The "White Privilege" Confusion

Sadly, this confused concept is metastasizing. Not that Buzzfeed is worth paying attention to...but Tumblr is leaking, and this stuff is starting to infect the weaker regions of academia and the interwebs.

It's not that the idea that there is white "privilege" is completely off track--it just isn't really accurate. There's no reason to move to a less accurate concept when we're already using more accurate ones. It's just a terminological fad, and a misguided one.

I've argued before that the problem isn't white "privilege," it's discrimination against some non-white groups. A problem of unjust privilege is naturally solved by removing the unjust advantage--that is, roughly, treating the privileged group like everyone else is treated. So, if there's an aristocracy that is given unjust advantages, you solve the problem by taking those advantages away.

That's not the way to solve the relevant racial problems. for example, in the U.S. Blacks are, on average, hassled unjustly by cops more that whites. This problem is more accurate described as one of discrimination, not of "privilege." The problem cannot be solved by unjustly hassling whites at a higher rate. This particular problem can only be solved by the cops hassling blacks at a lower rate. (Of course, no one should be hassled unjustly by the cops...so there will still be a problem even if blacks start to be hassled at the lower, white rate...but that's a different point...)

But, in addition to being confused, this privilege nonsense is obnoxious--and intended to be. This cartoon is a pretty good representation of the problems that are associated with the relevant approach. Those who reject the "privilege" theory/locution are referred to as "ignorant," and told to "fucking educate" themselves. The cartoon simply insists that they "open their eyes" to the "privilege [they] have." The shrill little cartoon person complains:

I cannot believe that I now have to explain to you in cartoon form because no one on the internet seems to or even wants to understand this painfully simple concept.

This just seems like a toxic stew of confusion and dogmatism to me. It's probably best to start off by explicitly stating something obvious:

To the extent that what's afoot here is true, it's basically accepted by everyone but the most retrograde conservatives: in general, whites in the U.S. have significant advantages over blacks. If you're looking to win the game of life, and you get to build your own character and choose your stats, and you're born in the U.S., choose to be white rather than black (And: male rather than female, straight rather than gay, Christian rather than atheist...and, especially: rich rather than poor...). The number of places in the U.S. where you'll be worse off for that choice is pretty small. On average, you're significantly better off being white.

Almost no one denies that.

So the complaint seems to be not that people don't acknowledge this, but, rather, that they aren't flocking to the terminology.

People are resistant to the "privilege" nonsense for a couple of reasons. Sure, it's painfully simple...it just isn't really right, for reasons outlined above. They're resistant because we already have a better way to think about this stuff, and it's with the familiar old concepts of advantage and discrimination.

So why shift the emphasis away from disadvantaged groups and helping them--and shift it to the alleged "privilege" of whites (or males, or whatever)? Well, despite their protestations to the contrary, we know enough about the lefty-left to know that they enjoy criticizing whites (and males...etc.). They'd much rather talk about the advantages of being white than the disadvantages of being black--because they'd much rather focus on making whites feel guilty than on solving the problem. Solving actual problems is the province of liberals--the lefty-left isn't really that interested in that.

That is, of course, speculative--but it's not entirely ungrounded in what we know about the left. It could be wrong, of course...and I'm hardly objective. I don't like radicals on either end of the political spectrum. But we do need some kind of an explanation of why this terminological fad caught fire on the left, when we can say all the true things we need to say with the normal terminology: blacks are disadvantaged relative to whites, they are frequently discriminated against, and it is not uncommon for whites to benefit from these things. If the goal were not to throw an elbow at whites, then one would think that a term like "advantage" would have been chosen rather than the not-quite-accurate and condemnatory "privilege."

But, look, as annoying and confused as this fad is, there's still something worth thinking about there. It's too bad these people are so irritating, because the general idea could make for an enlightening little thought exercise: think about being white as if it were like being minor royalty. Imagine that blacks were treated normally, but we were generally treated a little better--that is, imagine that there literally were "white privilege." Thinking about that can give you some insight into the way things really are. That's not the world we live in--in the world we live in, whites are treated more like people ought to be treated, and blacks are discriminated against. But it's similar in certain interesting ways. Thinking about that might be interesting/informative/enlightening. Sadly, instead of offering up a helpful little thought experiment, they've just dogmatically pushed a flawed way of thinking that is likely to alienate the very people they seemed to be attempting to address.

But this again points us to the failure of the model. One thing that advocates of the "privilege" model like to say is that it corrects for the allegedly erroneous belief that "white experience" is "normative." The thing is, however, white experience is "normative" in the relevant respect--the problems can't be solved by discriminating more against whites. The problems can only be solved by discriminating less against blacks.

As always, this could all be wrong. Sadly, almost everyone I encounter who pushes the "privilege" locution is irritating as hell, and I'm easily annoyed by such things. Perhaps this terminology does bring with it some advantages I'm not seeing--but, if so...well, I'm not seeing them.