General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is" [View all]Caliman73
(11,738 posts)There are levels of privilege. I am an educated middle class man who happens to be a person of color. My being male is a privilege that allows me to not have to consider many things in life that women have to consistently be preoccupied with. My education allows me to access things that people without the opportunities that I had to achieve my level of education cannot. I am, for the most part, able bodied. Etc..etc.... I can acknowledge that being born a man, to a middle class family, with the opportunities and expectations of obtaining a higher education; gave me advantages that I did not earn all by myself. It does not make me a bad person and it does not diminish my work and accomplishments. What it does to is make me have to consider that other people did not have the advantages that I had, and I have to consider that in my evaluation of their situation rather than attributing anything to their gender, race, etc...
The reason you do not see the idea of privilege targeted at any other "race" is because historically, "White" people (I still do not know exactly what that is other than NOT OF COLOR) have for much of the last 500 to 600 years, had legal, social, and economic dominance pretty much world wide. People of Color generally do not have privilege based on their race or skin color. They may certainly have privilege based on their gender (male), socioeconomic status, education level, physical abilities, and other aspects, but not in the way that White people typically have. That does not mean that White people have an easy life or that they cannot be at greater disadvantages in some or many ways than people of color. It just means that historically, being born White has been an automatic and fairly powerful advantage in current society when considered against people of color.
It is certainly an uncomfortable topic, especially if you load all of the emotional baggage into it instead of trying to understand it as a request to be more aware of the experiences of other people.