08-28-2021, 10:10 AM
(08-27-2021, 11:48 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(08-27-2021, 03:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: White privilege is real. It doesn't solve every personal problem; it can't offset mental illness, criminality, stupidity, laziness, addiction, isolation, or poverty. The absolute color bar that ensured that a top-notch black professor could not teach in a "white" university or matriculate there as a student is no more. If you know something about what I have, Asperger's syndrome, then you would recognize as I do that it can mess up one's life badly. In the fantastic event that the cure for my personal problems in life could have been solved with "melanin therapy" that would have made me black, then I would have taken it. I'd rather have good facial recognition (its lack is a big social problem), have facial expressions that match my words (which makes my credibility suspect), and deliver me from some troublesome eccentricities that can make me seem an obnoxious twit, then I would. With Asperger's I am nothing more than my intellect. I would never give that up, as that is all that allows me to have any individuality at all.
If you are a decent white person, then you do not need white privilege. If you want to pretend that you are better than some black person because you are white, then you need white privilege to salve your hurt feelings. The KKK offers that for expensive dues and certain expectations. One Imperial Wizard expects members of his Klan to buy an insurance policy from a shady outfit that he owns and operates. That insurance company does not operate as a normal life-insurance company does; it is the slush fund for the Grand Dragon who lives like a king. On the other hand you can be an extreme low-life and economic loser, even an ex-con, and feel yourself superior to "uppity n---ers" who don't know their "rightful" (that is, subordinate) place in the grand scheme of things.
White privilege only applies to some white people and the majority of them are Liberal Democrats these days. Take Pelosi for example, it's hard to deny that she's not related to white privilege. She looks like white privilege, acts like white privilege and talks like white privilege. I'm pretty sure she functions and controls people like the white privileged too. As far as advantage, we have advantages poorer people like you and most immigrants these days. We don't have a language barrier or parents clinging to old traditions related to where ever they came from and so forth. We can afford computers, laptops, smart phones and cable. I agree that they're all a bunch of pompous shits who You go out in the real world and talk with some real people and you will learn that very few whites associate themselves and associate whatever they own or accomplished with white privilege. A wife of a friend who tends to repeat what she hears on Democratic related channels said the same thing to me a while ago. Like you, she repeats Democratic talking points without using any thought. I don't know if she was aware of my intelligence level or not. I mean, I talk like an average guy most of the time but I am capable of have a more intelligent and sophisticated conversation or college level discussion which she learned rather quickly.
Privilege as a reward for high achievement is to be expected. With very high achievement come special perks, like high income and access to spectacular opportunities for emotional and intellectual enrichment. Consider the military: officers are expected to toe the line in many ways, so there's a lot of stuff they can't get away with. But above a certain rank one lives very well.
So if one is at the top of the game and one must travel, then one gets to stay at 4-star hotels instead of Motel 6 or Super 8. In the latter two one is probably traveling across country between Atlanta and Denver or Dallas and Grand Rapids and is tired enough that the only desirable perk is a continental breakfast that will save time.
She's the Speaker of the House, dammit! Just think of what goes along with the position. She has access to classified information that you can't imagine... which explains why the person who stole her laptop could get life imprisonment just for that.
Abuse the privilege and you lose the basis of the privilege. So you are a top-notch singer for a couple decades and your voice goes bad. Bye, bye, good life! Farewell, four-star hotels!
White privilege, as I have found, is mostly convenience. I'm less likely to be stopped. I will never be questioned about "driving while black" near where I live. (OK, the black physician in our town... well, the cops know about him and leave him alone). If I were black I would do much differently, like doing all shopping except for groceries and perhaps some items of clothing (shoes, especially) on line.
(OK, if you are white and have a car with Vermont license plates and you are driving in certain parts of Hartford, Connecticut, then you are probably there for drugs. Tough luck, white doper in a black neighborhood!) Drug use is an obvious abuse of white privilege. White people use more drugs, use worse drugs, and get away with it longer.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.