The Concept of Privilege

[lilpixieofterror]

I have never said that individuals aren't affected differently in different circumstances. There are privileged people of color, and disadvantaged people who are white. There are circumstances where any gender can be advantaged, and circumstances where any gender can be disadvantaged. Treating individuals on the basis of trends is a form of discrimination, whatever their skin color.

So far so good, but you go off and pretty much deny the above next.

But when we find systemic disadvantage/privilege, it is incumbent on us to raise awareness, and counter it. Two examples I gave in other threads were about resume pre-screening on the basis of names, and hiring of musicians into orchestras. In the first case, studies showed that resumes with non-white sounding names (hispanic, african american, etc.) regularly failed to pass prescreening at higher rates than white-sounding names. This happened regardless of the race, gender, or ethnicity of the screener. When the same resumes were "blinded" (i.e., names obscured), they passed prescreening (with the same sample population) at statistically equivalent rates. This indicates an implicit bias at work. It means that a person with a white-sounding name immediately has an advantage at securing these jobs, because their resume is more likely to pass prescreening. Education helps, but encouraging a practice of blinding resumes as standard business practice is even more effective.

With orchestras, studies showed that men passed initial screening for placement in orchestras at a higher rate then women almost across the board. However, when the auditions were likewise blinded (so the screeners only could hear the music, without knowing the gender of the player), candidates past the pre-screening at an equivalent rate, again almost across the board. This likewise strongly suggests an implicit bias baked into the system. It means that men have an implicit privilege/advantage, because they are more likely to pass the pre-screening for no other reason than they are male. Again, education and awareness helps, but changing the pre-screenin practices helps the most.

Taking children from birth and having them raised by the government might rid people of biasness. Good luck with getting others on board because the area you grew up at easily adds to that biasness.

I think we also have to ask ourselves, "why are these things true?" These are just two in a long list of such examples. So we need to ask ourselves, "what is it about our culture that tends to give white people (or at least those with white-sounding names) the advantage in the first situation, and what is it in our culture that gives men the advantage in the second. What can we change in our society/culture that could affect that dynamic?

These are the kinds of things we need to be aware of, trace the source, and find solutions that level the field, IMO.

[lilpixieofterror]

I love that one, its almost perfect. There's some tiny nitpicks you can make of it you can do, like Rogue06 did, but as an illustration of what is meant by privilege it gets the point across.

[Mountain Man]

A very good cartoon from a writer in my country on the subject of privilege...

Why do people think that presenting a bad argument in the form of a comic or info-graphic magically transforms it into a good argument? Just like the morally and intellectually bankrupt "critical race theory", or that silly running exercise that was discussed in another thread, this cartoon assumes that one demographic is exclusively advantaged while the other is exclusively disadvantaged, which, sorry to say for self-loathing liberals, that's not how life works. I also appreciate the little moments in the cartoon, like the cruel glee in the bank manager's expression as he turns down Paula's loan application, or how her boss in the next panel is obviously a misogynistic jerk. Nothing but disadvantages, I tell ya!

Look, there's no guarantee that the "Richards" of the world are destined to only succeed, just as there's no guarantee that the "Paulas" of the world are destined to only fail. I've known plenty of both types of people in the decades I've been on this earth, and I know plenty that have shattered this stereotype, in both directions. The curious thing about people who have genuine unearned success is that they tend to squander it because they don't appreciate it and take it for granted. But of course that doesn't play into the class warfare narrative that is critical to keeping liberalism alive.

[carpedm9587]

Well, arguments about other forms of privilege always seem intertwined with financial considerations. The argument about whether there is a pay gap between men and women - obviously financial. Arguments about whether it is harder to find a good job as a minority, financial.

Good points. There is a financial impact to many of these. But it seems to me it is a symptom of the problems - not the source.

[carpedm9587]

Is this worth it?? Demi will try one last time to reason!

That people have bias towards family is also crystal clear!

Correcting bias is not always just. Are you going to correct bias towards wife of yours, or son of yours? Treat every woman like wife of yours, or child like child of yours?

Unequal treatment is, so often, what is moral.

That does not make every unequal treatment moral.

[carpedm9587]

Love how they depict the girl in the lower socio-economic bracket as being in danger of starving what with the rich kid's "fridge is full of food" while she lives where it is "full of people and not much else" and her father is drawn as gaunt like he hasn't eaten in days. What few realize is that here in the U.S. the lion's share of health problems among the poor are linked to obesity.

Source: Poverty and Obesity in the U.S.

Are poverty and obesity associated? Poverty rates and obesity were reviewed across 3,139 counties in the U.S. (2,6). In contrast to international trends, people in America who live in the most poverty-dense counties are those most prone to obesity (Fig. 1A).



Source

© Copyright Original Source

Source: WHY POVERTY LEADS TO OBESITY AND LIFE-LONG PROBLEMS

Obesity is especially rampant among Americans with the lowest levels of education and the highest poverty rates. Given the increasing economic insecurity facing many in our nation today, it is important to understand why and how poverty heightens the rise of obesity among youth. Only if we understand the causes at work can we effectively design strategies to reduce this major health risk to already vulnerable people.




