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TL;DR – White privilege is very real
White privilege is evident in many parts of society. There are both examples of white privilege that are based on the average white person's societal standing, as compared to other races, as well as benefits white people see regardless of their individual circumstances.
Possibly most important is wealth. To focus on the predicament in the United States, the racial wealth gap is immense as well as gradually expanding—the median white family has approximately ten times more wealth than the median Black or Hispanic family.
In the justice system, Black individuals are, in some cities, significantly more likely to be arrested for low-level crimes, significantly more likely to be wrongfully convicted, and, when a murder victim is white, individuals are significantly more likely to face the death penalty.
White people also face systemic advantages in hiring processes, holding better prospects for employment even when compared to similar candidates of other races. In education, Black students are more often suspended than their white peers from as early as the preschool level.
There are countless other examples of white privilege in society—they can hardly be oversold.
I totally disagree. However, the language used for civil rights like this needs to be that of oppression of blacks or other minorities.
"Privilege" is more often than not used as a condemnation for the crime of.......not being treated unfairly.
There is nothing wrong with NOT being treated unfairly. There is nothing to be sorry for and there certainly should be nothing to make you feel bad about yourself. Anyone arguing like this toxic and arguably discriminatory in their own right.
TL;DR: Privilege is unfair good treatment. Oppression is unfair bad treatment. Activists need to stop confusing the two.
A privilege is something that can be taken away without infringing on your rights. When a black man is shot during a routine traffic stop, that is a right being taken away, that is black oppression. To call it white privilege is to say that white people are getting unfair benefits by NOT being shot by cops.
Then, if the cop is ultimately not found guilty, such as the case of George Zimmerman, that is cop privilege. The cop is not receiving justice where anyone else would be in prison within a week.
Or for instance, there is Church privilege. A church NOT having to pay taxes when any other organization otherwise would.
Why does the language matter? Because the fundamental perception by most groups who aren't in-the-know is that fighting for black rights is less about "helping us" and more about "punishing you".
Yet the main role privileged people have to play in all of this is to speak out and act on behalf of their unfairly-treated counterparts. It does nobody any good if they are just sitting there apologizing for being white. They might as well send "thoughts and prayers." This "privilege" style of thinking results in white people just participating in self-punishment as some sort of virtue signal, rather than inspiring them to pull others up.
It's this sort of galvanization that has been the primary source of the left's contribution to political division. (Though don't get me started on the right). It has also been the major argument I've heard from otherwise-left centrists about what makes them hesitant to associate themselves with the left.
You're definitely right about "privilege" often being talked of as not being treated unfairly but I think this possibly misses some key points.
While I think it's important to note that privilege only exists as a relative term when one group is treated better than another (and, often, it is not truly relevant whether or not one group is actually just being treated fairly), I believe your argument rests in the difference between positive (i.e. entitlements) and negative (i.e. liberties) rights.
Were we to exclude negative rights—lack of oppression, in a sense—there would still be positive rights that white individuals enjoy. Positive media bias for white individuals in crime reporting is a particularly salient issue at the moment. If we assume the baseline is fair, unbiased coverage of crime and other events, we notice that not only are POC given treatment below this benchmark but white people are given treatment above it: a positive right. Media coverage is more likely to give excuses for domestic abuse committed by white people and humanize and sympathize with white terrorists, for example.
In the case of George Zimmerman, there is certainly an element of cop privilege, but his main defense revolved around self-defense. Stand Your Ground laws—which Zimmerman's defense employed, though were not able to use to grant him immunity—overwhelmingly favor white-on-Black self-defense homicide claims, which are four times more likely to be ruled as justified than Black-on-white.
There are certainly other examples in which racial bias is a zero-sum game; if there is racism, then there is by nature white privilege. In terms of hiring practices, bias against applicants of color means privilege for white applicants; if one group is treated as less-than, the complementary group is, by nature, treated as more-than and thus holds a privilege or advantage—not simply fair treatment.
TL;DR - White Privilege is something that must be addressed, however I think the term often creates a false narrative for some people
Where some get confused or frustrated is at the term ‘white privilege’. The frustration comes from the idea that all white people are privileged. Actually there is a huge working class of white working people who don’t feel very privileged. This I can understand, when you are working on minimum wage and living to every penny, privileged is something that wouldn’t even cross your mind. However, the term is more nuanced than this interpretation.
The term, as I understand it, alludes to the idea just being a white person, gives you many privileges. This does not mean then that the white working class are privileged in the normal sense of the word, but have privileges because of their race. This has now become a [slightly controversial term] (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57567647). UK MPs have warned that this term alienates the white working class who are often not economically privileged nor educationally. “It doesn’t mean life is not tough for you, just you still benefit from being white in many societal ways”.
White privilege is not necessarily oversold but is often not explained and can oversell a false narrative that white people face no issues, which is not the case. However I think recognising how being white gives privileges is important for a tolerant society.
I couldn't have said this better myself. Thank you <3
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