The Concept of Privilege

[Cow Poke]

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.

It just seems like this "make everybody equal" crap is more about pulling down the top than raising up the bottom.

[Darth Executor]

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 complete BS. Try asking people who have been poor for once about their experiences. My income used to be 50% below the poverty line and the idea that it would be cheaper to eat at mcdonalds than just cook my own nutritious food was absurd. For 6 dollars I could buy 2-3 cabbages and they'd last a week. and this is at canadian prices in canadian dollars, food in the US is even cheaper. Per meal it would easily guarantee a much larger meal (including fresh meat, which is actually pretty cheap). poor people eat at mcdonalds because it's omnipresent and a treat they can afford, not because it's cheaper than buying raw ingredients.

[Darth Executor]

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..." Far from saying "all whites are racist" they're literally saying that they are not talking about individuals and not particularly assuming anyone is racist, and that their analysis would be just as relevant in a country where zero individuals were racist.

In other words it's just a perverse, progressive version of Original Sin where no matter what you do you are an evil person with a debt to pay.

[Darth Executor]

It just seems like this "make everybody equal" crap is more about pulling down the top than raising up the bottom.

It's an evil cult looking to spread its evil doctrine, many liberals subject their own kids to this garbage which they wouldn't if they were just trying to pull down the competition.

[carpedm9587]

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.

Food stamps is a marvelous example of a good idea executed as poorly as I think it possibly could be. As a result, it is rife with fraud and misuse, and does little to ensure that people are getting good food. It's a great example of how the left has a tendency to create programs that foster dependence rather than solve problems.

[carpedm9587]

It just seems like this "make everybody equal" crap is more about pulling down the top than raising up the bottom.

No.

[Sparko]

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.

Just looking at the various news reports regarding privilege you can see that what is happening is not mitigating anything. It is liberals using white privilege, or male privilege as a club to beat various groups over the head with and cause hate and division. I gave you several examples in the last thread. And in this case examples ARE evidence.

[Mountain Man]

Just looking at the various news reports regarding privilege you can see that what is happening is not mitigating anything. It is liberals using white privilege, or male privilege as a club to beat various groups over the head with and cause hate and division. I gave you several examples in the last thread. And in this case examples ARE evidence.

You just need to check your privilege and allow "oppressed" minorities to say whatever they please, you bigot.

[carpedm9587]

Just looking at the various news reports regarding privilege you can see that what is happening is not mitigating anything. It is liberals using white privilege, or male privilege as a club to beat various groups over the head with and cause hate and division. I gave you several examples in the last thread. And in this case examples ARE evidence.

That such things exist, and that some people are doing this is not something I am denying. I do not think that it is the bulk of what is being said. Indeed, the very response I'm getting here, where I am not saying ANY of those things, suggests that at least SOME of the perspective of the right appears to be skewed. I have spent more time here, even on this thread, where I have been VERY careful with language, trying to deal with accusations that have NOTHING to do with what I am saying, and have seen so little acknowledgement that the problems I outlined in my OP are real, I have to admit I am a bit suspicious about your claims in general. My perspective, at this point, is that what the right is hearing is not what most of the left is saying.

And MM's last post is fairly indicative. If anyone can read anything that I have said, and get from it that I have accused anyone of being a bigot - then the problem is with the receiver - not the sender. I have not called anyone a bigot - I have acknowledged that the left goes there too frequently and shouldn't - I have carefully noted the difference between circumstancial privilege/benefit and systemic privilege/benefit - and yet the reaction from the right continues.

I am left with the impression that most folks here appear to think racism/genderism/ethnicism/etc. are over and done, they no longer exists in any substantial way in our culture, and nothing further needs to be done to address it. I am also left with the impression that anyone who points out we still have some systemic problems that are baked into our culture is instantly accusing people of being intentionally racist/bigoted/etc.

