General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Let's work to end racial discrimination" is a better approach than "whites are so privileged". [View all]KansDem
(28,498 posts)In a previous life I worked as an adjunct instructor for a few years. One thing I learned during that time was if one wanted to succeed in academia, one needed to present and publish new knowledge.
I witnessed the rise of new knowledge within my discipline and how such research resulted in articles in professional journals and lectures at professional conferences.
At such conferences, I saw how cliques formed, usually around a central scholar who managed to draw a circle of colleagues and graduate students with his or her work in creating new knowledge. The celebrity scholar was the mentor to the students and I saw how such students found their way following graduation into teaching positions at colleges and universities. Such is the nature of academic cliques, but the underlying premise to such success is to publish--and publish something "new and exciting." Some of these students-turned-professors delved into and advanced the very research of their mentors.
I suspect the same with white privilege as an academic term. Who wants to publish another boring academic paper on the civil rights struggle when one could delve into newer white privilege" research? Besides, one imagines with so many more people of color and women on university faculties, the concept of white privilege takes on a vibrancy that would have been lost in a previous era.
One DUer on this thread acknowledges the concept of white privilege to have begun in the last 20 years or so. The civil-rights struggle has been in full-force for over 50 years now. I doubt if MLK or MX would have gotten very far in their civil-rights struggle if they peppered their speeches and writings with accusations of white privilege.