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MA's avatar

" “White privilege” is sometimes described as “not having to think about your skin colour” as you navigate daily life. I understand this idea, but I’ve always argued that it depends where you are."

This is a really interesting point. I live in the countryside of the UK as an African and I was always aware of how I looked when I was out and about. And noticed I didn't think about my skin when I was around people who looked like "me". I couldn't articulate this feeling until I read somewhere that it was because of white supremacy since white people don't experience that. Which now as an adult I realise is completely stupid. I live in England, home of the English. And the dominant culture is theirs. The same way I don't think about my physical differences when surrounded by my ethnicity, they don't think about theirs surrounded by their ethnicity. The same is true for every country and the dominating ethnicity. The answer to why I felt this way was so simple, looking back at it, that it's borderline funny.

It's just part of being human, noticing obvious surface level (emphasis here) differences. To be completely candid, I used to get stuck on these differences and turned a collective of individuals into a caricature. Yet when I saw people who looked like me. African or Muslim etc. I saw them as human, nothing more attached to that. It wasn't until I heard about how people outside of this "group" saw us, that I was completely floored and reflected on the stereotypes I held about others.

I remember a "white" American joking with me that his son (who I'm friends with) should be careful because if he sees my hair, he'll have to marry me! I found it hilarious because I've never heard that before and didn't know people thought that. I had a similar reaction when an English man on a train told me to stop listening to the patriarch of my family, not knowing I was the eldest daughter of a bereaved widow. There was no patriarch. It's just funny to be in these (isolated and infrequent) situations because it takes me outside of myself.

Just a really good point you made, combatting that baseless claim and emphasising looking at the individual. Which is one of the best ways to dissipate any subconscious biases one has unknowingly placed on a "group". And when you do meet someone vastly physically, culturally different to you, see them as one person from x y z background. Not that background itself. And when I do meet someone that is racist, who is racialised as white, I try and combat my knee jerk reaction and imagine the roles reversed (I know, hated term). But imagining them as a racist from my ethnicity helps me see them more clearly. Weird, no real threat and more importantly a human who's behaving "badly". Not a bad person.

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

If I receive the full benefits of the law and have my civil rights respected how is that "privilege"? If people respect me in public and treat me fairly how is that "privilege"? If the police don't mistreat me how is that "privilege"?

Aren't all these things just the baseline standard of civilization? Aren't all these things simply the way liberal democracy should operate instead of an invisible form of apartheid? Shouldn't the issue be that certain people or groups are not receiving these benefits of civilization and how to rectify that?

This reminds me of a story I read about the Soviet Union:

"It’s 1917, and an old lady hears a commotion in the street.

“What is happening?” she asks her maid.

“Oh, it’s so exciting! They are protesting in the street!”

“What do they want?” the old lady asks.

“They want for there to be no more rich people!” says the maid excitedly.

The old lady sighs. “In my day they protested too, but back then they wanted for there to be no more poor people.”

This is always where Leftism ends up: pointing out some form of inequality or oppression, first trying to lift those on a lower level upwards, realizing how difficult that is, then quickly moving on to what really gets the blood flowing: attacking those who exist at the top of their imaginary pyramid of Oppression (whether that be the bourgeoisie, the kulak, and now White people), hoping to level them downwards as a way to bring about the egalitarian Promised Land.

In all its previous incarnations, Leftist rule or Leftist uprisings have only caused social destruction and a vast expansion of group hatred.

It is the same this time.

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