I will tell you now that I suffer from implicit bias. I am not consciously racist/generist/ethnicist and I would take significant offense to someone telling me I was intentionally any of those things. But I did NOT score "no bias" on the Project Implicit test, despite having two black sons for two decades, both of whom I believe I love enough to die for. I have stewed in the same culture as everyone else, and soaked up some of these biases without even being aware of it. It doesn't make me a bigot or a racist - it makes me a product of my culture, who very much wants to weed out as much of that bias from myself as I can. But I have no hope of weeding any of it out if I do not start by acknowledging it exists.

And I can tell you, after two decades of raising two black children - racism is alive in well in both subtle and gross ways. The gross ways are in your face - like Charlottesville. The subtle ways are harder to deal with. They are unconscious - and they are often done by very good people with good intentions - people I do not believe see themselves as bigoted/racist - and who, in a very real sense aren't. There is a significant difference between the over racism of David Duke, and the unconscious racism of my wife's uncle, who also loved (he just passed) our boys, but couldn't seem to stop giving them sterotypically "black" gifts and making stereotypically "black" comments at each meal. We had to confront him on it, because he was singling the boys out at each family gathering, and emphasizing their difference in a way that was hurting them. He had no desire to do harm, and was mortified when he realized what he had been doing. His "racism" was different in kind from the David Dukes of the world. He was a priest, and a kind man, stuck with subconscious sterotypes he was not even aware of.

[Darth Executor]

and have seen so little acknowledgement that the problems I outlined in my OP are real.

Most of the OP is spent outlining things that aren't a problem (but you think they are) like the fact that some people have two parents. The rest are outright fabrications (the liberal claims of systemic racism). There actually is systemic racism in the US, but it's mostly aimed at asians and white people. Blacks/hispanics receive many institutional advantages (some outright unconstitutional).

[rogue06]

Most of the OP is spent outlining things that aren't a problem (but you think they are) like the fact that some people have two parents. The rest are outright fabrications (the liberal claims of systemic racism). There actually is systemic racism in the US, but it's mostly aimed at asians and white people. Blacks/hispanics receive many institutional advantages (some outright unconstitutional).

As I understand it pretty much everyone, without exception, has two parents. It's kind of a biological necessity.

[Cow Poke]

As I understand it pretty much everyone, without exception, has two parents. It's kind of a biological necessity.

for now

[lilpixieofterror]

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.

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.

Good luck reducing something by telling people not to be bias.

[Starlight]

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

No, it isn't. Any you are just dumb if that's what you think it is.

<wacko Breitbart insanity about CRT masquerading as fact>

The way you presented this had me initially thinking it was coming from some sort of textbook or CRT expert. But I got as far as the end of the first paragraph of your boxed explanation, and was thinking "Wat, that's not right?! " so I clicked on the 'source' link, and bingo, Breitbart. The way they make stuff up to deceive the gullible and incite people against liberalism is disgusting, but I guess that's the propaganda their tax-evading Mercer sugar-daddies pay them to put out.

Are you learning anything from that fact that 100% of the liberal in this thread are rejecting the creative redefinitions of 'privilege' you've been providing and the creative 'what it really means' you've been pulling from lying Breitbart? The crazy stuff you're coming out with is just not what liberals believe.

[Starlight]

for now

The sci-fi future arrived a couple of years ago:
IVF: First three-parent baby born to infertile couple:

A baby has been born to a previously infertile couple in Ukraine using a new type of "three-person IVF".

Doctors in Kiev used a method called pronuclear transfer in what is a world first.

It is, however, not the first child born with DNA from three parents.

The baby girl, born on 5 January, is thought to be the world's second "modern three-parent baby" - another child was created using a slightly different method in Mexico last year.

The Kiev team fertilised the mother's egg with her partner's sperm. They then transferred the combined genes into an egg taken from a donor...

Doctors developed three-person IVF to help women who are at risk of passing on serious genetic disorders, called mitochondrial disease, to have a healthy child.

Eggs from a mother with unhealthy mitochondria and a donor with healthy mitochondria are collected.

The Nadiya clinic in Kiev used the technique to treat an infertile couple, not a couple carrying a mitochondrial disease.