White Privelege

[ZSNO]

But race is one of the most prominent ways that people are judged in society.

I can't think of anything that is easier to become more prejudiced with than someone's race.
You can't tell someone's class or religion right off the bat in most cases.

Ehh I disagree, people are also highly judged off of their economic status. Especially if homeless or visibly poor, but also if the person flaunts their riches by having expensive possessions. "Most people" will be in the category that you cannot tell, but those you can tell what their economic status is are judged heavily.

I would say that race and economic status are the main ways we judge people in the modern day.

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[TheKhoz]

I sound like a stereotyping starfish when I say this, but most crime in the area is committed by mexicans also.
Most of the people I know are this way too. They don't trust them at all.

I think the ultimate explanation for this phenomenon is that poverty is the greatest factor which leads to crime. And in the United States, at least in Los Angeles, most of the impoverished people are Mexican. In general, a high amount of poor people will lead to a high amount of crime. It just so happens that Mexicans (who frequently work for less than minimum wage and are in general much more poor than other groups) are the people that are impoverished. As such, what we end up seeing is that the crime is committed by poor people who happen to be mexican, which one can easily conflate to seeing crime being committed by mexicans.

Now I'm not saying all mexicans are bad, it just seems like the ones in America and just south of the border. If you cross the border, yeah, it's a decent chance you'll get robbed,  raped, or killed. I've been to deep Mexico though, and the mexicans there are great, honest, people. Can some explain this phenomenon?  

Now, for the danger of Mexico itself, the government is very unstable and corrupt. Similarly, Mexico is incredibly poor, especially compared to its neighbors to the north. These are recipes for crime, since there is no force that is willing to stop crime such as this. (After all, the police aren't paid very well, so they got a lot of their money from bribes or from confiscated material.) This means it's much more profitable to pursue a rich gringo who is speeding than to arrest some poor dude who stole a watch to buy some food. Mexico's infrastructure is mostly run by illegal gangs. That is to say, the drug cartels fund the hospitals and schools, since the government is too poor and too corrupt to actually do any of this themselves. Just south of the border in Mexico really is the worst place, since this is where the drug trafficking and human trafficking comes to a head. Similarly, you're probably thinking of notorious towns such as Juarez. By contrast, in deep mexico (as you put it), there's less likely to be highly organized criminal activity. After all, the demand for all of the drugs is in the US, so that's where they go.

edit:

I'd guess that the people who illegally crossed into Mexico are more likely to be criminals than people who actually live in their home country.

While I acknowledge this may be true, I don't think it's really the case. The people who cross the border have often been exposed to extreme violence and displacement as a result of combat between different cartels and between cartels and the federal forces (either the DEA or the Mexican Federal Drug Enforcement). As such, they're just people with no where else to go, so they go somewhere that is much safer, with the possibility for upward mobility on the socioeconomic ladder.

[Harm94]

Illegal immigration is a hot button issue. On one hand you can't help everyone on the other hand you have people seeking a better life for themselves and their family. In addition to those crossing the border for a better life, you also get the bad seeds.

As for racism, it can be found in any race of culture. If you believe only white people can be capable of racism, you are a damn blind fool.

[SeventhSandwich]

As for racism, it can be found in any race of culture. If you believe only white people can be capable of racism, you are a damn blind fool.

I think that when most people are talking about racism in modern circles, they're usually talking about institutional racism. It's kind of hard for anyone else but white people to be committing institutional racism because white people control most institutions. I'm only talking about the United States though.

[jtizzle]

most people in america are being manipulated by the news and its various uses of negative diction towards race issues or being tricked into the pseudo-morally-superior notion that "there is no race in america" and "we should all stop bringing race into everything"

on the other hand i grew up in a 75% black community with a decent amount of crime so i perhaps will have a different outlook on a situation than someone who grew up in a white middle-class community with lower crime rates and has experienced said "white privilege"

all i really know is that the media wants a juicy black vs white tdm on the streets because the bigger the headline they can type the bigger the deposit they can all put in their loving bank accounts, and the sooner people realize that the media has a bigger role in this than a good stuffass lot of us do, the sooner we can come together and actually loving get some stuff done

[dudeman162]

White people who believe that white privilege in America doesn't exist are examples of white privilege themselves.

[sir dooble]

How do you think we learnt to avoid being eaten by rhinos?

I imagine it was quite easy to learn how to not be eaten by a herbivore. :P

racism is an unfortunate by-product of this cycle. it acts to perpetuate it in many ways, but i'm not really sure if you can say "white privilege is racism"

I agree with this. The two are linked but I think it's rather unfair to consider white privilege as racism.
After all, how many white people CHOSE to be born white into a white family? None.

On the flipside of that you can't seriously blame white privilege on white parents deciding to have white children , because there's no way you can control who someone is attracted to.


It's also rather unfair that burden of removing white privilege seems to be directed towards only white people, but also targeted directly at individuals.
The only way to remove white privilege by creating equality in living conditions/emplyoment/education is to act as a group and demand changes in government, and it needs people of all races to be involved in that.

