'White privilege' holds back minorities, speaker says

[NVMojo]

Article Published: 12/3/05, 2:55 am
People of all races need to work together to dismantle a system known as white privilege, a national speaker said Friday in a two-day diversity workshop at the Washington Pavilion.

Lalitha Shastri, a diversity consultant from San Francisco, said the system gives an unearned advantage to certain people because of skin color.

"We're in the same boat," Shastri told two dozen workshop participants. "If we're going to sail safely, we have to do it together."

The workshop, which continues today, is co-sponsored by Dakota State University Diversity Services and the Diversity Education Project of the Dakota Academy of Performing Arts. Participants included educators, counselors and students.

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http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051203/NEWS02/512030317/1001/NEWS

[papau]

1. height, might,, weight, good looks/symmetrical face, sexy look, speaking v

voice, plus the quality of contacts you get because your parents are not poor, all add or subtract from your earnings over time.

An unearned advantage because of skin color is of course bad.

And that is first on the list to demand action.

But changing law is easier than changing people.

And one needs to define "white" before we can address white privilege.

[NVMojo]

2. all very good points ...and being white don't guarantee much if

once doesn't meet those other factors you mentioned. believe me.

[jeffrey_X]

3. White is what you see or hear initially....

It's pretty simple really.

Comparing a symmetrical face to a person's skin is a disgrace. Please don't try to minimize the white priveledge factor...it's alive and well. And as a white man, I've got no qualms admitting that I've benefited from it.

[triakis36]

4. Right on! Jeffrey_X

It's easy to ignore or fail to notice 'privilege'. That's what makes it a privilege. But admitting it is one step closer to fighting that urge or tendency to abuse it.

"The primary beneficiaries of white privilege are upper-middle-class, heterosexual, Christian, white men", Shastri said. "If you're white and poor, it's a problem. If you're white and gay, it's a problem," Shastri said. "If you're white and female, you're less privileged."

Each of us hold several different identities, be it nationality, race, sex, sexual orientation.. so at any given point we may belong to the "privileged" or "unprivileged" group. It's easier for those of us that move from high to low points in the hierarchy depending on our situations to see the discrepancies more clearly. But for people who never "have" to notice, to never have to care..its easy for them to make comments like "well, why don't you just do something about it." And that just pisses me off.

[Brewman_Jax]

5. Tim Wise writes about this

in his article White Whine: Reflections on the Brain-Rotting Properties of Priviledge

[TimBinh]

6. Not all minorities

If white skin color is an advantage, why do Asian-Americans have a higher per-capita income than European-Americans?

[triakis36]

7. I hate this "model minority" argument..

It's been around since the 60's and really has no merit. If you take a look at per capita income of Asians and whites with the same degrees, then whites still make more. Statistics like this are flawed and mask the fact that Asians face the same kind of racism as every other minority.

[java-fiend]

10. Let's examine ther facts

"The median household income of Asians and Pacific Islanders ($45249) was highest, while White households had the second highest ($38972), ..."
Source: US Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/cb98-177.html

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. White privilege and disadvantage to non-whites don't go hand in hand.

It's fairly clear that many ethnic minorities are significantly worse off than they would be if race was no longer a factor, but because there are so many more whites, they don't gain very much priviledge from this.

Imagine you have 1000 cakes to divide among 100 people, of whom 50 are blue and 50 are green. If you ignore skin colour, everyone will have 10 cakes - the neutral position. If you discriminate in favour of blue, giving each of the blues 19 cakes and each of the greens one, that's a significant privilege.

Now imagine than you have 90 blues and 10 greens. No matter how much you discriminate against the greens - even if you only give them one cake each - you can still only give 11 cakes to each blue, a negligable privilege.

As such, when talking about racial discrimination in the context of discrimination against a minority, it makes much more sense to talk about discrimination *against* rather than *in favour of*, because if you're in the majority you're *not* being discriminated in favour of with regards to the majority of your competitors.

[triakis36]

9. That's not true

The privileges afforded by the majority go very much in hand with the disadvantages of the minorities. It's more than just ' them eat cake' as it were. When someone is getting 110% more cakes than another, that's a considerable advantage. Your argument that the majority is 'not' being discriminated by a the majority is entirely circular and completely ignores the status of the minority. By your words alone.. that is 'privilege', to be afforded the luxury of ignoring the plight of others.