Source

© Copyright Original Source

The second article was written in 2012 and fortunately now that Obama is gone the employment rates among both blacks and Hispanics (a large percentage of whom are at the low end of the economic scale) is now at an all time low which should help to alleviate, though not eliminate, the problem.

Yes, it is - because foods high in sugars and low in nutrients are rich and plentiful - and foods high in nutrients and low in sugars are expensive. You can get a cheap meal at McDonalds for $6 and it will have 2,000 calories. You need $18 to pay for the Strawberry Spinach salad at a Longhorns. Obesity is not solely about the amount of food eaten - it is also about the quality of that food.

[Mountain Man]

The definition above was talking about how the structural way society is organized can hurt people of a minority race even if no individual in the society is racist. What you quoted literally said "The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive..."

Which is just another way of saying that whitey is inherently racist regardless of what the individual might believe.

Source

[Sparko]

[carpedm9587]

Your theory would hold up, if the results of the studies were not done with multiple races, genders, companies, and social contexcts as the pre-screeners, and consistent results across the board, both before and after blinding the resumes. That fact indicates a racial/ethnic component to the bias. I congratulate you on your success, with the Project Implicit test. You are rare. That is not the norm for the result. And the test (nor the survey) do not provide any information about the cause of racial bias - merely that it exists in this one venue.

Taking children from birth and having them raised by the government might rid people of biasness. Good luck with getting others on board because the area you grew up at easily adds to that biasness.

Who on earth even BEGAN to suggest such a thing? Why woould you think this in any way responds to the post?

So you conclude that, because the solution for you was to be raised in mixed cultural environments, that's the only possible solution and no one will want it and so we should do nothing? Pixie - you're not even making sense.

Or you can raise awareness, educate, look for systems to counter it (e.g., blinding resumes and interviews), and actually attempt to take reasonable, nonintrusive, voluntary steps to reduce systemic bias as much as possible.

[Mountain Man]

Yes, it is - because foods high in sugars and low in nutrients are rich and plentiful - and foods high in nutrients and low in sugars are expensive. You can get a cheap meal at McDonalds for $6 and it will have 2,000 calories. You need $18 to pay for the Strawberry Spinach salad at a Longhorns. Obesity is not solely about the amount of food eaten - it is also about the quality of that food.

The nutritionist's dilemma: How can you encourage people to eat healthy when crap is cheap?

A couple of years ago, my wife started the family on an eating plan which eliminates, as much as possible, processed sugars and limits our carbohydrate intake, things like bread and white rice. Lean protein and fresh veggies make up the bulk of our diet. Before the eating plan, I was well north of 250-pounds. Today, I'm under 190, and that's just from eating healthy . Of course our food budget is much higher today than it was when we were eating lots of convenience foods, but I think it's worth it.

[Cow Poke]

Like the running track exercise, it just looks like more child abuse.

That running track thing just looks like some smug goofus trying to show how woke he is.

[carpedm9587]

Recognizing that systemic privilage DOES exist, and seeking to mitigate it does exactly these things, Sparko. It recognizes that there are things baked into our culture that give specific races, ethnicities, genders, etc an advantage in that area that does not honor the fact that "we are all god's children" and should be treated equitably and should help one another. The people I know working in this field have no intention of hammering people with "guilt" (which seems to be a common theme here). The Harvard paper does not say a word about "guilt." Igf there are people on th eleft doing what you describe (and I am sure there are), then there approach is fatally flawed, because it will produce exactly the reaction I am seeing here. It also makes the work of those who do NOT have that approach (like me) that much harder - because we cannot make any headway on raising awareness and educating people to the problem until we figure out how to reduce the knee-jerk reaction we're seeing here so the message can even be heard.

[Darth Executor]

That running track thing just looks like some smug goofus trying to show how woke he is.

Teaching kids about progressive notions of privilege is child abuse, period. Nobody would let a teacher destroy their kid's notions of self worth in any other context, but because the crazy progressive cult has infested so many minds it gets a pass.

[Mountain Man]

The problem with the whole "privilege" movement isn't that. It is that the liberals use "privilege" as a weapon. Instead of teaching people to help their neighbors they use "privilege" as a way to get the disadvantaged to HATE the person with "privilege" while trying to get the person with "privilege" to feel guilty. Liberals use terms like "white privilege" to divide people instead of uniting them.

Liberals will swear up and down that this isn't what they're doing, but of course "check your privilege" is now part of the English lexicon, and it basically means, "Sit down and shut up, whitey!"

[Cow Poke]

Yes, it is - because foods high in sugars and low in nutrients are rich and plentiful - and foods high in nutrients and low in sugars are expensive. You can get a cheap meal at McDonalds for $6 and it will have 2,000 calories. You need $18 to pay for the Strawberry Spinach salad at a Longhorns. Obesity is not solely about the amount of food eaten - it is also about the quality of that food.

This is actually a valid point - and something that could be addressed in the "food stamp" program. In Texas, they wanted to remove the "stigma" of using 'food stamps', so they came up with an idea like the "Lone Star Debit Card". There are rules about where it can be used, but there are also a lot of ways to get around those rules. For example, there's a whole underground of exchange where you can use your "food money" to buy flat screen TVs or cell phone data or just about anything you want. Meanwhile, people who have those cards tend to buy the high calorie low protein junk food rather than healthy more expensive foods.