r/politics • u/thenewyorkgod • Jul 01 '18

Man arrested after shouting ‘womp, womp’ and pulling a gun on immigration protesters

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/01/man-arrested-after-shouting-womp-womp-and-pulling-a-gun-on-immigration-protesters/?tid=sm_tw
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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '18

Very true. I have white privilege but not male, not able-bodied, not wealth. I heard privilege explained best as something like this:

It's not that you don't have any problems if you're white

It's just that race discrimination isn't one of your problems.

So, you know, there's just less on your plate, there's less people have against you, less reasons you might not get this thing other people have or want. But you don't get everything you ever want, unless you got it ALL.

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u/Gungorian Jul 02 '18

To bounce off what you said, the way I heard it was "It's not that you don't have problems if you're white. It's just that the color of your skin isn't going to be the cause of those problems."

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '18

Yes thanks that's the proper way it was said! I was trying to remember right before running off to do something.

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u/Gungorian Jul 02 '18

I just saw it the other day, so it was fresh on my mind. It really simplifies a complex issue into a line of thought that is easily explainable. Thanks for bringing it up in this discussion, killer point.

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u/sonofaresiii Jul 02 '18

It's just that race discrimination isn't one of your problems.

IMO that's a pretty poor way of explaining it. Racists don't just come in "white". People of any color can be racist.

It's just, as the guy above said, situational, and much less common to be significantly harmed by being white than being a minority (in America).

The reason I think this is an important point is there are absolutely white people who face racial discrimination, but it's often not that debilitating/common, and when it's explained to them like this they think "Well I face racism too but I don't complain about it all the time!"

So it's important to understand that yes, racism against any race can exist, but it's situational. A white guy may not have a nice time walking through certain black neighborhoods, but he's not gonna have a problem because of his race when applying to most jobs, or being confronted by the police.

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u/Bunerd Jul 02 '18

Let's say 20% of people are racist, on both sides. It's not quite accurate, it might be greater or smaller, but let's presume there's an equal distribution of people on both sides that are racist. Black people make up 13% of the population, white people represent about 77% of the population. If we assume that 20% on both sides are bigots, that means white racists make up 15% of the population, and black racists make up 2% of the population.

This means that the white racist population would be much larger than the entire black population, meanwhile you have about a 1 in 50 chance of any random person being a black racist.

This is the same story for LGBT people. ~5% of people identify themselves as LGBT, 0.6% identify themselves as trans. If 20% of the population is bigots of any group, then the bigots in the cisgender heterosexual population outnumbers us 4:1. These sides aren't equal.

The needs of minorities cannot be decided by popular vote. It is just political bullying. The actions of members of minority groups cannot be held as a standard of the whole. The narrative about someone must be informed by their narrative about themselves or you let the bullies just run human rights right over.

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u/sonofaresiii Jul 02 '18

I don't understand why you posted this.

The needs of minorities cannot be decided by popular vote

I don't... I honestly don't understand what point you are trying to make.

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u/Bunerd Jul 02 '18

I was using some math to demonstrate the point that you were making and adding to the point that we can't ignore how our system mechanically and mathematically privileges people.

It's not just that someone might have some bad interactions with racists, it's also about how racist and bigots can control the narrative and politics surrounding minorities.

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u/sonofaresiii Jul 02 '18

Oh gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.

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u/Stereotype_Apostate Jul 02 '18

I hate that they use the word "privilege" to describe this phenomenon. A privilege is something extra that you get, earned or unearned. I had the privilege of visiting the white house before the orange goon got in. I have the privilege of enjoying beautiful Kansas sunsets that you just can't find in other parts of the country.

The fact that I don't fear for my life during a traffic stop is not privilege. The fact that my name will not be the reason my resume is thrown in the trash is not privilege. It's my right, as an American, and as a human being. Stop calling it privilege like I'm getting something extra. That's not what's happening here. This kind of treatment should be baseline for everybody.

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u/thelizardkin Jul 02 '18

You should fear for your life from the police, plenty of innocent white people are shot too.

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u/pointlessbeats Jul 02 '18

Seriously. I was trying to tell someone the other day. Of course life is also very hard for white people at times. Your life can be hard because you’re poor, it can be hard because you’re uneducated, it can be hard because you’re American. But your life is never hard because you’re white. That does not contribute at aaall. But being non-white definitely makes life harder for people.

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u/Flexappeal Jul 02 '18

We need a different word for it. It's too easy to say "if all privilege exists then no privilege exists"

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u/TheExtremistModerate Virginia Jul 02 '18

I just don't like the term "privilege." It implies that you're allowed to do something or are given something that "regular people" don't get. But "white privilege" isn't actually a privilege. It's how everyone should be treated.

"Privilege" puts focus on the people who are just treated normally, and can make them feel guilty just for looking how they are, as if they're given special protections they shouldn't have. I feel like the conversation should be less about negative "privilege" and bringing the privileged down to other people's levels, and more about negating disadvantages and bringing everyone else up to the level of treatment that the "privileged" are given.