When an individual is shamed with having white privilege however it leaves them in an entirely unfair pickle.

• As noted above, when did that individual choose to be white and inherit societies preconcieved perception of white people.
• How is an individual supposed to stop using their white privilege?
  
  • Would someone seriously apply for a job as a white person and turn it down because they were hired instead of a black person? Provided you didn't definitively know that you were chosen purely on account of your skin, would anyone be that completely selfless to give another man their job in order to benefit that mans race?
  • Should a person born into prosperity in a safe location have to give away all his posessions and home, so he too can live in a ghetto of crime? Would this actually improve the man, or the ghetto or remove his privilege? Can he still not be considered privileged for having the ability to CHOOSE to live in a ghetto?
  • Would it make sense for a person to turn down their chance of education because other people don't have that same chance? Would denying yourself an education actually allow you to help people in a meaninful way?
  • When a person expresses prejudice to a person on account of their race, and to a white person they are trusting or kind towards, can you actually do anything to make that person think of you as equal with the races he looks down upon?

• Why are the sins of the father placed so heavily on the son? Can a white western male really be held responsible for what his ancestors (or the society of his ancestors) did a century or more ago to other races? Those earlier actions might be the source of white privilege today, but did anyone with white privilege choose for them to occur?
• There might be those who actively make great use of white privilge to their own benefit, but is it really fair to blame them for making use of the benefits and advantages they have access to? Would anyone else truly do differently if they had the same or similar advantages in life?

Clearly it's not fair and equal that white privilege exists, but is it fair to lay the charges at the feet of the individual born into it? Is deeming him guilty of being abhorrent and self-important on account of the colour of his skin not tribal in its own right?
Only in the case of the man born into privilege who uses it to actively oppress other peoples should be condemned. And even in that case, not for having been born white, but for being greedy and selfish.

Of course there is a lot that could be done to bring equality among man and that would remove white privilege, or at least seek to minimise it's effects. But those changes surely have to come as a society of people from various backgrounds and races, not from one single race or individuals.
Those few individuals who seek to condemn others for their "privilege" in no way help themselves or society.
Anyway, those are a few of my bumblings around the matter, written as I procrastinate writing an essay

This topic is very interesting.
I especially like seeing issues of race from an American perspective. I think it's unique in many ways.
As a country I believe it's had a much more in-grained racism in its society compared to a lot of other western nations.
Racism (particularly towards Black people) exists in other countries too, including the UK, but we've never battled as much with issues of slavery or segregation.
There's always room to learn more though.

[Goth77]

dont be tribal be like mario

[Machaty]

I'm Italian, but I get mistaken for bi-racial, Mexican, and every other vaguely brown ethnicity. 

[Mr. Wonman]

I believe that the only reason that all of these problems exist is the fact that people don't see others as people, but as races or ethnicities. Whether this be for self esteem, personal gain, or for some sort of revenge or appeasement tactic for something another race did to another race back in time (Slaves, plantations, racism in general was pretty loving sick). Until the world, more specifically the people in it, figure out how to forgive and forget and just start seeing people as people, and not as black, white, mexican, asian, etc., then the problem of racism, white privelage, affirmative action, or any other stereotypical problems will persist until eventually stuff hits the fan.

[Doomonkey]

So one thing that's pretty cool that my friend introduced me to is the idea of AAVE, (African-American Vernacular English), which refers to the idea that what most (read: white) people would think of as "uneducated" slang is actually a dialect of English. ie "He don’t have no choice." This sentence is not legitimate in academic, standard English. However, the idea that people who would speak like that are uneducated or stupid is tribal. It's really a subconscious racism, since you hear someone who talks like that and you associate that with being black and poor and uneducated. In reality, that sentence works perfectly fine in the context of AAVE, which is just a different dialect of English. AAVE has grammar rules which are a combination of French, Spanish (?) and various African Languages. For example, the phrase "I don't think he married," omits the verb "to be", something that you cannot do in Standard English. However, AAVE has adopted grammar rules from other languages, in particular the idea that "to be" is implied in many sentences. As such, the "is" that would normally belong in that sentence does not need to be there, per the grammar of AAVE.

What?

I talk like this all the time. I am not African-American. My choice of words is not inspired by African-Americans.

[Bisjac]

what privilege. black people have all the advantages.
no one "helps" white people or "gives" them anything.

[shamester]

What in the hell is this thread?

Honestly...

[SeventhSandwich]

what privilege. black people have all the advantages.
no one "helps" white people or "gives" them anything.

There's no third party or governmental agency meant to just help white people, but white people are typically born into families where they have more money, better jobs, and a house near a good school.

[TheKhoz]

What?

I talk like this all the time. I am not African-American. My choice of words is not inspired by African-Americans.

I mean, it's a real thing, it's not like I'm making it up. And obviously, it's not restricted to African-Americans at all, people of all races can of course grow up using it. Just because it has its origin in African-American culture doesn't mean that it can't spread elsewhere.

Also, AAVE shares similarities with many other Southern Dialects, so it's of course possible that you don't speak with AAVE at all.