What is "Privilege"?

Parent Cafe
261

Well, you’re of course entitled to use the term “privilege” in that restricted sense if you so choose, but the standard English uses of the term are broader than that. Here’s what the dictionary on my desk says:

In QuantMech’s private language, “privilege” means only something like definition #3 above. But as the term “privilege” is commonly understood in the English language–and as most posters are using it here–it has the much broader definition encompassed in definition #1.

I do agree, however, that “if something is a human right, it is not a privilege,” because human rights are rights held by all persons, just by virtue of being human, and thus they are not “enjoyed by a particular person or a restricted group of persons.” However, the legal and constitutional rights held by U.S. citizens are held by a restricted group of persons, namely U.S. citizens, and thus they are privileges under both definition #1 and definition #5. I take definition #5 to be just a particular instance of definition #1, but apparently one commonly enough used to warrant its own entry in the dictionary.

262

Well, yeah, NOW white people want to stop categorizing people by race.

263

For those who only thinks the media portraits women as a sex objects, have you watched Two and a half men, my husband watched it sometimes when nothing is on TV that he liked and for some episodes he couldn’t watch any further. Eventhough Charlie Sheen made sexist remarks and jokes, but the truth is that the show is making fun of men.

264

Yes, we"re all one race - the human race. Individuals who are all equal.

265

And interestingly, the people complaining the most on this thread are some of the “privileged.” To paraphrase PG, I’m getting tired of being hit over the head with privileged people’s problems (such as the gardener looking at the short shorts; the white speeding stop; and having to endure the sexism of Two and a Half Men), and my empathy is starting to run thin.

266

MidWestDad3, you are trying to be funny!
Not sure if it’s working or not, I’ll tell you after lunch.
Right now I have hunger problem. Is that not a sign of lacking privilege?

267

Re bclintonk’s post #260: On the one hand, I agree that a very large number of people now use “privilege” exactly as it is used on this thread–and even the OED won’t really help me out.

Yet I think that it is worth making distinctions among the following concepts, however one labels them:

R: A fundamental human right, that is inalienable. The fact that a right may be violated does not make it any less a right. Every human being should be concerned to ensure that the fundamental rights of every other human being are secure, regardless of location on the planet (or off it), and any personal characteristics.

A: An advantage, which may result from an accident of birth. It is a fact that some people have advantages that others do not. I have many advantages, and a very small number of disadvantages. To the extent that we can provide high quality opportunities to everyone, I think we should do that, and minimize the differences due to advantaged/disadvantaged status. I might classify it as “unfair” that some people have A’s which others do not, but this does not compel me to action in the way that a violation of R’s would/should. I am taking some actions in my community and internationally to try to see that A’s are distributed more broadly. But to some extent, some A’s are the result of things that are beyond my control or modification (barring some extremes).

P: This is an advantage that is actually granted by another person. P’s could be revoked, because they have been granted at the dispensation of some person. So some A’s are P’s, but some are not–those would be the A’s that cannot be altered (again, barring extremes).

I think it is very important not to mix R’s with P’s. We need to absolutely insist on R’s. In that regard, I agree with bclintonk to a certain extent. However, to call American legal and Constitutions rights P’s rather than R’s, in my opinion, risks downplaying the central importance of ensuring R’s to everyone.

In my view, it is less important to differentiate between A’s and P’s, but I think this distinction is useful, too. In my view, P’s ought to be equally available to everyone. P’s are granted. They could be granted to everyone. A’s, on the other hand, are not handed out. Rather, they are things that happen, often accompanying birth or even conception. We can, and in many cases,should compensate for A’s, by reducing the societal impact of different life situations, but I do not think that full equalization is achievable for A’s, as opposed to P’s.

268

QuantMech, I think you may be mixing up the concept of a privilege with what it means to be “privileged.” I don’t think those are the same, at least in colloquial English, which I think is why the OED didn’t help you. We can talk about whether something is a privilege or not, in the sense of, say, whether driving is a “privilege.” We can say, though, that Thurston Howell III is “privileged,” and we mean something a little different. I don’t know if this makes it any clearer, but while being white may not be a privilege, being white does make you privileged. I think “advantaged” captures this a bit, but I would say that “privileged” as we are using it here has some of the flavor of both “advantaged” and “entitled.”

As I think about it, Mr. and Mrs. Howell are the perfect examples of this. Even though they were really in the same position as all of the other castaways–especially those who were also passengers on the Minnow–they believed they deserved–and they received–special treatment because of characteristics that were actually irrelevant to their current situation. That’s a privileged attitude.

269

Hi Hunt, I meant the OED didn’t support my views! You have made an interesting distinction between having a privilege and being privileged. I agree that advantages that are not inherently privileges could cause one to be “privileged,” but this due to privilege that is granted by others–in your case, the other castaways.

[This will probably stand up to logical scrutiny if anyone cares :wink: though possibly not.]

