that my life and academic achievements were the result of hard work, but because I am a white male, those achievements are analagous to getting a high score on a video game that was on an easy setting. I find it completely mind-boggling in how insulting this is.</p>

<p>

I can relate to the gender part because I’ve experienced it myself. As a single mom, I’ve had contractors tell me that I can’t sign a contract to have work done without my husband present. Oh really?? I’ve walked into car dealerships with a cashier’s check in my purse and waited for a sales person when a man who walked in after me was waited on immediately. I’ve also had mechanics try to milk me for more work and money than was necessary because they assumed a woman wouldn’t realize it. This hasn’t happened every time with all contractors/dealerships/mechanics, but it has happened often enough that I recognize it.

</p>

<p>It really depends what situation we are talking about. In the case of doing well in classes, academic achievements outside the classroom such as competitions, performance in standardized exam, I think it’s completely inappropriate to attribute it to “white privilege.” And this is what is relevant to an 18 year old kid; they aren’t closing deals in the boardroom that require one to be part of an old boy’s network–their job is to be a good student. </p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

The argument is sloppy, too. To the extent that he is privileged because he is white and male, that privilege has nothing to do with his hardworking ancestors. His ancestors could have been white pirates, rapists and murderers, and he would still be white and male, and he’d still have the privileges (whatever they might be) that accrue to white males who grow up in New Rochelle, a tony New York suburb.</p>

<p>He might want to argue that he has no advantages, as a white male, over people that are not white males. But he doesn’t make that argument.</p>

<p>Also, it may be nitpicky, but I cannot like phrases toeing lines. I don’t usually even notice mixed metaphors, but that one screams out to me.

</p>

<p>One of the concepts of white privilege is that one benefits from the wealth of your ancestors, which was accrued due to institutional racism favoring those ancestors. I think talking about the hardship of one’s ancestors is relevant to countering this type of white privilege. </p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

One of the concepts of white privilege is that one benefits from the wealth of your ancestors, which was accrued due to institutional racism favoring those ancestors. I think talking about the hardship of one’s ancestors is relevant to countering this type of white privilege.

</p>

<p>The point of privilege is that neither blame nor credit accrue to the person who has it. Whether a wealthy person’s ancestors’ wealth is due to their being bloodthirsty pirates who bayoneted babies, or whether their money was bestowed on them by a grateful populace because they saved curly-locked maidens from mustache-twirling villains, their own child was brought up in an atmosphere of wealth. It’s not to the credit of the essay writer that his parents could afford to live in New Rochelle rather than some holler in Appalachia.</p>

<p>

The way it was put on another forum was that my life and academic achievements were the result of hard work, but because I am a white male, those achievements are analagous to getting a high score on a video game that was on an easy setting. I find it completely mind-boggling in how insulting this is.

</p>

<p>Really? I’m waiting to hear how you could have achieved everything you have achieved if you’d been born a deaf black female in a hut in sub-Saharan Africa. White male in the US? That’s an easy setting, if you consider all the people in the world. Any person in the US is a pretty easy setting.</p>

[sorghum]

<p>The SES of the families of the vast majority of students at Princeton is not at all low. It is inappropriate for some persons of privilege at Princeton to think they have exclusive morality to say “check your privilege” to other persons of privilege at Princeton.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

Really? I’m waiting to hear how you could have achieved everything you have achieved if you’d been born a deaf black female in a hut in sub-Saharan Africa. White male in the US? That’s an easy setting, if you consider all the people in the world. Any person in the US is a pretty easy setting.

</p>

<p>It was asserted that “white male” status alone conferred the privilege, all other things being equal, and in particular that this was such a big advantage in achieving a superior academic record in high school that it was like playing the video game on easy. Confounding factors like nationality, disability, quality of schools, and SES were not being debated. </p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>Yeah, but about half of the students at Princeton are women. It is entirely appropriate to remind some young men that women have worries about assault and violence that need never concern a healthy young man. Not to say that was happening in this particular case, though.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

The point of privilege is that neither blame nor credit accrue to the person who has it. Whether a wealthy person’s ancestors’ wealth is due to their being bloodthirsty pirates who bayoneted babies, or whether their money was bestowed on them by a grateful populace because they saved curly-locked maidens from mustache-twirling villains, their own child was brought up in an atmosphere of wealth. It’s not to the credit of the essay writer that his parents could afford to live in New Rochelle rather than some holler in Appalachia

</p>

<p>Well, I agree if you just mean privilege in general, but the topic of the opinion piece is privilege due to white male status.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>Neither credit nor blame accrue to being white and male, either. </p>

[actingmt]

<p>But CF, people in hollers in Appalachia are not using this expression. It means basically you have it easy compared to me. Which is not necessarily true just because of race, gender, or income. I think it’s awful.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

. It means basically you have it easy compared to me.

</p>

<p>No. No, that is not what it means. It means, “You just said something that indicates you don’t realize that everyone else is not in your fortunate situation.” One white male can say “Check your privilege” to another white male.</p>

[actingmt]

<p>So, like first world problems? My impression was that it was typically derogatory not a reminder to be nice. The conversational way you are explaining is less offensive. But still annoying. Do white males really say that to each other? I thought it was more of a social justice activisty phrase.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>Some white males are social justice activists.</p>