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In reply to the discussion: I'm surprised how many DU'ers think aknowledging white male privilege is somehow bigoted [View all]Orrex
(63,208 posts)Actually, I think that both points can be true simultaneously. I certainly accept that class disparity is a major oppressive force in our society, but that doesn't mean that WPM isn't also a fact.
Chris Rock made an excellent point in this regard, when he noted that he was (in a given year) one of the top-grossing African American performers in the US, and he lived in a posh residential area alongside white doctors and lawyers.
That is, a black man had to achieve preposterously vast wealth and success in order to be on the same footing as such ordinary white professionals as doctors and dentists. "Ordinary" is my term, and not Rock's.
At the end of it all, my sense is that someone from the upper class would happily shit on me as readily as he would on my Latino neighbor, but even at that upper class level, the fact of being white and male affords a greater level of privelege than other races/genders enjoy.