270

I’m all for treating everyone with dignity and respect. But to simply turn a blind eye to race in America is to be willfully blind to the ugliest aspects of our nation’s history and to its living legacy, which includes some really stark patterns of inequality of treatment and inequality of opportunity. There’s conscious or unconscious racial profiling by the police, for one thing–the widespread phenomenon of traffic stops and searches for “driving while black” being just the mildest form of it, but the sorts of incidents pizzagirl describes, and worse, are all too common.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/15/racial-profiling-has-destroyed-public-trust-in-police-cops-are-exploiting-our-weak-laws-against-it/

There are deep racial disparities at every stage of the criminal justice system. Statistically, blacks are more likely than whites to be arrested rather than warned for minor offenses or borderline behavior; more likely to be required to post bail rather than released on personal recognizance; more likely to have bail set at a higher dollar figure for the same offense, and consequently more likely to serve jail time for failure to make bail; more likely to be charged with a more serious offense for the same underlying act; less likely to have charges dropped or reduced or to get off on a plea bargain or pretrial diversion; more likely to be sentenced to incarceration rather than probation when convicted of the same offense; and more likely to get a longer sentence when convicted of the same offense.

http://www.nccdglobal.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/created-equal.pdf

http://www.civilrights.org/publications/justice-on-trial/?referrer=https://www.google.com/

Then there’s the ongoing phenomenon of racially segregated housing patterns, partly the legacy of past discrimination in ways that are now illegal, partly perpetuated by ongoing racial “steering” in the real estate industry. Real estate agents steer white prospective home buyers to predominantly white neighborhoods, while steering equally credit-worthy black and Latino home buyers to predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods–practices that are illegal under the Fair Housing Act but nonetheless widely prevalent, according to reputable studies. The problem with this, of course, is that predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods have, on average, less access to health case, less access to quality schools, and fewer employment opportunities.

http://socpro.oxfordjournals.org/content/socpro/56/1/49.full.pdf

Pretending that race just doesn’t matter in America may be a pretty and comforting thought if you’re not part of the group that systematically gets the short end of the stick. But it’s delusional.

271

Beautiful.

272

I think those are all important and disquieting comments by bclintonk–and thanks for the links to references.

273

Is this not what was fought and asked for? I get it that segregation, Jim Crow etc. did wrongly segregate by race, but your response is to be facetious when people actually try to live up to what was asked for?

Seriously, if people struggled to be taken as equal and not segregated, why is it not applauded when people effort to do exactly that? Just seems a bit weird to get what you ask for and then the respond is if it is a a joke. Why did you ask for it in the first place then, if your response is to be snide?

Maybe it is lost on some, but at some point, ala Justice Roberts, if you want to stop segregation by race, you simply have to stop segregation by race. Not tough to figure that logic out.

274

All of the examples that bclintonk has mentioned seem to me to be violations of the fundamental right to equality under the law.

It is incumbent on all of us to eliminate violations of fundamental rights.

To borrow Hunt’s example: If Thurston Howell VII is driving a Cadillac, that is probably the result of being privileged. Does it raise my hackles, since I drive a Ford? Not really.

At the risk of being supremely boring and repetitive (a boundary I probably crossed a while back), when someone mentions unequal privilege, my immediate reaction is yeah, well . . . When someone mentions unequal rights, I see that as a call to action. I really do not think the concepts should be lumped together, regardless of what you prefer to call them.

275

@awcntdb Who exactly is responding that getting rid of the Jim Crow laws is a joke? Again, generalizations significantly undermine the argument.

And who is it who should be “applauding” that whites FINALLY offered some measure of equality, even if it took a century and a half? It’s kind of like your employer owes you five years of back pay. You go to court many times to try to get it. The judge eventually orders that one month be paid to you, and you are supposed to be grateful now?

276

“I’m all for treating everyone with dignity and respect. But to simply turn a blind eye to race in America is to be willfully blind to the ugliest aspects of our nation’s history and to its living legacy, which includes some really stark patterns of inequality of treatment and inequality of opportunity. There’s conscious or unconscious racial profiling by the police, for one thing–the widespread phenomenon of traffic stops and searches for “driving while black” being just the mildest form of it, but the sorts of incidents pizzagirl describes, and worse, are all too common.”

bclintock, all of your examples in post 269, are examples of NOT treating everyone with dignity and respect. I guess you took the concept of treating everyone well, to be understood as ignoring poor treatment of some. If it was that everyone was treated with dignity and respect, then you would have no examples to give. Of course it is an idealized concept, but I can’t imagine having a problem with people deciding to do that on an individual level. How can anyone complain about that?
.

277

“And interestingly, the people complaining the most on this thread are some of the “privileged.” To paraphrase PG, I’m getting tired of being hit over the head with privileged people’s problems (such as the gardener looking at the short shorts; the white speeding stop; and having to endure the sexism of Two and a Half Men), and my empathy is starting to run thin”

Oh my, you can’t possibly be referring to any women on this thread. Because they certainly don’t hold much privilege, they are WOMEN, which automatically makes them disadvantaged. In fact, some of them just might not be white, and/or might have grown up poor. They in particular, need special empathy, as they are obviously some of the less privileged. Are you mocking unprivileged women in your post? Just like a man! Showing off your privilege, putting the victimized women down. Next thing, you’ll be telling blonde jokes, and mocking us for our consternation. Don’t you have any empathy? I would just start sobbing right now, except there’s about a hundred men in this room and I would never live it down…

Hey guess what, you privileged guys? As time goes on, there are more and more strong women out there. And they think they can do anything, they aren’t oppressed by men, they aren’t victims, and they just might rip your head off, should you suggest they are disadvantaged. Scary thought for some, perhaps?

278

I have never told a blonde joke in my life. And I’m sorry, but almost nothing you have experienced in your life can be equated with having an ancestor who was put up on a block, separated from their family, sold and bought by a white person.

279

It’s the same in each thread and it gets worse and worse. Disgusting.

280

I did mention to close the thread but it was vetoed because I’m privileged. You know the +17 step forwards and -2 step backwards.
I think it’s pretty arcane(if that is the right word), almost lecturing on one post.